Ngaio Marsh - Death in a White Tie

“Excuse me, Mr Alleyn,” said Dimitri, “but I believe that I may charge Sir Herbert Carrados with libel on this statement. Is it not so?”

“I don’t think I advise you to do so, Mr Dimitri. On the other hand I shall very strongly advise Lady Carrados to charge you with blackmail. Lady Carrados, is it a fact that on the morning of May twenty-fifth, when Lord Robert Gospell paid you a visit, you received a blackmailing letter?”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe that the only source from which the blackmailer could have got his information was the letter lost on the day of Captain O’Brien’s accident?”

“Yes.”

Alleyn took an envelope from his pocket, handed it to her.

“Was the blackmailing letter written in a similar style to this?”

She glanced at it and turned her head away.

“It was exactly like that.”

“If I tell you that the lady to whom this letter is addressed had been blackmailed as you have been blackmailed and that we have positive evidence that the man who wrote this address was Colombo Dimitri, are you prepared to charge him with blackmail?”

“Yes.”

“It is completely false,” said Dimitri. “I shall certainly sue for libel.”

His face was ashen. He put his bandaged hand to his lips and pressed it against them.

“Before we go any further,” said Alleyn, “I think I should explain that Lord Robert Gospell was in the confidence of Scotland Yard as regards these blackmailing letters. He was working for us on the case. We’ve got his signed statement that leaves no doubt at all that Mr Dimitri collected a sum of money at a concert held at the Constance Street Hall on Thursday, June the third. Lord Robert actually watched Mr Dimitri collect his money.”

“He—” Dimitri caught his breath, his lips were drawn back from his teeth in a sort of grin. “I deny everything,” he said. “Everything. I wish to send for my lawyer.”

“You shall do so, Mr Dimitri, when I have finished. On June the eighth, two nights ago, Lady Carrados gave a ball at Marsdon House. Lord Robert was there. As he knew so much about Mr Dimitri already, he thought he would find out a little more. He watched Mr Dimitri. He now knew the method employed. He also knew that Lady Carrados was the victim of blackmail. Is that right, Lady Carrados?”

“Yes. I had a conversation with him about it. He knew what I was going to do.”

“What were you going to do?”

“Put my bag containing five hundred pounds in a certain place in the green sitting-room upstairs.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “Now, Lord Robert saw Mr Dimitri return her empty bag to Lady Carrados shortly before one o’clock. At one o’clock he rang me up and told me he now had enough evidence. The conversation was interrupted by someone who must have overheard at least one very significant phrase. Two and a half hours later Lord Robert was murdered.”

The quiet of the room was blown into piercing clamour. Dimitri had screamed like a woman, his mouth wide open. This shocking rumpus lasted for a second and stopped. Alleyn had a picture of an engine-driver pulling a string and then letting it go. Dimitri stood, still with a gaping mouth, wagging his finger at Alleyn.

“Now then, now then,” said Fox and stepped up to him.

“False!” said Dimitri, frantically snapping his fingers in Fox’s face and then shaking them as if they were scorched. “False! You accuse me of murder. I am not an assassin. I am innocent. Cristo mio , I am innocent, innocent, innocent!”

For a moment it looked as if he’d try to bolt from the room. He might have been a tenor giving an excruciatingly bad performance in a second-rate Italian opera. He mouthed at Alleyn, tore his hair, crumpled on to a chair, and burst into tears. Upon the five English people in the office there descended a heavy aura of embarrassment.

“I am innocent,” sobbed Dimitri. “As innocent as a child. The blessed saints bear witness to my innocence. The blessed saints bear witness—”

“Unfortunately,” said Alleyn, “their evidence is not acceptable in a court of law. If you will keep quiet for a moment, Mr Dimitri, we can get on with our business. Will you ask Mrs Halcut-Hackett to come in, please, Fox?”

The interval was enlivened by the sound of Dimitri biting his nails and sobbing.

Mrs Halcut-Hackett, dressed as if she was going to a Continental restaurant and looking like a beauty specialist’s mistake, came into the office. Fox followed with an extra chair which he placed for her. She sat down and drew up her bust until it seemed to perch like some superstructure on a rigid foundation. Then she saw Lady Carrados. An extraordinary look passed between the two women. It was as if they had said to each other: “You, too?”

“Mrs Halcut-Hackett,” said Alleyn. “You have told me that after a charade party you gave in December you found that a document which you valued was missing from a box on your dressing-table. Had this man, Colombo Dimitri, an opportunity of being alone in this room?”

She turned her head and looked at Dimitri who flapped his hands at her.

“Why, yes,” she said. “He certainly had.”

“Did Lord Robert sit near you at the Sirmione Quartette’s concert on June the third?”

“You know he did.”

“Do you remember that this man, Colombo Dimitri, sat not very far away from you?”

“Why — yes.”

“Your bag was stolen that afternoon?”

“Yes.” She looked again at Lady Carrados who suddenly leant forward and touched her hand.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I, too. Indeed you have nothing to fear from us. We have suffered, too. I have made up my mind to hide nothing now. Will you help by also hiding — nothing?”

“Oh, my dear!” said Mrs Halcut-Hackett in a whisper.

“We need not ask for very much more,” said Alleyn.

“Would it have been possible for Dimitri to have taken your bag while you were out of the concert-room?”

“Lord Robert might have seen,” said Mrs Halcut-Hackett.

“Lord Robert did see,” said Alleyn.

“The dead!” cried Dimitri. “I cannot be accused by the dead.”

“If that was true,” said Alleyn, “as it often is, what a motive for murder! I tell you we have a statement, written and signed by the dead.”

Dimitri uttered a sort of moan and shrank back in his chair.

Alleyn took from his pocket the cigarette-case with the medallion.

“This is yours, isn’t it?” he asked Mrs Halcut-Hackett.

“Yes. I’ve told you so.”

“You left it in the green sitting-room at Marsdon House?”

“Yes — only a few minutes.”

“A minute or two, not more, after you came out of that room you heard the dialling tinkle of the telephone?”

“Yes.”

“You had seen Lord Robert coming upstairs?”

“Yes.”

Alleyn nodded to Fox who again left the room.

“After you had joined your partner in the other sitting-out room, you discovered the loss of your case?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Your partner fetched it.”

She wetted her lips. Dimitri was listening avidly. Carrados had slumped down in his chair with his chin on his chest. Alleyn felt he was giving, for anybody that had time to notice it, a quiet performance of a broken man. Lady Carrados sat upright, her hands folded in her lap, her face looked exhausted. The AC was motionless behind the green lamp.

“Well, Mrs Halcut-Hackett? Your partner fetched your case from the green sitting-room, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

The door opened and Withers walked in after Fox. He stood with his hands in his pockets and blinked his white eyelashes.

“Hallo,” he said. “What’s the idea?”

“I have invited you to come here, Captain Withers, in order that the Assistant Commissioner may hear your statement about your movements on the night of the ball at Marsdon House. I have discovered that although you left Marsdon House at three-thirty you did not arrive at the Matador Night Club until four-fifteen. You therefore have no alibi for the murder of Lord Robert Gospell.”