Ngaio Marsh - Death in a White Tie

“Mr Harris,” said Alleyn loudly. Mr Harris instantly threw his head back and looked at Alleyn through his glasses.

“Eighteen years ago,” continued Alleyn very rapidly, “there was a motor accident on the bridge outside the rectory at Falconbridge. The driver, Captain O’Brien, was severely injured and was taken into the rectory. Do you remember?”

Mr Harris had opened his mouth in astonishment but he said nothing. He merely continued to gape at Alleyn.

“You were very kind to him,” Alleyn went on; “you kept him at the rectory and sent for help. He was taken to the hospital and died there a few hours later.”

He paused, but Mr Harris’s expression had not changed. There was something intensely embarrassing in his posture and his unexpected silence.

“Do you remember?” asked Alleyn.

Without closing his mouth Mr Harris slowly shook his head from side to side.

“But it was such a serious accident. His young wife motored down from London. She went to the hospital but he died without regaining consciousness.”

“Poor fellow!” said Mr Harris in his deepest voice. “Poor fell-oh!”

“Can’t you remember, now?”

Mr Harris made no reply but got to his feet, went to the french window, and called into the garden.

“Edith! Edith!”

“Hoo-ee?” replied a wavering voice close at hand.

“Can you spare-ah a moment?”

“Coming.”

He turned away from the window and beamed at them.

“Now we shan’t be long,” he announced.

But when Alleyn saw Mrs Harris amiably blunder up the garden path he scarcely shared in this optimistic view. They all stood up. She accepted Alleyn’s chair and drew her gardening gloves from her old hands. Mr Harris contemplated her as if she was some rare achievement of his own.

“Edith, my dear,” he said loudly, “would you tell these gentlemen about an accident?”

“Which accident?”

“That, I’m afraid, I don’t know, dear. Indeed we are depending upon you to inform us.”

“I don’t understand you, Walter.”

“I don’t understand myself very well, I must admit, Edith. I find it all very puzzling.”

“What?” said his wife. Alleyn now realized that she was slightly deaf.

“Puzzling,” shouted Mr Harris.

“My husband’s memory is not very good,” explained Mrs Harris smiling gently at Alleyn and Fox. “He was greatly shaken by his cycling accident some months ago. I suppose you have called about the insurance.”

Raising his voice Alleyn embarked once more on his recital. This time he was not interrupted, but as neither of the Harrises gave any sign of understanding, it was impossible to tell whether or not he spoke in vain. By the time he had finished, Mr Harris had adopted his former disconcerting glare. Mrs Harris, however, turned to her husband and said:

“You remember the blood on the carpet, Walter? At dear old Falconbridge?”

“Dear me, yes. Now that’s what I was trying to recollect. Of course it was. Poor fellow. Poor fell-oh!”

“Then you do remember?” Alleyn cried.

“Indeed I do,” said Mrs Harris reproachfully. “The poor young wife wrote us such a charming letter, thanking us for the little we had been able to do for him. I would have liked to answer it but unfortunately my husband lost it.”

“Edith, I have discovered dear old Worsley’s letter. It was in my pocket. Fancy!”

“Fancy, dear, yes.”

“Talking of letters,” said Alleyn to Mrs Harris. “Can you by any chance remember anything about a letter that was lost on the occasion of Captain O’Brien’s accident? I think you were asked if it had been found in the vicarage.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t catch—”

Alleyn repeated it.

“To be sure I do,” said Mrs Harris. “Perfectly.”

“You were unable to give any information about this letter?”

“On the contrary.”

“What!”

“On the contrary,” repeated Mrs Harris firmly. “I sent it after him.”

“ After who ?” roared Fox so loudly that even Mrs Harris gave a little jump. “I’m sure I beg pardon, sir,” said Fox hastily, “I don’t know what came over me.” He opened his notebook in some confusion.

“Mrs Harris,” said Alleyn, “will you please tell us everything you can remember about this letter?”

“Yes, please do, Edith,” said her husband unexpectedly. “She’ll find it for you,” he added in an aside. “Don’t distress yourselves.”

“Well,” began Mrs Harris. “It’s a long time ago now and I’m afraid I’m rather hazy. It was after they had taken him away, I fancy, that we found it under the couch in the study. That was when we noticed the stain on the carpet you remember, Walter. At first, of course, I thought it was one of my husband’s letters — it was not in an envelope. But when I glanced at it I realized at once that it was not, as it began ‘Dear Daddy’ and we have no children.”

“ ‘Dear Daddy,’ ” repeated Alleyn.

“I decided afterwards that it was perhaps ‘Dear Paddy’ but as my husband’s name is Walter Bernard it didn’t signify. ‘Why,’ I said, or something of that sort. ‘Why, it must have dropped out of that poor fellow’s coat when the ambulance man examined him.’ And — of course, I remember it now as clearly as if it was yesterday — and I said to little Violet: ‘Pop on your bicycle and take it to the hospital as quickly as you can, dear, because they may be looking for it.’ So little Violet—”

“Who was she, please?” asked Alleyn rather breathlessly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“ Who was little Violet ?” shouted Alleyn.

“My small niece. My husband’s brother’s third daughter. She was spending her holidays with us. She is grown up now and has a delightful post in London with a Lady Carrados.”

“Thank you,” said Alleyn. “Please go on.”

But there was not much more to tell. Apparently Violet Harris had bicycled off with Paddy O’Brien’s letter and had returned to say she had given it to the gentleman who had brought the lady in the motor-car. The gentleman had been sitting in the motor-car outside the hospital. As far as Mrs Harris could state, and she and her husband went into a mazed avuncular family history to prove their point, little Violet had been fifteen years old at the time. Alleyn wrote out her statement, shorn of its interminable parentheses, and she signed it. Throughout the interview neither she nor her husband gave the faintest sign of any form of curiosity. Apparently it did not strike either of them as singular that the interest in a letter lost eighteen years ago should suddenly be excited to such a pitch that CID officers thought it necessary to seek for signed statements in the heart of Buckinghamshire.

They insisted on taking Alleyn and Fox round their garden. Alleyn hadn’t the heart to refuse and besides he had a liking for gardens. Mrs Harris gave them each a bunch of lavender and rosemary, which flowers, she said, were less conspicuous for gentlemen to carry than the gayer blossoms of summer. The sight of Fox solemnly grasping a posy in his enormous fist and examining a border of transplanted pansies was almost too much for his superior officer. It was two o’clock when the tour of the garden was completed.

“You must come in whenever you are passing,” said Mrs Harris, blinking cordially at Alleyn, “and I shall remember what you say about your mother’s herb garden.”

“Yes, yes,” agreed Mr Harris. “Whenever you are passing. Of course. Anybody from dear old Falconbridge is doubly welcome.”

They stood side by side at the gate and waved, rather in the manner of children, as Alleyn turned the car and drove away down Oakapple Lane.