Ngaio Marsh - Overture to Death

“That’s exactly what I mean,” said Henry. “Still, you can always go for my Cousin Eleanor.”

“Yes. That’s what I’ll have to do,” agreed Alleyn.

“Well, I hope you don’t believe everything she tells you,” said Dinah, “or you will get in a muddle. Where we’re concerned she’s as sour as a quince.”

“And, anyway, she’s practically certifiable,” added Henry. “It’s a question which was dottiest: Eleanor or Miss C.”

“Lamentable,” said Alleyn vaguely. “Mr. Jernigham, did you put a box outside one of the hall windows after 2.30 on Friday?”

“No.”

“What is this about a box?” asked Dinah.

“Nothing much. About the piano. When did those aspidistras make their appearance?”

“They were there on Saturday morning, anyway,” said Dinah. “I meant to have them taken away. They must have masked the stage from the audience. I think the girls put them there after I left on Friday.”

“In which case Georgie moved them off to rig his pistol.”

“And the murderer,” Henry pointed out, “must have moved them again.”

“Yes.”

“I wonder when,” said Henry.

“So do we. Miss Copeland, did you see Miss Campanula on Friday nighf?”

“Friday night? Oh, I saw her at the Reading Circle meeting in the dining-room.”

“Not afterwards?”

“No. As soon as I got out of the dining-room I came up here. She went into the study to see Daddy. I could just hear her voice scolding away as usual, I should think, poor thing.”

“The study is beneath this room, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I wanted to have a word with Daddy, but I waited until I heard her and the other person go.”

Alleyn only paused for a second before he said:

“The other person?”

“There was somebody else in the study with Miss C. I can’t help calling her ‘Miss C.’ We all did.”

“How do you know there was someone else there?”

“Well, because they left after Miss C,” said Dinah impatiently. “It wasn’t Miss Prentice, because she rang up from Pen Cuckoo just about that time. Mary called me to the telephone, so I suppose it must have been Gladys Wright. She’s leader of the Reading Circled She lives up the lane. She must have gone out by the window in the study, because I heard the lane gate give a squeak. That’s how I knew she’d been here.”

Alleyn walked over to the window. It looked down on a gravelled path, a lawn, and a smaller earthen path that led to a rickety gate and evidently ran on beyond it through a small plantation to the lane.

“I suppose you always go that way to the hall?” asked Alleyn.

“Oh, yes. It’s much shorter than going round the house from the front door.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn, “it would be.”

He looked thoughtfully at Dinah and said, “Did you hear this other person’s voice?”

“Hi!” said Dinah. “What is all this? No, I didn’t. Ask Daddy. He’ll tell you who it was.”

“Stupid of me,” said Alleyn. “Of course he will.”

ii

He didn’t ask the rector, but before he left he crunched boldly round the gravel path and walked across the lawn to the gate. It certainly creaked very loudly. It was one of those old-fashioned gates that has a post stile beside it. The path was evidently used very often. There was no hope of finding anything useful on its hard but greasy surface. There had been too much rain since Friday night. “Much too much rain,” sighed Alleyn. But just inside the gate he found two softened but unmistakable depressions. Horseshoe-shaped holes about two inches in diameter that had held water. “Heels,” he thought, “but not a hope of saying whose. Female. Stood there a long time facing the house.” He could see the rector crouched over the study fire. “Oh, well,” he said, and plunged into the little wood. “Nothing at all that’s to the purpose. Nothing.”

He saw that the hall was only a little way up on the other side from where this path came out on the lane. He returned, circled the rectory, perfectly aware that Dinah and Henry had watched him from the schoolroom window. As he got into the car Henry opened the window and leaned out.

“I say,” he shouted.

“Shut up,” said Dinah’s voice behind him. “ Don’t , Henry.”

“What is it?” called Alleyn, squinting up through his driving-window.

“It’s nothing,” said Dinah. “He’s gone ravers, that’s all. Good-bye.”

Henry’s head shot out of sight and the window slammed.

