Ngaio Marsh - Death in a White Tie

“Oh, yes. Last night only four people asked me to dance. Lord Robert, when I first got there, and a fat man, and the General, and Sir Herbert Carrados.”

She looked away for a moment and her lips trembled.

“I tried to pretend I had a soul above social success,” she said, “but I haven’t at all. I minded awfully. If I could paint and get out of it all it wouldn’t matter, but when you’re in a thing it’s beastly to be a failure. So I got toothache. I must say it is queer me saying all this to you.”

“The General took you home, didn’t he?”

“Yes. He was very kind. He got Mrs Halcut-Hackett’s maid, whom I hate worse than poison, to give me oil of cloves and Ovaltine. She knew all right.”

“Did you go to sleep?”

“No. I tried to think of a way to write to mother so that she would let me give it up. And then everything began to go through and through my head. I tried to think of other things but all the failure-parties kept coming up.”

“Did you hear the others return?”

“I heard Mrs Halcut-Hackett come in. It was frightfully late. She goes past my door to her room and she’s got diamante shoe buckles that make a clicking noise with every step. I had heard the clock strike four. Did the General go back to the dance?”

“He went out again, I think.”

“Well, then it must have been the General I heard come along the passage at a quarter-past three. Just after. I heard every clock chime from one till six. Then I fell asleep. It was quite light then.”

“Yes.”

Alleyn took a turn up and down the room.

“Have you met Agatha Troy?” he asked.

“The painter? She was there last night. I wanted awfully for someone to introduce us but I didn’t like to ask. I think she’s the best living English painter, don’t you?”

“Yes, I believe I do. She teaches, you know.”

“Does she? Only geniuses, I suppose.”

“I think only students who have gone a certain distance.”

“If I were allowed to go a certain distance first, I wonder if she would ever have me.”

“Do you think you would be good?” asked Alleyn.

“I’m sure I would be able to draw. I’m not so sure of paint. I see everything in line. I say.”

“Hallo?”

“D’you think this will make any difference to the coming-out game? Is she going to be ill? I’ve thought so lots of times lately. She’s so bloody-minded.”

“Don’t say ‘she’ and don’t say ‘bloody-minded’. The one’s common and you’re too young for the other.”

Miss Birnbaum grinned delightedly.

“Well,” she said, “it’s what I think anyway. And she’s not even virtuous. Do you know the Withers person?”

“Yes.”

“He’s her boy-friend. Don’t pretend to be shocked. I wrote and told mother about it. I hoped it’d shake her a bit. My father wrote and asked me if he was called Maurice and was like a red pig — that’s a frightful insult, you know — because if he was I wasn’t to stay. I like my father. But mother said if he was a friend of Mrs Halcut-Hackett he must be all right. I thought that frightfully funny. It’s about the only thing that is at all funny in the whole business. I don’t think it can be very amusing to be frightened of your boy-friend and your husband, do you?”

Alleyn rubbed his head and stared at Miss Birnbaum.

“Look here,” he said, “you’re giving us a good deal of information, you know. There’s Mr Fox with his notebook. What about that?”

The dark face was lit with an inward smouldering fire. Two sharp lines appeared at the corners of the thick lips.

“Do you mean she may get into trouble? I hope she does. I hate her. She’s a wicked woman. She’d murder anyone if she wanted them out of the way. She’s felt like murdering me pretty often. She says things to me that twist me up inside, they hurt so. ‘My dear child, how can you expect me to do anything with you if you stare like a fish and never utter?’ ‘My God, what have I done to be saddled with a burden like this?’ ‘My dear child, I suppose you can’t help looking what you are, but at least you might make some effort to sound a little less like Soho.’ And then she imitates my voice. Yesterday she told me there was a good deal to be said for the German point of view, and asked me if I had any relations among the refugees because she heard quite a number of English people were taking them as maids. I hope she is a murderess. I hope you catch her. I hope they hang her by her beastly old neck until she’s dead.”

The thick soft voice stopped. Miss Birnbaum was trembling very slightly. A thin line of damp appeared above her upper lip.

Alleyn grimaced, rubbed his nose and said:

“Do you feel any better for that?”

“Yes.”

“Vindictive little devil! Can’t you get on top of it all and see it as something intensely disagreeable that won’t last for ever? Have you tried drawing as a counter-irritant?”

“I’ve done a caricature of Her. When I get away from here I’ll send it to her if she’s not in gaol by that time.”

“Do you know Sarah Alleyn?”

“She’s one of the successes. Yes, I know her.”

“Do you like her?”

“She’s not bad. She actually remembers who I am when she sees me.”

Alleyn decided to abandon his niece for the moment.

“Well,” he said, “I dare say you’re nearer to escape than you imagine. I’ll be off now. I hope we meet again.”

“So do I. I suppose you think I’m pretty ghastly.”

“That’s all right. Make up your mind everybody hates you and you’ll always be happy.”

Miss Birnbaum grinned.

“You think you’re clever,” she said, “don’t you? Goodbye.”

They shook hands in a friendly manner, and she saw them out into the hall. Alleyn had a last glimpse of her standing stocky, dark and truculent against a background of restrained and decorous half-tones and beautiful pseudo-Empire curtains.

It was nearly six o’clock in the evening when Alleyn and Fox returned to Scotland Yard. They went to Alleyn’s room. Fox got to work on his notes, Alleyn tackled the reports that had come in while they were away. They both lit pipes and between them was established that pleasant feeling of unexpressed intimacy that comes to two people working in silence at the same job.

Presently Alleyn put down the reports and looked across at his friend. He thought: “How often we have sat like this, Fox and I, working like a couple of obscure clerks in the offices of the Last Judgment concern, filing and correlating the misdeeds of men. Fox is getting quite grizzled and there are elderly purple veins in his cheeks. I shall go home later on, a solitary fellow, to my own hole.” And into his thoughts came the image of a woman who sat in a tall blue chair by his fire, but that was too domestic a picture. Rather, she would sit on the hearthrug. Her hands would be stained with charcoal and they would sweep beautiful lines across a white surface. When he came in she would look up from her drawing and Troy’s eyes would smile or scowl. He jerked the image away and found that Fox was looking at him with his usual air of bland expectancy.

“Finished?” said Alleyn.

“Yes, sir. I’ve been trying to sort things out. There’s the report on the silver cleaning. Young Carewe took that on and he seems to have made a fair job of it. Got himself up as a Rat and Mice Destruction Officer and went round all the houses and palled up with the servants. All the Carrados silver was cleaned this morning including Sir Herbert’s cigar-case which isn’t the right shape anyway, because he saw it in the butler’s pantry. Sir Daniel’s man does his silver cleaning on Mondays and Fridays, so it was all cleaned up yesterday. François does Dimitri’s stuff every day or says he does. Young Potter and Withers are looked after by the flat service and only their table silver is kept polished. The Halcut-Hacketts’ cases are cleaned once a week — Fridays — and rubbed up every morning. That’s that. How’s the report from Bailey?”