Ngaio Marsh - Overture to Death

But Mr. Copeland’s face was pink with embarrassment, and Dinah’s still crimson with mortification. The rector addressed her as if she was a children’s service. His voice became more markedly clerical, and in the movement of his head Alleyn recognised one of his pulpit mannerisms. He said, “You have broken a solemn promise, Dinah, and to this fault you add a deliberate evasion and an ill-bred and entirely unjustifiable impertinence. You force me to make Mr. Alleyn some sort of explanation.” He turned to Alleyn. “My daughter and Henry Jernigham,” he said, “have formed an attachment of which his father and I do not approve. Dinah suggested that they should give their word not to meet alone for three weeks. Friday was the final day of the three weeks. Miss Prentice was also of our mind in this matter. If she came upon them at a moment when, as Dinah has admitted, they had completely forgotten or ignored this promise, I am sure she was extremely disappointed and distressed.”

“She wasn’t!” exclaimed Dinah, rallying a little. “She wasn’t a bit like that. She was absolutely livid with rage and beastliness.”

“Dinah!”

“Oh, Daddy, why do you shut your eyes? You must know what she’s like — you of all people!”

“Dinah, I must insist — ”

“No!” cried Dinah. “No! First you say I’ve been underhand; and then, when I go all upperhand and open, you don’t like it any better. I’m sorry in a way that Henry and I didn’t stay the course; but we nearly did, and I won’t think there was anything very awful about Friday afternoon. I won’t have Henry and me made seem grubby. I’m sorry I was rude to Mr. Alleyn and I — well, I mean it’s quite obvious it wasn’t only rude, but silly. I mean, it’s obvious from the way he’s taken it — I mean — oh, hell! Oh, Daddy, I’m sorry.”

Alleyn choked down a laugh.

The rector said, “Dinah! Dinah!”

“Yes, well, I am sorry. And now Mr. Alleyn will think heaven knows what about Friday afternoon. I may as well tell you, Mr. Alleyn, that in Henry’s and my opinion Miss Prentice is practically ravers. It’s a well-known phenomenon with old maids. She’s tried to sublimate her natural appetites and — and — work them off in religion. I can’t help it, Daddy, she has . And it’s been a failure. She’s only repressed and repressed, and when she sees two natural, healthy people making love to each other she goes off pop.”

“It is I,” said the rector, looking hopelessly at his child, “who have been a failure.”

“ Don’t . You haven’t. It’s just that you don’t understand these women. You’re an angel, but you’re not a modern angel.”

“I should be interested to know,” said Alleyn, “how an angel brings himself up to date. Stream-lined wings, I suppose.”

Dinah grinned.

“Well, you know what I mean,” she said. “And I’m right about these two. If you had heard Miss Prentice! It was simply too shaming and hideous. She actually shook all over and sort of gasped. And she said the most ghastly things to us. She threatened at once to tell you, Daddy, and the squire. She suggested — oh, she was beyond belief. What’s more, she dribbles and spits.”

“Dinah, my dear!”

“Well, Daddy, she does . I noticed the front of her beastly dress, and it was disgusting . She either dribbles and spits, or else she spills her tea. Honestly! And, anyway, she was perfectly sceptic , the things she said.”

“Didn’t either of you try to stop her?” asked Alleyn.

“Yes,” said Dinah. She turned rather white and added quickly: “In the end she just blundered past us and went on up the lane.”

“What did you do?”

“I went home.”

“And Mr. Jernigham?”

“He went up to Cloudyfold, I think.”

“By the steep path? He didn’t walk down with you?”

“No,” said Dinah. “He didn’t. There’s nothing in that.”

ii

“I cannot see,” said the rector, “that this unhappy story can have any bearing on the tragedy.”

“I think I can promise,” said Alleyn, “that any information found to be irrelevant will be completely blotted out. We are, quite literally, not interested in any facts that cannot be brought into the pattern.”

“Well, that can’t,” Dinah declared. She threw up her chin and said loudly:

“If you think, because Miss Prentice made us feel uncomfortable and embarrassed, it’s a motive for murder, you’re quite wrong. We’re not in the least afraid of Miss Prentice or anything she may say or do. It can’t make any difference to Henry and me.” Dinah’s lower lip trembled and she added: “We simply look at her from a detached analytical angle and are vaguely sorry for her. That’s all.” She uttered a dry sob.

The rector said: “Oh, my darling child, what nonsense,” and Dinah walked over to the window.

“Well,” said Alleyn mildly, “let’s go on being detached and analytical. What did you both do on Saturday afternoon? That’s yesterday.”

“We were both in here,” said Dinah, “Daddy went to sleep. I went over my part.”

“What time did you get to the hall last evening?”

“We left here at half-past six,” answered Mr. Copeland, “and walked over by the path through our garden and wood.”

“Was anybody there?”

“Yes. Yes, Gladys Wright was there, wasn’t she, Dinah? She is one of our best workers and was in charge of the programmes. She was in the front of the hall. I think the other girls were either there, or came in soon after we did.”

“Can you tell me exactly what you did up to the time of the catastrophe?”

“I can, certainly,” rejoined the rector. “I saw that the copy of the play and the bicycle bell I had to ring were in their right places, and then I sat in an arm-chair on the stage to keep out of the way and see that nobody came in from the front of the hall. I was there until Dinah came for me to speak to Miss Prentice.”

“Did you expect Miss Prentice would be unable to play?”

“No, indeed. On the contrary, she told me her finger was much better. That was soon after she arrived.”

“Had you much difficulty in persuading Miss Prentice not to play?”

“Yes, indeed I had. She was most determined about it, but her finger was really very bad. It was quite impossible, and I told her I should be very displeased if she persisted.”

“And apart from that time you never left the stage?”

“Oh! Oh, yes, I did go to the telephone before that, when they were trying to get Mrs. Ross’s house. That was at half-past seven. The telephone is an extension of ours and our maid, Mary, is deaf and takes a long time to answer.”

“We were all frantic,” said Dinah, from the window. “The squire and Henry and father and I were all standing round the telephone, with Miss Campanula roaring instructions, poor old thing. The squire hadn’t got any trousers on, only pink woollen underpants. Miss Prentice came along, and when she saw him she cackled like a hen and flew away, but no one else minded about the squire’s pants, not even Miss C. We were all in a flat spin about the others being late, you see. Father was just coming over to ring from here, when we got through.”

“I returned to the stage then,” said the rector.

“I can’t tell you exactly what I did,” said Dinah. “I was all over the place.” She peered through the window. “Here’s Henry now.”

“Why not go and meet him?” suggested Alleyn. “Tell him how I’ve bullied you.”

“You haven’t, but I will,” said Dinah.

She opened the window and stepped over the low sill into the garden.

“I’m so sorry,” said Alleyn, when the window had slammed.