“Now I wonder,” thought Alleyn, “if Master Henry has got the same idea as I have.”

He drove away.

At the Jernigham Arms he found Nigel, but no Fox.

“Where are you going?” Nigel demanded when Alleyn returned to the car.

“To call on a lady.”

“Let me come.”

“Why the devil?”

“I won’t go in with you if you’d rather not.”

“Naturally. All right. I can do with some comic relief.”

“Oh, God, your only jig-maker,” said Nigel and got in. “Now, who’s the lady?” he said. “Speak up, dearie.”

“Mrs. Ross.”

“The mysterious stranger.”

“Why do you call her that?”

“It’s the part she played in their show. I’ve got a programme.”

“So it is,” said Alleyn.

He turned the car up the Vale Road and presently he began to talk. He went over the history of the case from midday on Friday. As far as he could, he traced the movements of the murdered woman and each of her seven companions. He correlated their movements and gave Nigel a time-table he had jotted down in his note-book.

“I hate these damn’ things,” Nigel grumbled. “They shatter my interest; they remind me of a Bradshaw, and they are therefore completely unintelligible.”

“It’s a pity about you,” said Alleyn dryly. “Look at the list at the bottom.”

Nigel looked and read:

“Piano. Drawing-pin holes. Automatic. Branch. Onion. Chopsticks. Key. Letter. Creaky gate. Window. Telephone.”

“Thank you,” said Nigel. “Now, of course, I see the whole thing in a blinding flash. It’s as clear as the mud in your eye. The onion is particularly obvious, and as for the drawing-pins— It’s ludicrous that I didn’t spot the exquisite reason of the drawing-pins.”

He returned the paper to Alleyn.

“Go on,” he continued acidly. “Say it. ‘You have the facts, Bathgate. You know my methods, Bathgate. What of the little grey cells, Bathgate?’ Sling in a quotation; add: ‘Oh, my dear chap,’ and vanish in a fog of composite fiction.”

“This is Cloudyfold,” said Alleyn. “Cold, isn’t it? They had twelve degrees of frost on the pub thermometer last night.”

“Oh, Mr. Mercury, how you did startle me!”

“That must be Mrs. Ross’s cottage down there.”

“Can’t I come in as your stenographer?”

“Very well. I may send you out on an errand into the village.”

Duck Cottage stands in a bend of the road before it actually reaches Cloudyfold Village. It is a typical Dorset cottage, plain fronted, well proportioned, cold-grey and weather-worn. Mrs. Ross had smartened it up. The window sashes and sills and the front door were painted vermilion, and a vermilion tub with a Noah’s Ark tree stood on each side of the entrance which led straight off the road.

Alleyn gave a double rap on the shiny brass knocker.

The door was opened by a maid, all cherry-red and muslin. Mrs. Ross was at home. The maid took Alleyn’s card away with her and returned to usher them in.

Alleyn had to stoop his head under the low doorway, and the ceilings were not much higher. They walked through a tiny ante-room, down some uneven steps and into Mrs. Ross’s parlour. She was not there. It was a charming parlour looking out on a small formal garden. There were old prints on the walls, one or two respectable pieces of furniture, a deep carpet, some very comfortable chairs, and a general air of chintz, sparkle and femininity. It was a delicate little room. Alleyn looked at a bookcase filled with modern novels. He noticed one or two works by authors whose sole distinction had been conferred by the censor, and at three popular collections of famous criminal cases. They all had startling wrappers and photographic illustrations. Within their covers one would find the cases of Brown and Kennedy, Bywaters, Seddon, and Stinie Morrison. Their style would be characterized by a certain arch taciturnity. Alleyn grinned to himself and took one of them from the shelf. He let it fall open in his hands and a discourse on dactylography faced him. The groove between the pages was filled with cigarette ash. A photograph of prints developed and enlarged from a letter illustrated the written matter. A woman’s voice sounded. Alleyn returned the book to its place. The door opened and Mrs. Ross came in.