Ngaio Marsh - Death in a White Tie

“No. You got under my guard.”

“If it hadn’t been for that damned case, things might have gone better,” said Alleyn. “What a pity it is that we cannot sometimes react to situations like characters in the less honest form of novel. The setting should have been ideal, you know. A murder in your house. You with just enough motive to make a ‘strong situation’ and not enough seriously to implicate you. Me, as the grim detective finding time for a bit of Rochester stuff. You should have found yourself drawn unwillingly into love, Troy. Instead of which I merely acquired a sort of post-mortem disagreeableness. If you painted a surrealist picture of me I would be made of Metropolitan Police notebooks, one eye would be set in a keyhole, my hands would be occupied with somebody else’s private correspondence. The background would be a morgue and the whole pretty conceit wreathed with festoons of blue tape and hangman’s rope. What?”

“Nonsense,” said Troy.

“I suppose so. Yes. The vanity of the male trying to find extraordinary reasons for a perfectly natural phenomenon. You don’t happen to love me. And why the devil should you?”

“You don’t happen to understand,” said Troy shortly, “and why the devil should you.”

She took a cigarette and tilted her face up for him to give her a light. A lock of her short dark hair had fallen across her forehead. Alleyn lit the cigarette, threw the match into the fire and tweaked the lock of hair.

“Abominable woman,” he said abruptly. “I’m so glad you’ve come to see me.”

“I tell you what,” said Troy more amiably. “I’ve always been frightened of the whole business. Love and so on.”

“The physical side?”

“Yes, that, but much more than that. The whole business. The breaking down of all one’s reserves. The mental as well as the physical intimacy.”

“My mind to me a kingdom is.”

“I feel it wouldn’t be,” said Troy.

“I feel it rather terrifyingly still would be. Don’t you think that in the closest possible union there must always be moments when one feels oneself completely separate, completely alone? Surely it must be so, otherwise we would not be so astonished on the rare occasions when we read each other’s thoughts.”

Troy looked at him with a sort of shy determination that made his heart turn over.

“Do you read my thoughts?” she asked.

“Not very clearly, Troy. I dare not wish I could.”

“I do yours, sometimes. That is one of the things that sends my defences up.”

“If you could read them now,” said Alleyn, “you might well be frightened.”

Vassily came in with tea. He had, Alleyn saw at a glance, excitedly rushed out to his favourite delicatessen shop round the corner and purchased caviare. He had made a stack of buttered toast, he had cut up many lemons, and he had made tea in an enormous Stuart pot of Lady Alleyn’s which her son had merely borrowed to show to a collector. Vassily had also found time to put on his best coat. His face was wreathed in smiles of embarrassing significance. He whispered to himself as he set this extraordinary feast out on a low table in front of Troy.

“Please, please,” said Vassily. “If there is anysink more, sir. Should I not perhaps —?”

“No, no,” said Alleyn hastily, “that will do admirably.”

“Caviare!” said Troy. “Oh, how glad I am — a heavenly tea.”

Vassily broke into a loud laugh, excused and bowed himself out, and shut the doors behind him with the stealth of a soubrette in a French comedy.

“You’ve transported the old fool,” said Alleyn.

“What is he?”

“A Russian carry-over from a former case of mine. He very nearly got himself arrested. Can you really eat caviare and drink Russian tea? He’s put some milk there.”

“I don’t want milk and I shall eat any quantity of caviare,” said Troy.

When they had finished and Vassily had taken away the tea things, Troy said: “I must go.”

“Not yet.”

“Oughtn’t you to be at Scotland Yard?”

“They’ll ring me up if I’m wanted. I’m due there later on.”

“We’ve never once mentioned Bunchy,” said Troy.

“No.”

“Shall you get an early night tonight?”

“I don’t know, Troy.”

Alleyn sat on the footstool by her chair. Troy looked down on his head propped between his long thin hands.

“Don’t talk about the case if you’d rather not. I only wanted to let you know that if you’d like to, I’m here.”

“You’re here. I’m trying to get used to it. Shall you ever come again, do you think? Do you know I swore to myself I would not utter one word of love this blessed afternoon? Well, perhaps we’d better talk about the case. I shall commit a heinous impropriety and tell you I may make an arrest this evening.”

“You know who killed Bunchy?”

“We believe we do. If tonight’s show goes the right way we shall be in a position to make the arrest.”

He turned and looked into her face.

“Ah,” he said, “my job again! Why does it revolt you so much?”

Troy said: “It’s nothing reasonable — nothing I can attempt to justify. It’s simply that I’ve got an absolute horror of capital punishment. I don’t even know that I agree with the stock arguments against it. It’s just one of those nightmare things. Like claustrophobia. I used to adore the Ingoldsby Legends when I was a child. One day I came across the one about my Lord Tomnoddy and the hanging. It made the most extraordinary impression on me. I dreamt about it. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I used to turn the pages of the book, knowing that I would come to it, dreading it, and yet — I had to read it. I even made a drawing of it.”

“That should have helped.”

“I don’t think it did. I suppose most people, even the least imaginative, have got a bogey man in the back of their minds. That has always been mine. I’ve never spoken of it before. And so you see when you and I met in that other business and it ended in your arrest of someone I knew—” Her voice wavered. ”And then there was the trial and — the end—”

With a nervous movement she touched his head.

“It’s not you. And yet I mind so much that it is you.”

Alleyn pulled her hand down against his lips.

There was complete silence. Everything he had ever felt; every frisson , the most profound sorrow, the least annoyance, the greatest joy and the smallest pleasure had been but preparation for this moment when her hand melted against his lips. Presently he found himself leaning over her. He still held her hand like a talisman and he spoke against the palm.

“This must be right. I swear it must be right. I can’t be feeling this alone. Troy?”

“Not now,” Troy whispered. “No more, now. Please.”

“Yes.”

“Please.”

He stooped, took her face between his hands, and kissed her hard on the mouth. He felt her come to life beneath his lips. Then he let her go.

“And don’t think I shall ask you to forgive me,” he said. “You’ve no right to let this go by. You’re too damn particular by half, my girl. I’m your man and you know it.”

They stared at each other.

“That’s the stuff to give the troops,” Alleyn added. “The arrogant male.”

“The arrogant turkey-cock,” said Troy shakily.

“I know, I know. But at least you didn’t find it unendurable. Troy, for God’s sake can’t we be honest with each other? When I kissed you just then you seemed to meet me like a flame. Could I have imagined that?”

“No.”

“It was as if you shouted with your whole body that you loved me. How can I not be arrogant?”

“How can I not be shaken?”