Ngaio Marsh - Death in a White Tie

“Eight, but we can have it earlier if you like. I’m all alone.”

“I’ll come now, mama, and we’ll have it at eight. All right?”

“Quite all right,” said the clear little voice. “So glad, darling.”

Alleyn left his mother’s telephone number in case anybody should want him, and went by taxi to the flat she had taken in Catherine Street for the London season. He found Lady Alleyn surrounded by newspapers and wearing horn-rimmed glasses.

“Hullo, darling,” she said. “I shan’t pretend I’m not reading about poor Bunchy, but we won’t discuss it if you don’t want to.”

“To tell you the truth,” said Alleyn, “I rather feel I want to sit in an armchair, stare at nothing, and scarcely speak. Charming company for you, mama.”

“Why not have a bath?” suggested Lady Alleyn without looking up from her paper.

“Do I smell?” asked her son.

“No. But I always think a bath is rather a good idea when you’ve got to the staring stage. What time did you get up this morning?”

“ Yesterday morning. But I have bathed and shaved since then.”

“No bed at all last night? I should have a bath. I’ll run it for you. Use my room. I’ve sent for a change of clothes.”

“Good Lord!” said Alleyn, and then: “You’re something rather special in the maternal line, aren’t you?”

He bathed. The solace of steaming water wrapped him in a sort of luxurious trance. His thoughts, that for sixteen hours had been so sharply concentrated, became blurred and nebulous. Was it only ‘this morning’ that he had crossed the courtyard to a taxi, half-hidden by wreaths of mist? This morning! Their footsteps had sounded hollow on the stone pavement. “I got to look after meself, see?” A door opened with a huge slow movement that was full of horror. “Dead, ain’t ’e? Dead, ain’t ’e ? DEAD, AIN’T ’E?” “Suffocated!” gasped Alleyn and woke with his nose full of bath-water.

His man had sent clean linen and a dinner-suit. He dressed slowly, feeling rarefied, and rejoined his mother in the sitting-room.

“Help yourself to a drink,” she said from behind her newspaper.

He got his drink and sat down. He wondered vaguely why he should feel so dog-tired. He was used to missing a night’s sleep and working straight through the twenty-four hours. It must be because it was Bunchy. And the thought came into his mind that there must be a great many people at this hour who with him remembered that comic figure and regretted it.

“He had a great deal of charm,” said Alleyn aloud and his mother’s voice answered him tranquilly.

“Yes, a great deal of charm. The most unfair of all the attributes.”

“You don’t add: ‘I sometimes think,’ ” said Alleyn.

“Why should I?”

“People so often use that phrase to water down their ideas. You are too positive to use it.”

“In Bunchy’s case the charm was one of character and then it is not unfair,” said Lady Alleyn. “Shall we dine? It’s been announced.”

“Good Lord,” said Alleyn, “I never noticed.”

Over their coffee he asked: “Where’s Sarah?”

“She’s dining and going to a play with a suitably chaperoned party.”

“Does she see anything of Rose Birnbaum?”

“My dear Roderick, who on earth is Rose Birnbaum?”

“She’s Mrs Halcut-Hackett’s burden for the season. Her professional burden.”

“Oh, that gel! Poor little thing, yes. I’ve noticed her. I don’t know if Sarah pays much attention. Why?”

“I wish you’d ask her here some time. Not a seasonable party. She’s got an inferiority complex about them. She’s one of the more unfortunate by-products of the season.”

“I see. I wonder why that singularly hard woman has involved herself with a paying protégée. Are the Halcut-Hacketts short of money?”

“I don’t know. I should think she might be at the moment.”

“Withers,” said Lady Alleyn.

“Hullo. You know all about Withers, do you?”

“My dear Rory, you forget I sit in chaperones’ corner.”

“Gossip,” said Alleyn.

“The gossip is not as malicious as you may think. I always maintain that men are just as avid scandalmongers as women.”

“I know you do.”

“Mrs Halcut-Hackett is not very popular, so they don’t mind talking about her in chaperones’ corner. She’s an opportunist. She never gives an invitation that will not bring its reward and she never accepts one that is likely to lower her prestige. She is not a kind woman. She’s extremely common, but that doesn’t matter. Lots of common people are charming. Like bounders. I believe no woman ever falls passionately in love with a man unless he has just the least touch of the bounder somewhere in his composition.”

“Really, mama!”

“I mean in a very rarified sense. A touch of arrogance. There’s nothing like it, my dear. If you’re too delicately considerate of a woman’s feelings she may begin by being grateful, but the chances are she’ll end by despising you.”

Alleyn made a wry face. “Treat ’em rough?”

“Not actually, but let them think you might . It’s humiliating but true that ninety-nine women out of a hundred like to feel their lover is capable of bullying them. Eighty of them would deny it. How often does one not hear a married woman say with a sort of satisfaction that her husband won’t let her do this or that? Why do abominably written books with strong silent heroes still find a large female public? What do you suppose attracts thousands of women to a cinema actor with the brains of a mosquito?”

“His ability as a cinema actor.”

“That, yes. Don’t be tiresome, Roderick. Above all, his arrogant masculinity. That’s what attracts ninety-nine out of a hundred, you may depend upon it.”

“There is, perhaps fortunately, always the hundredth woman.”

“And don’t be too sure of her. I am not , I hope, one of those abominable women who cries down her own sex. I’m by way of being a feminist, but I refuse to allow the ninety-nine (dear me, this begins to sound like a hymn) to pull the wool over the elderly eyes.”

“You’re an opinionated little party, mama, and you know it. But don’t suppose you can pull the wool over my eyes either. Do you suggest that I go to Miss Agatha Troy, haul her about her studio by her hair, tuck her under my arrogant masculine arm, and lug her off to the nearest registry office?”

“Church, if you please. The Church knows what I’m talking about. Look at the marriage service. A direct and embarrassing expression of the savagery inherent in our ideas of mating.”

“Would you say the season came under the same heading?”

“In a way I would say so. And why not? As long as one recognizes the more savage aspects of the season, one keeps one’s sense of proportion and enjoys it. As I do. Thoroughly. And as Bunchy Gospell did. When I think of him,” said Lady Alleyn, her eyes shining with tears, “when I think of him this morning, gossiping away to all of us, so pleased with Evelyn’s ball, so gay and — and real , I simply cannot realize—”

“I know.”

“I suppose Mrs Halcut-Hackett comes into the picture, doesn’t she? And Withers?”

“What makes you think so?”

“He had his eye on them. Both there and at the Halcut-Hacketts’ cocktail-party. Bunchy knew something about Captain Withers, Roderick. I saw that and I remarked on it to him. He told me not to be inquisitive, bless him, but he admitted I was right. Is there anything more in it than that?”

“A good deal. Withers has a bad record and Bunchy knew it.”

“Is that a motive for murder?” asked Lady Alleyn.

“It might be. There are several discrepancies. I’ve got to try to settle one of them tonight.”