Ngaio Marsh - Death in a White Tie

“Hullo.”

“Hullo, Don, it’s Wits.”

“Oh, God, Wits, I’m most frightfully worried, I—”

“You’d better not talk about your worries on the telephone. I rang up to say I thought it might be as well if you stayed with your mother for a bit. She’ll want you there with all this trouble. I’ll send your things round.”

“Yes, but listen, Wits. About the house at—”

Captain Withers said: “You stay where you are,” and rang off.

“Thank you,” said Alleyn. “That will do nicely. How tall are you, Captain Withers?”

“Five foot eight and a half in my socks.”

“Just about Lord Robert’s height,” said Alleyn, watching him.

Withers stared blankly at him.

“I suppose there must be some sense in a few of the things you say,” he said.

“I hope so. Can you remember what Lord Robert was saying on the telephone when you walked into the room at one o’clock this morning?”

“What room?”

“At Marsdon House.”

“You’re talking through your hat. I never heard him on any telephone.”

“That’s all right then,” said Alleyn. “Were you on the top landing near the telephone-room round about one o’clock?”

“How the devil should I know? I was up there quite a bit.”

“Alone?”

“No. I was there with Don sometime during the supper dances. We were in the first sitting-out room. Old Carrados was up there then.”

“Did you hear anyone using a telephone?”

“Fancy I did, now you mention it.”

“Ah well, that’s the best we can do at the moment, I suppose,” said Alleyn, collecting Taylor’s Medical Jurisprudence . “By the way, would you object to my searching these rooms? Just to clear your good name, you know.”

“You can crawl over them with a microscope, if you like.”

“I see. Thank you very much. Some other time, perhaps. Good morning.”

He’d got as far as the door when Withers said:

“Here! Stop!”

“Yes?”

Alleyn turned and saw a flat white finger pointed at his face.

“If you think,” said Captain Withers, “that I had anything to do with the death of this buffoon you’re wasting your time. I didn’t. I’m not a murderer and if I was I’d go for big game — not domestic pigs.”

Alleyn said: “You are fortunate. In my job we often have to hunt the most unpleasant quarry. A matter of routine. Good morning.”

In the street outside Alleyn met Detective-Sergeant Thompson, who did not look like a detective-sergeant. As Captain Withers’s windows enjoyed an uninterrupted view of Sling Street Alleyn did not pause to speak to Thompson, but he remarked to the air as they passed:

“Don’t lose him.”

Fox was waiting outside the post office.

“He’s a nasty customer, I should say,” he remarked as they fell into step.

“Who? Withers? I believe you, my old—”

“You were pretty well down on him, Mr Alleyn.”

“I was in a fix,” said Alleyn. “I’d have liked to raid this place at Leatherhead without giving him any warning, but the wretched Donald is sure to let him know what he told us and Withers will close down his gambling activities. The best we can hope for in that direction is that our man will find something conclusive if he gets into the house. We’d better take a taxi to Dimitri’s. What time was he to be at the Yard?”

“Midday.”

“It’s a quarter to twelve. He ought to have left. Come on.”

They got a taxi.

“How about Withers?” asked Fox, staring solemnly at the driver’s back.

“For a likely suspect? He’s the right height to within an inch. Good enough in the cloak and hat to diddle the taxi-man. By the way, there’s nowhere in the bedroom where he could have stowed them. I saw inside the wardrobe and had a quick look under the bed and in the cupboard while he was on the telephone. Anyway, he said I could crawl over the flat with a microscope if I liked and he wasn’t calling my bluff either. If he’s got anything to hide it’s at the house at Leatherhead.”

“The motive’s not so hot,” said Fox.

“What is the motive?”

“He knew Lord Robert had recognized him and thought he was on his trail. He wants to get hold of the money and knows young Potter is the heir.”

“That’s two of his motives. But well? Damn,” said Alleyn, “nearly a quotation! Bunchy warned me against ’em. Associating with the peerage, that’s what it is. There’s a further complication. Mrs Halcut-Hackett may think Bunchy was a blackmailer. From his notes Bunchy seems to have got that impression. He was close to her when her bag was taken and had stuck to her persistently. If Withers is having an affair with the woman, she probably confided the blackmail stunt to him. Withers is possibly the subject of the Halcut-Hackett blackmail. The letter the blackmailer has got hold of may be one from Mrs H-H to Withers or t’other way round. If she told him she thought Lord Robert was the blackmailer—”

“That’s three of his motives,” said Fox.

“You may say so. On the other hand Withers may be the blackmailer. It’s quite in his line.”

“Best motive of all,” said Fox, “if he thought Lord Robert was on to him.”

“How you do drone on, you old devil. Well, if we want to, we can pull him in for having dirty novels in his beastly flat. Look at this.”

Alleyn pulled the book jacket out of his pocket. It displayed in primary colours a picture of a terrible young woman with no clothes on, a florid gentleman and a lurking harridan. It was entitled: The Confessions of a Procuress .

“Lor’!” said Fox. “You oughtn’t to have taken it.”

“What a stickler you are to be sure.” Alleyn pulled a fastidious grimace. “Can’t you see him goggling over it in some bolt-hole on the Côte d’Azur! I’ve got his nasty flat prints on my own cigarette-case. We’ll see if he’s handled Donald Potter’s ‘Taylor’. Particularly the sections that deal with suffocation and asphyxia. I fancy, Fox, that a Captain Withers who was uninstructed in the art of smothering would have made the customary mistake of using too much violence. We’ll have to see if he’s left any prints in this telephone room at Marsdon House.”

“The interruption,” said Fox thoughtfully. “As I see it, we’ve got to get at the identity of the individual who came in while Lord Robert was talking to you on the telephone. If the party’s innocent, well, there’ll be no difficulty.”

“And contrariwise. I tried to bounce Withers into an admission. Took it for granted he was the man.”

“Any good?”

“Complete wash-out. He never batted an eyelid. Seemed genuinely astonished.”

“It may have been Dimitri. At least,” said Fox, “we know Dimitri collects the boodle. What we want to find out is whether he’s on his own or working for someone else.”

“Time enough. Which brings us back to Bunchy’s broken sentence. ‘And he’s working with—’ With whom? Or is it with what? Hullo, one arrives.”

The taxi pulled up at a respectable old apartment house in the Cromwell Road. On the opposite pavement sat a young man mending the seat of a wicker chair.

“That’s Master James D’Arcy Carewe, detective-constable,” said Alleyn.

“What him!” cried Fox in a scandalized voice. “So it is. What’s he want to go dolling himself up in that rig for?”

“He’s being a detective,” Alleyn explained. “His father’s a parson and he learnt wicker-work with the Women’s Institute or something. He’s been pining to disguise himself ever since he took the oath.”

“Silly young chap,” said Fox.

“He’s quite a bright boy really, you know.”