Ngaio Marsh - Final Curtain

“I don’t know anything about all that,” Thomas said dismally. “I don’t understand. I hoped you’d just tell me if Sonia did it.”

“We’re still waiting for one bit of the pattern. Without it we can’t be positive. It would be against one of our most stringent rules for me to name a suspect to an interested person when the case is still incomplete.”

“Well, couldn’t you behave like they do in books? Give me a pointer or two?”

Alleyn raised an eyebrow and glanced at Fox. “I’m afraid,” he said, “that without a full knowledge of the information our pointers wouldn’t mean very much.”

“Oh, dear! Still, I may as well hear them. Anything’s better than this awful blank worrying. I’m not quite such a fool,” Thomas added, “as I dare say I seem. I’m a good producer of plays. I’m used to analysing character and I’ve got a great eye for a situation. When I read the script of a murder play I always know who did it.”

“Well,” Alleyn said dubiously, “here, for what they’re worth, are some relative bits of fact. The bell-push. The children’s ringworm. The fact that the anonymous letters were written on the children’s school paper. The fact that only Sir Cedric and Miss Orrincourt knew your father signed the second Will. The book on embalming. The nature of arsenical poisoning, and the fact that none has been found in his body, his medicine, or in the body of his cat.”

“Carabbas? Does he come in? That is surprising. Go on.”

“His fur fell out, he was suspected of ringworm and destroyed. He had not got ringworm. The children had. They were dosed with a medicine that acts as a depilatory and their fur did not fall out. The cat was in your father’s room on the night of his death.”

“And Papa gave him some hot milk as usual. I see.”

“The milk was cleared away and the Thermos scalded out and used afterwards. No chemical analysis was possible. Now, for the tin of rat-bane. It was sealed with an accretion of its content and had not been opened for a very long time.”

“So Sonia didn’t put arsenic in the Thermos?”

“Not out of the tin, at any rate.”

“Not at all, if it wasn’t — if—”

“Not at all, it seems.”

“And you think that somehow or another he took the Dr. Withers ringworm poison.”

“If he did, analysis will show it. We’ve yet to find out if it does.”

“But,” said Thomas. “Sonia brought it back from the chemist’s. I remember hearing something about that.”

“She brought it, yes, together with Sir Henry’s medicine. She put the bottles in the flower-room. Miss Fenella Ancred was there and left the room with her.”

“And Dr. Withers,” Thomas went on, rather in the manner of a child continuing a narrative, “came up that night and gave the children the medicine. Caroline was rather annoyed because he’d said she could do it. She felt,” Thomas said thoughtfully, “that it rather reflected on her capability. But he quite insisted and wouldn’t let her touch it. And then, you know, it didn’t work. They should have been as bald as eggs, but they were not. As bald as eggs,” Thomas repeated with a shudder. “Oh, yes, I see. Papa was , of course.”

He remained sitting very upright, with his hands on his knees, for some twenty minutes. The car had left London behind and slipped through a frozen landscape. Alleyn, with a deliberate effort, retraced the history of the case: Troy’s long and detailed account, the turgid statements of the Ancreds, the visit to Dr. Withers, the scene in the churchyard. What could it have been that Troy knew she had forgotten and believed to be important?

Thomas, with that disconcerting air of switching himself on, broke the long silence.

“Then I suppose,” he said very abruptly and in a high voice, “that you think either Sonia gave him the children’s medicine or one of us did. But we are not at all murderous people. But I suppose you’ll say that lots of murderers have been otherwise quite nice quiet people, like the Düsseldorf Monster. But what about motive? You say Cedric knew Papa had signed the Will that cut him out of almost everything, so Cedric wouldn’t. On the other hand, Milly didn’t know he’d signed a second Will, and she was quite pleased about the first one, really, so she wouldn’t. And that goes for Dessy too. She wasn’t best pleased, but she wasn’t much surprised or worried. And I hope you don’t think… However,” Thomas hurried on, “we come to Pauline. Pauline might have been very hurt about Paul and Panty and herself, but it was quite true what Papa said. Her husband left her very nicely off and she’s not at all revengeful. It’s not as if Dessy and Milly or I wanted money desperately, and it’s not as if Pauline or Panty or Fenella (I’d forgotten Fenella and Jen) are vindictive slayers. They just aren’t. And Cedric thought he was all right. And honestly ,” Thomas ended, “you can’t suspect Barker and the maids.”

“No,” said Alleyn, “we don’t.”

“So it seems you must suspect a person who wanted money very badly and was left some in the first Will. And, of course, didn’t much care for Papa. And Cedric, who’s the only one who fits, won’t do.”

He turned, after making this profound understatement, to fix upon Alleyn a most troubled and searching gaze.

“I think that’s a pretty accurate summing up,” Alleyn said.

“Who could it be?” Thomas mused distractedly and added with a sidelong glance: “But, then, you’ve picked up all sorts of information which you haven’t mentioned.”

“Which I haven’t time to mention,” Alleyn rejoined. “There are Ancreton woods above that hill. We’ll stop at the pub.”

P.C. Bream was standing outside the pub and stepped forward to open the door of the car. He was scarlet in the face.

“Well, Bream,” Alleyn said, “carried out your job?”

“In a manner of speaking, sir,” said Bream, “no. Good afternoon, Mr. Thomas.”

Alleyn stopped short in the act of getting out. “What? Isn’t she there?”

“Circumstances,” Bream said indistinctly, “over which I ’ad no control, intervened, sir.” He waved an arm at a bicycle leaning against the pub. The front tyre hung in a deflated festoon about the axle. “Rubber being not of the best—”

“Where is she?”

“On my arrival, having run one mile and a quarter—”

“Where is she?”

“Hup,” said Bream miserably, “at the ’ouse.”

“Get in here and tell us on the way.”

Bream wedged himself into one of the tip-up seats and the driver turned the car. “Quick as you can,” Alleyn said. “Now, Bream.”

“Having received instructions, sir, by telephone, from the Super at Camber Cross, me having my dinner at the pub, I proceeded upon my bicycle in the direction of Ancreton ’Alt at eleven-fifty a.m.”

“All right, all right,” said Fox. “And your tyre blew out.”

“At eleven-fifty-one, sir, she blew on me. I inspected the damage, and formed the opinion it was impossible to proceed on my bicycle. Accordingly I ran.”

“You didn’t run fast enough, seemingly. Don’t you know you’re supposed to keep yourself fit in the force?” said Fox severely.

“I ran, sir,” Bream rejoined with dignity, “at the rate of one mile in ten minutes and arrived at the ’Alt at twelve-four, the train ’aving departed at twelve-one, and the ladies in the pony-carriage being still in view on the road to the Manor.”

“The ladies?” said Alleyn.

“There was two of them. I attempted to attract their attention by raising my voice, but without success. I then returned to the pub, picking up that there cantankerous bice ong rowt.”