Ngaio Marsh - Overture to Death

She was the lady Alleyn had noticed in church. This did not surprise him much, but it made him feel wary. She greeted him with a sensible good-humoured air, shook hands and them gave him a slanting smile.

“This is Mr. Bathgate,” said Alleyn. He noticed that Nigel’s fingers had flown to his tie.

She settled them by the fire with the prettiest air in the world, and he saw her glance at the little cupid clock on the mantlepiece.

“I do think all this is too ghastly,” she said. “That poor wretched old creature! How anybody could!”

“It’s a bad business,” said Alleyn.

She offered them cigarettes. Alleyn refused and Nigel, rather unwillingly, followed suit. Mrs. Ross took one and leaned towards Alleyn for a light.

“ Chanel, Numéro Cinq ,” thought Alleyn.

“I’ve never been ‘investigated’ before,” said Mrs. Ross. “Dear me, that sounds rather peculiar, doesn’t it? I don’t mean what you mean.”

She chuckled. Nigel uttered rather a flirtatious laugh, caught Alleyn’s eye and was silent.

Alleyn said, “I shan’t bother you for long, I hope. We’ve got to try and find out where everybody was from about midday on Friday up to the moment of the disaster.”

“Heavens!” said Mrs. Ross. “I’ll never be able to remember that; and if I do, it’s sure to sound too incriminating for words.”

“I hope not,” said Alleyn sedately. “We’ve got a certain amount of it already. On Friday you went to a short five o’clock rehearsal at Pen Cuckoo, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Apart from that, I was at home all day.”

“And Friday evening?”

“Still at home. We aren’t very gay in Cloudyfold, Mr. Alleyn. I think I’ve dined out twice since I came here. The county is simply rushing me, as you see.”

“On Saturday evening I suppose you joined the others at the hall?”

“Yes. I carted down one or two things they wanted for the stage. We towed them in a trailer behind Dr. Templett’s Morris.”

“Did you go straight to the hall?”

“No. We called at Pen Cuckoo. I’d quite forgotten that. I didn’t get out of the car.”

“Dr. Templett went into the study?”

“He went into the house,” she said lightly. “I don’t know which room.”

“He didn’t return by the french window?”

“I don’t remember.” She paused and then added: “The squire, Mr. Jernigham, came and talked to me. I didn’t notice Dr. Templett until he was actually at the car window.”

“Ah, yes. You came back here for lunch?”

“Yes.”

“And in the afternoon?”

“Saturday afternoon. That’s only yesterday, isn’t it? Heavens, it seems a lifetime! Oh, I took the supper down to the hall.”

“At what time?”

“I think it was about half-past three when I got there.”

“Was the hall empty?”

“Yes. No, it wasn’t. Dr. Templett was there. He arrived just after I did. He’d brought down his clothes.”

“How long did you stay there, Mrs. Ross?”

“I don’t know. Not long. It might have been half an hour.”

“And Dr. Templett?”

“He left before I did. I was putting out sandwiches.”

“And cutting up onions?”

“ Onions ! Good Lord, why should I do that? No, thank you. I’m sick at the sight of one, and I have got some respect for my hands.”

They were luxurious little hands. She held them to the fire.

“I’m sorry,” said Alleyn. “There was an onion in the supper-room.”

“I don’t know how it got there. The supper-room was all scrubbed out on Friday.”

“It’s no matter. Did you look at the piano on Saturday afternoon?”

“No, I don’t think so. The curtain was down, so I suppose if anything had been out of order I shouldn’t have noticed. I didn’t go to the front of the hall. The one key opens both doors.”

“And only Dr. Templett came in?”

“Yes.”

“Could any one have come unnoticed into the front of the hall while you were in the supper-room?”

“I suppose they might have. No. No, of course they couldn’t. We had the key and the front door was locked.”

“Did Dr. Templett go into the auditorium at all?”

“Only to shut the window.”

“Which window was open?”

“It’s rather odd,” she said quickly. “I’m sure I shut it in the morning.”

iii

“It’s the window on the side away from the lane, nearest the front,” continued Mrs. Ross after a pause. “I remember that, just as we were leaving, I pulled it down in case the rain blew in. That was at midday.”

“Were you the last to leave at noon?”

“No. Well, we all left together; but I think Dr. Templett and I actually walked out first. The Copelands always leave by the back door.”

“So presumably someone reopened the window?”

“Presumably.”

“Were you on the stage when Dr. Templett shut the window?”

“Yes.”

“What were you doing there?”

“We — I tidied it up and arranged one or two ornaments I’d brought.”

“Dr. Templett helped you?”

“He — well, he looked on.”

“And all this time the window was open?”

“Yes, I suppose so. Yes, of course it was.”

“Did you tell him you thought you had shut it?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t think somebody pushed it open from outside?”

“No,” she said positively. “We were certain they didn’t. The curtain was up. We’d have seen.”

“I thought you said the curtain was down.”

“Oh, how stupid of me. It was up when we got there, but we let it down. It was supposed to be down. I wanted to try the effect of a lamp I’d taken.”

“Did you lower the curtain before or after you noticed the window?”

“I don’t remember. Oh. Yes, please, I think it was afterwards.”

She leaned forward and looked at Nigel, who had been making notes.

“It’s simply petrifying to see all this going down,” she said to him. “Do I read it over and sign it?”

“It would have to go into long-hand first,” said Nigel.

“Do let me see.”

He gave her his notes.

“They look exactly like journalists’ copy,” said Mrs. Ross.

“That’s our cunning,” said Nigel boldly, but rather red in the face.

She laughed and gave them back to him.

“Mr. Alleyn thinks we’re terribly flippant, I can see,” she said. “Don’t you, inspector?”

“No,” said Alleyn. “I regard Bathgate as a zealous and serious-minded young officer.”

Nigel tried to look zealous and serious-minded. He was a little shaken.

“You mustn’t forget that telegram, Bathgate,” added Alleyn. “I think you’d better go into Cloudyfold and send it. You can pick me up on the way back. Mrs. Ross will excuse you.”

“Very good, sir,” said Nigel and left.

“What a very charming young man,” said Mrs. Ross, with her air of casual intimacy. “Are all your officers as Eton and Oxford as that?”

“Not quite all,” rejoined Alleyn.

What a curious trick she had of widening her eyes! The pupils actually seemed to dilate. It was as if she was aware of something, recognised it, and gave just that one brief sign. Alleyn read into it a kind of polite wantonness. “She proclaims herself,” he thought, “by that trick. She is a woman with a strong, determined appetite.” He knew very well that, for all her impersonal manner, she had made small practised signals to him, and he wondered if he should let her see he had recognized these signals.

He leaned forward in his chair and looked deliberately into her eyes.

“There are two more questions,” he said.

“Two more? Well?”

“Do you know whose automatic it was that shot Miss Campanula between the eyes and through the brain?”