Ngaio Marsh - Overture to Death

Mr. Copeland, in his long cassock, moved forward and shook hands.

“I’m so sorry to worry you like this, sir,” said Alleyn. “It’s the worst possible day to badger the clergy, I know; but, unfortunately, we can’t delay things.”

“No, no,” said the rector, “we are only too anxious. This is my daughter. I’m afraid I don’t — ”

“Alleyn, sir.”

“Oh, yes. Yes. Do sit down. Dinah, dear?”

“Please don’t go, Miss Copeland,” said Alleyn. “I hope you may be able to help us.”

Evidently they had been sitting with the village maiden in front of the open fireplace. The chairs, drawn up in a semi-circle, were comfortably shabby.

The fire, freshly mended with enormous logs, crackled companionably and lent warmth to the faded apple-green walls, the worn beams, the rector’s agreeable prints, and a pot of bronze chrysanthemums from the Pen Cuckoo glasshouses.

They sat down, Dinah primly in the centre chair, Alleyn and the rector on either side of her.

Something of Alleyn’s appreciation of this room may have appeared in his face. His hand went to his jacket pocket and was hurriedly withdrawn.

“Do smoke your pipe,” said Dinah quickly.

“That was very well observed,” said Alleyn. “I’m sure you will be able to help us. May I, really?”

“Please.”

“It’s very irregular,” said Alleyn; “but I think I might, you know.”

And as he lit his pipe he was visited by a strange thought. It came into his mind that he stood on the threshold of a new friendship, that he would return to this old room and again sit before the fire. He thought of the woman he loved, and it seemed to him that she would be there, too, at this future time, and that she would be happy. “An odd notion!” he thought, and dismissed it.

The rector was speaking: “—Terribly distressed. It is appalling to think that among the people one knows so well there should have been one heart that nursed such dreadful anger against a fellow-creature.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “The impulse to kill, I suppose, is dormant in most people; but when it finds expression we are so shockingly astonished. I have noticed that very often. The reaction after murder is nearly always one of profound astonishment.”

“To me,” said Dinah, “the most horrible thing about this business is the grotesque side of it. It’s like an appalling joke.”

“You’ve heard the way of it, then?”

“I don’t suppose there’s a soul within twenty miles who hasn’t,” said Dinah.

“Ah,” said Alleyn. “The industrious Roper.”

He lit his pipe and, looking over his thin hands at them, said, “Before I forget, did either of you put a box outside one of the hall windows late on Friday or some time on Saturday?”

“No.”

“No.”

“I see. It’s no matter.”

The rector said, “Perhaps I shouldn’t ask, but have you any idea at all of who—?”

“None,” said Alleyn. “At the moment, none. There are so many things to be cleared up before the case can begin to make a pattern. One of them concerns the key of the hall. Where was it on Friday?”

“On a nail between an outhouse and the main building,” said Dinah.

“I thought that was only on Saturday.”

“No. I left it there on Friday for the Friendly Circle members who worked in the lunch hour. They moved the furniture and swept up, and things. When they left at two o’clock they hung the key on the nail.”

“But Miss Campanula tried to get in at about half-past two and couldn’t.”

“I don’t think Miss Campanula knew about the key. I told the girls, and I think I said something about it at the dress rehearsal in case the others wanted to get in, but I’m pretty sure Miss Campanula had gone by then. We’ve never hung it there before.”

“Did you go to the hall on Friday?”

“Yes,” said Dinah. “I went in the lunch hour to supervise the work. I came away before they had quite finished, and returned here.”

“And then you walked up Top Lane towards Pen Cuckoo?”

“Yes,” said Dinah in surprise, and into her eyes came that same guarded look he had seen in Henry’s.

“Was Georgie Biggins in the hall when you left at about two o’clock?”

“Yes. Making life hideous with his masterly water-pistol. He is a naughty boy, Daddy,” said Dinah. “I really think you ought to exorcise Georgie. I’m sure he’s possessed of a devil.”

“Then you haven’t heard about Georgie?” murmured Alleyn. “Roper has his points.”

“What about Georgie?”

Alleyn told them.

“I want,” he said, “to make as little as possible of the obvious implication. There seems to be little doubt that Georgie, plus Twiddletoy, and his water-pistol made the bullets that the murderer subsequently fired. It’s an unpleasant responsibility to lay on a small boy’s shoulders, however bad he may be. I’m afraid it must come out in evidence, but as far as possible I think we ought to try and avoid village gossip.”

“Certainly,” said the rector. “At the same time, he knew he was doing something wrong. The terrible consequences — ”

“Are disproportionately terrible, don’t you think.”

“I do. I agree with you,” said Dinah.

Alleyn, seeing priest’s logic in the rector’s eye, hurried on.

“You will see,” he said, “that the substitution of the Colt for the water-pistol must have taken place after two o’clock on Friday when Georgie was flourishing his pistol. I know he stayed behind on Friday and rigged it up. He had admitted this. Miss Campanula’s chauffeur, at her request, looked through the open window at two-thirty and saw the piano with the top open. His story leads us to believe that at that time Georgie was hiding somewhere in the building. Georgie did not tell me that at all willingly, and I confess I am afraid the memory of Miss Campanula, banging at the doors and demanding admittance, is likely to become a childish nightmare. I don’t pretend to understand child psychology.”

“The law,” said Dinah, “in the person of her officer, seems to be surprisingly merciful.”

Alleyn disregarded this.

“So that gives us two-thirty on Friday as a starting-off point. You, Miss Copeland, walked up Top Lane and by chance encountered Mr. Henry Jernigham.”

“What!” the rector ejaculated. “Dinah!”

“It’s all right,” said Dinah in a high voice. “It was by accident, Daddy. I did meet Henry and we did behave as you might have expected. Our promise was almost up. It’s my fault. I couldn’t help it.”

“Miss Prentice arrived some time later, I believe,” said Alleyn.

“ Has she told you that ?”

“Mr. Henry Jernigham told me and Miss Prentice agreed. Do you mind, Miss Copeland, describing what happened at this triple encounter?”

“If they haven’t told you,” said Dinah, “I won’t.”

i

Won’t you?” said Alleyn mildly. “That’s a pity. We shall have to do the Peer Gynt business.”

“What’s that?”

“Go roundabout. Ask servants about the relationship between Miss Prentice and her young cousin. Tap the fabulous springs of village gossip — all that.”

“I thought,” flashed Dinah, “that nowadays the C.I.D. was almost a gentleman’s job.”

“Oh, no!” said Alleyn. “You couldn’t be more mistaken.”

Her face was scarlet. “That was a pretty squalid remark of mine,” said Dinah.

“It was inexcusable, my dear,” said her father. “I am ashamed that you have been capable of it.”

“I find no offence it in at all,” Alleyn said cheerfully. “It was entirely apposite.”