Ngaio Marsh - Death of a Peer

“Which room?” Henry asked.

“The green drawing-room, my lord. On the second landing.”

“Upstairs?” said Henry dubiously.

“Her ladyship wished the green drawing-room, my lord.”

“Is her ladyship dining, Moffatt?”

“Not downstairs, my lord. In her room.”

“How is she, do you know?”

“I–I understand not very well, my lord. Miss Tinkerton tells me not very well. If it is convenient, my lord, perhaps the nurse on duty may dine with you.”

“Oh, lord, yes.” said Henry.

Tinkerton appeared in the shadows at the far end of the hall. Henry hailed her and asked after her mistress. She came nearer and with a glance at the stairs replied in a whisper that Lady Wutherwood was not well. Very restless and strange, she added and, as Henry said no more, glided away into the shadows.

“Very restless and strange,” Henry repeated gloomily. “That’s jolly.”

A clock in the rear of the hall struck six. At the moment, in Lady Wutherwood’s bedroom at Deepacres, Alleyn looked up from a copy of the Compendium Maleficorum .

“Fox,” he said, “how many men did we leave at Brummell Street?”

“One, sir. Campbell. The house is being watched.” And staring at his superior’s face, Fox asked: “What’s wrong?”

Alleyn’s long finger went out in that familiar gesture. “Read that.”

Fox put on his glasses and bent over the Compendium . “THE SECOND BOOK,” he read, “DEALING WITH THE VARIOUS KINDS OF WITCHCRAFT AND CERTAIN OTHER MATTERS WHICH SHOULD BE KNOWN.”

“Go on.”

“CHAPTER I. OF SOPORIFIC SPELLS. ARGUMENT.” Fox read on in his best police-court manner until Alleyn stopped him. “Well,” said Fox, “It seems to be very silly sort of stuff. It’s marked in the margin so she evidently made something of it. I suppose it’s given her ideas.”

“There are several more works on witchcraft down in the library. Some of them are very rare. Yes, I think it’s given her ideas, Fox. I’m wondering if we’ve bumped our heads on the keystone of her behaviour. How soon can we get back?”

“To London? Not before eleven thirty, sir.”

“Damn. Fox, I’ve got a very rum notion, so rum that I’m half ashamed of it. I believe I know why she wanted his body brought home.”

“Lor’!” said Fox. “You don’t think she would get up to any of these capers?”

“I wouldn’t put it past her. I’m uneasy. Fox. Pricking of the thumbs or something. When are they delivering the goods? About ten, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. The mortuary van—”

“Yes, I know. Let’s get back to London.” iii

It was a few minutes after ten when they brought Uncle G. to Brummell Street. Henry and Roberta were in the library. The rain made a great drumming noise on the windows and the wind soughed in the chimney but they were at once aware of new sounds inside the house and Henry said: “You stay here, Robin. I’ll come back soon.”

He went out, shutting the door but not shutting away the heavy sounds of Uncle G.’s progress across the great hall and up the long stairway. Roberta sat on the hearthrug and held her hands to the fire. Her heartbeat was faster than the bump of feet on the stairs. In their morning’s exploration she and Henry had visited the green drawing-room. It was over the library and soon the ceiling gave back to her the sound of Uncle G.’s progress. The footsteps stopped for a little while and then lost their heaviness. Now the men were coming downstairs again, crossing the hall, leaving 24 Brummell Street for the kindlier storm-swept streets. She heard the great front door close. In a little while Henry came back. He carried a tray with a decanter and two glasses.

“I got them out of the dining-room,” he explained. “We’ll have a little drink, Robin. Yes, I know you don’t, but to-night I prescribe it.”

The unaccustomed glow did drive away Roberta’s cold, sunken feeling. Henry threw more logs on the fire and for half an hour they sat before it talking of the old days in New Zealand.

“I am quite determined,” Henry said, “that after this is all over I shall get a job. Yes, I know I’ve talked about it for six years.”

“And now,” said Robin tartly, “when, for the first time, it isn’t a crying necessity—”

“I make up my mind to do it. Yes. I shall continue in the territorials in my humble but exacting capacity. I shall sit for strange examinations and thus prepare myself for the obscure and unattractive performance known as ‘doing one’s bit.’ And when war comes,” said Henry in a melancholy manner, “Henry Lamprey, Earl of Rune, will take his place among the flower of England’s manhood guarding an entrance to some vulnerable public convenience.”

Roberta knew that Henry was trying to brighten this ominous night and although his jokes were not quite up to Lamprey standard she contrived to laugh at them. The clock struck eleven. They couldn’t stay all night by the library fire. Sometime those stairs must be climbed, those passages traversed. In an exhausted, uncertain fashion Roberta longed for her bed. She ached for sleep yet was not sleepy. Her throat and mouth kept forming half yawns and her head throbbed.

“How about it, Robin?” asked Henry presently. “Bed?”

“I think so.”

Past the stuffed bear with his open mouth and extended paws…Past the cold marble persons at the foot of the stairs…Past the second landing where Aunt V. and her nurses and perhaps Tinkerton slept or watched behind closed doors…Then the long passage, lit now by electric lights—

“I asked them to put a fire in your room, Robin.” Heavenly of Henry to think of that…Better by far to undress by this cheerful fire…And when she crept out in her dressing-gown, there was Henry in his dressing-gown, and they went into the bathroom together and Henry sat on the edge of the tub in a friendly manner while Roberta brushed her teeth. They returned together to their bedroom doors.

“Good night, Robin darling. Sleep well.”

“Good night.”

The Kentish slow train was late. The police car had punctured a tyre half a mile from Deepacres Halt and they had missed their connection with the express. At every station the slow train halted, breathing long steamy sighs which were echoed by Alleyn.

“What’s biting you, Inspector?” asked Nigel cheerfully.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ve never seen you so jumpy.”

“That fellow Campbell was told to keep his wits about him, Fox?”

“Yes, Mr. Alleyn.”

“Good God, we’re stopping again!”

Roberta’s heart beat so thickly that she wondered if it alone had awakened her. She lay with her eyes opened upon blackness. She could not see so much as the form of the curtains that hung beside her head or the shape of her hand held close to her eyes. For a moment she was confused. The memory of this room was gone from her. She had no sense of her position or of her invisible surroundings but felt as though she had opened her eyes on nothingness. She dared not put out her hand lest the wall should not be there. Now she was wide awake. She remembered her room and knew that round the curtains on her left side she should be able to see the fire. She touched the curtain, so close yet invisible, and it moved. Somewhere beyond her bed glowed a point of redness. The fire was almost dead; she had slept a long time. Outside it was still raining and the wind still moaned in the chimney but neither the wind nor the rain had awakened Roberta. She knew that some one had walked past her door. She began to reason with herself, telling her thumping heart that there was no cause for fear. Perhaps it was the man on guard in the house, making some cold round of inspection. Yet even while she sought in panic for comfort she knew, so densely woven are the strands of thought, that the footstep in the passage was the secondary cause of her alarm and that it was another sound that had horrified her dreams and rushed her upwards into wakefulness. She lay still and waited, tingling, for full realization. Presently it came. Beneath her, beyond the mattress of her bed, the carpet on the floor, the floor itself, the ceiling below the floor — beyond all these, there was a sound that fretted the outer borders of her hearing. It had a kind of rhythm. It suggested some sort of harsh movement with which Roberta was familiar. At the moment when she recognized it, it ceased, and she was left with a picture of a hand and a saw. Then she remembered that underneath her bedroom was the green drawing-room.