Ngaio Marsh - Death And The Dancing Footman

He ran to his dressing-room and found his wife on her knees before a small suit-case.

“Pyjamas, dressing-gown, shaving-things,” Troy muttered. “I suppose you’ll be there tonight won’t you? What’ll you do for all those things in the case bag? Squirts and bottles and powders and stuff for making casts?”

“My darling oddity, I can’t think. At least I’ve got a camera and I’ve rung up the chemist at Chipping. Miss Wynne was in the shop. He’s going to give her some stuff for me — iodine and whatnot. Can you lend me a soft brush, darling? One of the sort you use for water colour. And scissors? And some bits of charcoal? For the rest, I’ll have to trust to Fox and Co. getting through by train. They’re looking out a route, now. It’ll be detecting in the raw, won’t it? Case for the resourceful officer.”

“I’m a rotten packer,” said Troy, “but I think that’s all you’ll want.”

“My dear,” said her husband who was at the writing-table, helping himself to several sheets of notepaper and some envelopes, “almost you qualify for the role of clever little wife.”

“You go to the devil,” said Mrs. Alleyn amiably.

He squatted down beside her, looked through the contents of the suit-case, refrained from improving on the pack and from saying that he did not think it likely he would need his pyjamas. “Admirable,” he said. “Now I’d better swathe myself in sweaters and topcoats. Give me a kiss and say you’re sorry I’m going out on a beastly case.”

“Did you ever see such a change in anyone as appears in the somewhat precious Mandrake?” asked Troy, hunting in his wardrobe.

“It takes murder to mould a man.”

“Do you think the statement he’s written is dependable?”

“As regards fact, yes, I should say so. As regards his interpretation of fact, I fancy it wanders a bit. For a symbolic expressionist, he seems to have remained very firmly wedded to a convention. But perhaps that’s the secret of two-dimensional poetic drama. I wouldn’t know. Is that a car?”

“Yes.”

“Then I must be off.” He kissed his wife, who was absently scrubbing at her painty nose with the collar of her smock. She looked at him, scowling a little.

“This is the worst sort of luck,” said Alleyn. ”It was being such a good holiday.”

“I hate these cases,” said Troy.

“Not more than I do, bless you.”

“For a different reason.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said quickly. “I know.”

“No, you don’t, Rory. Not squeamishness, nowadays— exactly. I wish Br’er Fox was with you.”

She went downstairs with him and saw him go off with Mandrake, his hat pulled down over his right eye, the collar of his heavy raincoat turned up, his camera slung over his shoulder and his suit-case in his hand.

“He looks as if he was off on a winter sports holiday,” said Dinah. “I don’t mean to be particularly callous, but there’s no denying a murder is rather exciting.”

“Dinah!” said her father automatically.

They heard the car start up the lane.

Alleyn sat in the back seat and read through Mandrake’s notes. He was parted from Mr. Bewling by a large luncheon basket provided by Dinah Copeland. “We’ll open it,” said Chloris Wynne, “at our first breakdown. If The Others overheard me saying that, I daresay they won’t let us have a breakdown, so that they can collar the lunch.”

“What can you mean?” asked Mandrake.

“Don’t you know about The Others?” said Chloris in a sprightly manner. “They’re the ones that leave nails and broken glass on the road. They hide things when you’re in a hurry. They’ve only got one arm and one leg each, you know. So they take single gloves and stockings, and they’re frightfully keen on keys and unanswered letters.”

“My God, are you being whimsical?” Mandrake demanded, and Alleyn thought he recognized that particular shade of caressing rudeness which is the courtship note among members of the advanced intelligentsia. He was not mistaken. Miss Wynne made a small preening movement.

“Don’t pretend you’re not interested in The Others,” she said. “I bet they take the top of your fountain-pen often enough.” She turned her beautifully arranged head to look at Alleyn. “Bleached,” he thought automatically, “but I daresay she’s quite a nice creature.”

“Do they ever get into Scotland Yard, Mr. Alleyn?” she asked.

“Do they not? They are the authors of most anonymous letters, I fancy.”

“There!” she cried. “Mr. Alleyn doesn’t think I’m whimsical.” He saw, with some misgivings, that Mandrake had removed his left hand from the driving-wheel, and reflected, not for the first time, that affairs of sentiment will flourish under the most unpropitious circumstances. “But she’s rattled all the same,” he thought. “This brightness is all my eye. I wonder how well she knew the young man who is dead.” His reflections were interrupted by James Bewling, who cleared his throat portentously.

“Axcuse me, sir,” said James. “I bin thinking.”

“Indeed?” said Mandrake, apprehensively. “What’s the matter, James?”

“I bin thinking,” repeated James: “Being this-yurr is a lethal matter, and being this gentleman is going into the thick of it with his eyes only half-open like a kitten, and being he’ll be burning in his official heart and soul to be axing you this axing you that, I bin thinking it might be agreeable if I left the party along the Ogg’s Corner.”

“Whatever do you mean, James?” asked Chloris. “You can’t just walk out into a snowdrift from motives of delicacy.”

“It’s not so bad as that, Miss. My wold aunty, Miss Fancy Bewling, bides in cottage along the Ogg’s Corner. Her’s ninety-one yurrs of age and so cantankerous an old masterpiece as ever you see. Reckon her’ll be pleased as Punch to blow me up at her leisure until Mr. Blandish and his chaps comes along, when I’ll get a lift and direct ’em best way to Highfold.”

“Well, James,” said Mandrake, “it’s not a bad idea. We’ll be all right. I know the way and we’ve ploughed a sort of path for ourselves. What do you think, Mr. Alleyn?”

“If there’s any danger of Blandish missing his way,” said Alleyn, “I’d be very glad to think you were there, Bewling.”

“Good enough, sir. Then put me down if you please, souls, at next turning but one. Don’t miss thicky little twiddling lane up to Pen Gidding, Mr. Mandrake, sir, and be bold to rush ’er up when she skiddles.”

So they dropped him by his aunt’s cottage, and it seemed to Alleyn that Miss Wynne watched him go with some regret. She said that Mandrake might despise James, but that she considered he had shown extraordinary tact and forbearance. “He must have been dying to know more about the disaster,” she said, “but he never so much as asked a leading question.”

“We talked pretty freely without him having to bother,” Mandrake pointed out. “However, I agree it was nice of James. Is there anything you want to ask us, Alleyn? By dint of terrific concentration I can manage to keep the car on its tracks and my mind more or less on the conversation.”

Alleyn took Mandrake’s notes from his pocket and at the rustle of paper he saw Chloris turn her head sharply. Something about the set of Mandrake’s shoulders suggested that he too was suddenly alert.

“If I may,” said Alleyn, “I should like to go over these notes with you. It’s fortunate for me that you decided to make this very clear and well-ordered summary. I’m sure it gives the skeleton of events as completely as possible, and that is invaluable. But I should like, with your help, to clothe the bones in a semblance of flesh.”