Ngaio Marsh - Overture to Death

The rector gulped and added quickly: “But that is beside the point. I drew the curtains, and in my flurry I said something to Miss Campanula about expecting Miss Prentice. It turned out that I couldn’t have said anything worse, because when I tried to tell this unfortunate soul that she was mistaken, she connected my explanation with Miss Prentice’s visit.”

“Help!” said Alleyn.

“What did you say? Yes. Yes, indeed. She became quite frantic and I really can not repeat what she said, but she uttered the most dreadful abuse of Miss Prentice and, in a word, she suggested that Miss Prentice had supplanted her, not only in the affairs of the parish, but in my personal regard. I became angry — just angry, as I thought at the time. As her priest I ordered her to stop. I rebuked her and reminded her of the deadly sin of envy. I told her that she must drive out this wickedness from her heart by prayer and fasting. She became much quieter, but as she left she said one sentence that I shall never forget. She turned in the doorway and said, ‘If I killed myself she would suffer for it; but if, as I stand here in this room, I could strike Eleanor Prentice dead, I’d do it!’ And before I could answer her she had gone out and shut the door.”

iv

“Darling,” said Henry, “I think I’d better tell him.”

“But why ?”

“Because I believe Eleanor will if I don’t.”

“How could she? It would be too shaming for her. She’d have to say how she behaved when she saw us.”

“No, she wouldn’t. She’d just twist it round somehow so that it looked as if she found us in a compromising position and that you were covered with scarlet shame and I was furious and threatened to scrag her.”

“But, Henry, that would be a deliberate attempt to make him suspect you.”

“I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“Well, I would. If you were tried for murder, it’d be a pretty good scandal, and she wouldn’t care for that at all.”

“No, that’s true enough. Perhaps I may as well keep quiet.”

“I should say you’d better.”

“Dinah,” said Henry, “who do you think—?”

“I can’t think. It seems incredible that any of us should do it. It just isn’t possible.”

“Daddy thinks she did it herself. He won’t say why.”

“What, fixed it up for Eleanor and then at the last minute decided to take the count herself?”

“I suppose so. It must be something she said to him.”

“What do you think of Alleyn?” asked Henry abruptly.

“I like him. Golly, I was rude to him,” said Dinah, hurling another log of wood on the schoolroom fire.

“Were you, my sweet?”

“Yes. I implied he was no gent.”

“Well, that was a lie,” said Henry cheerfully.

“I know it was. He couldn’t have been nicer about it. How I could! Daddy was livid.”

“Naturally. Honestly, Dinah!”

“I know.”

“I love you all the way to the Great Bear and round the Southern Cross and back again.?’

“Henry,” said Dinah suddenly, “don’t let’s ever be jealous.”

“All right. Why?”

“I keep thinking of those two. If they hadn’t been jealous I don’t believe this would have happened.”

“Good heavens, Dinah, you don’t think Eleanor…”

“No. But I sort of feel as if the whole thing was saturated in their jealousy. I mean, it was only jealousy that made them so beastly to each other and to us and to that shifty beast, Mrs. Ross.”

“Why do you call her a shifty beast?”

“Because I know in my bones she is,” said Dinah.

“I must say I wish my papa would restrain his middle-aged ardours when he encounters her. His antics are so damn’ silly.”

“Daddy’s completely diddled by her conversion to his ways. She’s put her name down for the retreat in Advent.”

“That’s not so bad as my parent’s archness. I could wish she didn’t respond in kind, I must say. Apart from that, I don’t mind the lady.”

“You’re a man.”

“Oh, nonsense,” said Henry, answering the implication.

“I wouldn’t trust her,” said Dinah, “as far as I could toss a grand piano.”

“Why bring pianos into it?”

“Well, I wouldn’t. She’s the sort that’s always called a man’s woman.”

“It’s rather a stupid sort of phrase,” said Henry.

“It simply means,” said Dinah, “that she’s nice to men and would let a woman down as soon as look at her!”

“I should have thought it just meant that she was too attractive to be popular with her own sex.”

“Darling, that’s simply a masculine cliché,” said Dinah. “I don’t think so.”

“There are tons of devastating women who are enormously popular with their own sex.”

Henry smiled.

“Do you think she’s attractive?” asked Dinah casually.

“Yes, very. I dare say she’s rather a little bitch, but she is pleasing. For one thing, her clothes fit her.”

“Yes, they do,” said Dinah sombrely. “They must cost the earth.”

Henry kissed her.

“I’m a low swine,” he muttered. “I was being tiresome. You’re my dear darling and I’m no more fit to love you than a sweep, but I do love you so much.”

“We must never be jealous,” whispered Dinah.

“Dinah!” called the rector in the hall below.

“Yes, Daddy?”

“Where are you?”

“In the schoolroom.”

“May I go up, do you think?” asked a deep voice.

“That’s Alleyn,” said Henry.

“Come up here, Mr. Alleyn,” called Dinah.

i

Sit down, Mr. Alleyn,” said Dinah. “The chairs are all rather rickety in this room, I’m afraid. You know Henry, don’t you?”

“Yes, rather,” said Alleyn. “I’ll have this, if I may.”

He squatted on a stuffed footstool in front of the fire.

“I told Henry how rude I’d been,” said Dinah.

“I was horrified,” said Henry. “She’s very young, poor girl.”

“You couldn’t by any chance just settle down and spin us some yarns about crime?” suggested Dinah.

“I’m afraid not. It would be delightful to settle down, but you see we’re not allowed to get familiar when we’re on duty. It looks impertinent. I’ve got a monstrous lot of things to do before to-night.”

“Do you just collect stray bits of evidence,” asked Henry, “and hope they’ll make sense?”

“More or less. You scavenge and then you arrange everything and try and see the pattern.”

“Suppose there’s no pattern?”

“There must be. It’s a question of clearing away the rubbish.”

“Any sign of it so far?” asked Dinah.

“Not a great many signs.”

“Do you suspect either of us?”

“Not particularly.”

“Well, we didn’t do, it,” said Dinah.

“Good.”

“Cases of homicide,” said Henry, “must be different from any other kind. Especially cases that occur in these sorts of surroundings. You’re not dealing with the ordinary criminal classes.”

“True enough,” said Alleyn. “I’m dealing with people like yourselves who will be devastatingly frank up to a certain point — far franker than the practical criminal, who lies to the police from sheer force of habit— but who will probably bring a good deal more savoir faire to the business of withholding essentials. For instance, I know jolly well there’s something more to that meeting you both had with Miss Prentice on Friday afternoon; but it’s no good saying to you, as I would to Posh Jimmy: ‘Come on, now. It’s not you I’m after. Tell me what I want to know and perhaps we’ll forget all about that little job over at Moorton.’ Unfortunately, I’ve nothing against you.”