Ngaio Marsh - Death in a White Tie

On the way to his flat he wondered if the loss of the best part of another night’s sleep was going to get him any nearer a solution.

Alleyn walked restlessly about his sitting-room. He had sent Vassily, his old servant, off to bed. The flat, at the end of a cul-de-sac behind Coventry Street, was very silent. He was fond of this room. It had a contradictory air of monastic comfort that was, if he had realized it, a direct expression of himself. Dürer’s praying hands were raised above his mantelpiece. At the other end of the room Troy’s painting of the wharf at Suva uttered, in sharp cool colours, a simple phrase of beauty. He had bought this picture secretly from one of her exhibitions and Troy did not know that it hung there in his room. Three comfortable elderly chairs from his mother’s house at Bossicote, his father’s desk and, waist-high all round the walls, a company of friendly books. But this June night his room seemed chilly. He put a match to the wood fire and drew three armchairs into the circle of its radiance. Time those two arrived. A taxi came up the cul-de-sac and stopped. The door banged. He heard Bridget’s voice and went to let them in.

He was reminded vividly of two small children entering a dentist’s waiting-room. Donald was the victim, Bridget the not very confident escort. Alleyn tried to dispel this atmosphere, settled them in front of the fire, produced ciagrettes, and remembering they were grown-up offered them drinks. Bridget refused. Donald with an air of grandeur accepted a whisky and soda.

“Now then,” said Alleyn, “What’s it all about?” He felt he ought to add: “Open wide!” and as he handed Donald his drink: “Rinse, please.”

“It’s about Donald,” said Bridget in a high determined voice. “He’s promised to let me tell you. He doesn’t like it but I say I won’t marry him unless he does, so he’s going to. And besides, he really thinks he ought to do it.”

“It’s a damn fool thing to do,” said Donald. “There’s no reason actually why I should come into it at all. I’ve made up my mind but all the same I don’t see—”

“All the same, you are in it, darling, so it doesn’t much matter if you see why or not, as the case may be.”

“All right. That’s settled anyway, isn’t it? We needn’t go on arguing. Let’s tell Mr Alleyn and get it over.”

“Yes, Let’s. Shall I?”

“If you like.”

Bridget turned to Alleyn.

“When we met tonight,” she began, “I asked Donald about Captain Withers, because the way you talked about him this afternoon made me think perhaps he’s not a good idea. I made Donald tell me exactly what he knows about Wits.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. Well, Wits is a crook. Isn’t he Donald?”

“I suppose so.”

“He’s a crook because he runs a gambling hell at Leatherhead. Don says you know that or anyway you suspect it. Well, he does. And Donald said he’d go in with him only he didn’t know then how crooked Wits was. And then Donald lost money to Wits and couldn’t pay him back and Wits said he’d better stand in with him because he’d make it pretty hot for Donald if he didn’t. What with Bunchy and everything.”

“But Bunchy paid your debts to Withers,” said Alleyn.

“Not all,” said Donald with a scarlet face but a look of desperate determination (“First extraction,” thought Alleyn.) ”I didn’t tell him about all of it.”

“I see.”

“So Donald said he’d go in with Wits. And then when he quarrelled with Bunchy and went to live with Wits he found out that Wits was worse of a crook than ever. Don found out that Wits was getting money from a woman. Do I have to tell you who she was?”

“Was it Mrs Halcut-Hackett?”

“Yes.”

“Was it much?” Alleyn asked Donald.

“Yes, sir,” said Donald. “I don’t know how much. But she — he told me she had an interest in the Leatherhead club. I thought at first it was all right. Really I did. It’s hard to explain. I just got sort of used to the way Wits talked. Everything is a ramp nowadays — a racket — that’s what Wits said and I began rather to think the same way. I suppose I lost my eye. Bridget says I did.”

“I expect she’s right, isn’t she?”

“I suppose so. But — I don’t know. It was all rather fun in a way until — well, until today.”

“You mean since Bunchy was murdered?”

“Yes. I do. But — you see—”

“Let me,” said Bridget. “You see, Mr Alleyn, Donald got rather desperate. Wits rang up and told him to keep away. That was this morning.”

“I know. It was at my instigation,” said Alleyn. “I was there.”

“Oh,” said Donald.

“Well, anyway,” said Bridget, “Donald got a bit of a shock. What with your questions and Wits always rubbing it in that Donald was going to be quite well off when his uncle died.”

“Did Captain Withers make a lot of that?”

Bridget took Donald’s hand.

“Yes,” she said, “he did. Didn’t he, Donald?”

“Anyone would think, Bridget, that you wanted to hang one of us, Wits or me,” said Donald and raised her hand to his cheek.

Bridget said: “I’m going to tell everything . You’re innocent, and if you’re innocent you’re safe. My mother would say that. You say it, don’t you, Mr Alleyn?”

“Yes,” said Alleyn.

“Well, this afternoon,” Bridget went on, “Donald’s things came back from Wits’ flat. His clothes and his books. When he unpacked them he saw one book was missing.”

“The first volume of Taylor’s Medical Jurisprudence ?”

Donald wetted his lips and nodded.

“That upset Donald awfully,” Bridget continued, growing rather white in the face, “because of one chapter in the book. After they read the papers this morning Donald and Wits had an argument about how long it took to — to—”

“Oh God!” said Donald suddenly.

“To asphyxiate anybody?” asked Alleyn.

“Yes. And Donald looked it up in this book.”

“Did Captain Withers handle the book?”

Donald looked quickly at Bridget and said: “Yes, he did. He read a bit of it and then lost interest. He thought it would have taken longer, he said. ”

“Donald was puzzled about the book not arriving, and about Wits telling him not to come to the flat,” said Bridget. “He thought about it all the afternoon, and the more he thought the less he liked it. So he rang up. Wits answered but when he heard Donald’s voice he simply cut him off without another word. Didn’t he, darling?”

“Yes,” said Donald. “I rang again and he didn’t answer. I–I couldn’t think clearly at all. I felt stone cold in the pit of my stomach. It was simply ghastly to find myself cut dead like that. Why shouldn’t he answer me, why ? Why hadn’t he sent the book? Only this morning we’d been together in his flat, perfectly friendly. Until the news came — after that I didn’t listen to anything Wits said. As soon as I knew Uncle Bunch had been murdered I couldn’t think of anything else. I wasn’t dressed when the papers came. Mother had known for hours but, the telephone being disconnected then, she couldn’t get hold of me. I hadn’t told her my address. Wits kept talking. I didn’t listen. And then, when I did get home, you were there, getting at me, getting at me. And then my mother crying, and the flowers, and everything. And on top of it all this business of Wits not wanting to speak to me. I couldn’t think. I just had to see Bridget.”

“Yes,” said Bridget, “he had to see me. But you’re muddling things, Donald. We ought to keep them in their right order. Mr Alleyn, we’ve got as far as this afternoon. Well, Donald got so rattled about the telephone and the missing book that in spite of what Wits had said, he felt he had to see him. So after dinner he took a taxi to Wits’s flat and he could see a light under the blind, so he knew Wits was in. Donald still had his own latch-key so he went straight in and up to the flat. Now you go on, Donald.”