Ngaio Marsh - Death in a White Tie

“Murderer!” screamed Dimitri. “Treacherous, filthy assassin! I confess! Gentlemen, I confess! I have worked for him for seven years and now, now, now he will stand aside and let me go to the gallows for the crime he has himself committed. I will tell you everything. Everything .”

“Speak up, Rory,” said the AC.

“Daniel Davidson,” said Alleyn, “I arrest you for the murder of Lord Robert Gospell, and I warn you…”

“I thought,” said Alleyn, “that you would like to know at once, Mildred.”

Lady Mildred Potter shook her head, not so much in disagreement as from a sort of general hopelessness.

“It was nice of you to come, Roderick. But I’m afraid I simply cannot take it in. Sir Daniel has always been perfectly charming to both of us. Bunchy liked him very much. He told me so. And there’s no doubt Sir Daniel did wonders with my indigestion. Quite cured it. Are you sure you are not mistaken?”

“Quite sure, I am afraid, Mildred. You see, Dimitri has confessed that Davidson has been in a sort of infamous partnership with him for seven years. Davidson knew something about Dimitri in the first instance, I think. That’s probably how he managed to get his hold over Dimitri. Davidson has been extremely careful. He has found the data but he has left Dimitri to carry out the practical work. Davidson saw the open drawer and the letter in Carrados’s writing-cabinet. Davidson came in on the scene between Carrados and Bridget. He was careful never to be left alone in the room himself, but he told Dimitri about the secret drawer and instructed Dimitri how to steal the letter. He told Dimitri that there might be something interesting there. Dimitri did all the dirty work. He collected the handbags of the blackmailed ladies. He wrote the letters. Sometimes he got the ideas. Mrs Halcut-Hackett’s trinket-box was one of Dimitri’s brightest ideas, I imagine.”

“I’m lost in it, Roderick. Troy, darling, do you understand?”

Alleyn looked at Troy, sitting on the floor at Mildred’s feet.

“I think I’m beginning to understand,” said Troy.

“Well, go on, Roderick,” said Mildred drearily.

“There were three things that I could not fit into the pattern,” said Alleyn, and he spoke more to Troy than to Mildred. “It seemed at first that if Dimitri overheard the telephone call he had an overwhelming motive. We knew he was a blackmailer, and we knew Bunchy was on his track. But we found that Dimitri literally could not have done the murder. His alibi stood up to the time factor and came out on top.

“Withers is a bad lot, and Bunchy knew that too, but somehow I could not see Withers as the killer. He’s hard, wary and completely unscrupulous. If he did ever murder it would be deliberately, and with forethought. The whole thing would be worked out to the last second. This job was, we believed, unpremeditated until within two and a half hours of its execution. Still Withers had to be considered. There was a gap in his alibi. I now know that he spent that gap driving his woman-dupe about in his car in order to discuss a situation which had become acute. Into this department, and again I implore your silence because I certainly shouldn’t tell you about it, came old General Halcut-Hackett like an elderly harlequin dodging about in the fog of Belgrave Square at the crucial time when the guests left Marsdon House. He, of course, was looking for his wife. Next came Carrados. Old Carrados was an infernal bore. His alibi, which overlapped Dimitri’s, held good, but his behaviour was rum in the extreme. It was not until I heard of an incident eighteen years old that I managed to fit him into the pattern. And all the time there were three things about Davidson for which I could find only one explanation. He told me he saw a certain cigarette-case in the green sitting-room at about eleven-thirty. Certainly not later. We found that the cigarette-case in question was only in this room for about four minutes round about one o’clock during which the telephone conversation took place. Why should Davidson lie? He had thought the case was a set-piece — one of the Marsdon House possessions; he had not realized that it was the personal property of one of the guests. He stated most emphatically that he did not overhear the conversation and indeed did not return to the room after eleven-thirty. But there is a curious point about the telephone conversation. Bunchy said to me: ‘He might as well mix his damn brews with poison.’ Davidson must have overheard that sentence because it came just before Bunchy broke off. Bunchy was talking about Dimitri, of course, but I believe Davidson thought he was talking about him. The broken sentence: ‘with such filthy ingenuity,’ or something of that sort. Davidson probably thought the next word Bunchy spoke would be his (Davidson’s) name. That’s odd, isn’t it?

“As for the figure Miss Harris saw beyond the glass panel, undoubtedly it was Davidson’s. At his wits’ end he must have dived through the nearest door and there, I suppose, pulled himself together and decided to murder Bunchy.

“Then there is the other cigarette-case.”

Alleyn looked at Lady Mildred. Her head nodded like a mandarin’s. He turned back to Troy and spoke softly.

“I mean the weapon. On the morning after the murder I asked to see Davidson’s case. He showed me a cigarette-case that was certainly too small for the job and said it was the one he had carried last night. I noticed how immaculate it was, looked closely at it, and found traces of plate-powder in the tooling. We learnt that Davidson’s cases were cleaned the morning before the ball and had not been touched after the ball. It seemed to me that this case had certainly not been out all night. It shone like a mirror and I would have sworn had not been used since it was put in his pocket. It was a thin bit of evidence but it did look as if he had lied when he said it was the case he took to Marsdon House. And then there was the condition — is Mildred asleep?”

“Yes,” said Lady Mildred. “Do you mind very much, dear Roderick, if I go to bed? I’m afraid I shall never understand, you see, and I am really so very tired. I think sorrow is one of the most tiring things, don’t you? Troy, my dear, you will look after poor Roderick, won’t you? Donald will be in late and I don’t know where he is just now.”

“I think he took Bridget Carrados home,” said Alleyn, opening the door for Mildred. “Evelyn and her husband wanted to be alone and Donald was in the waiting-room looking hopeful.”

“He seems to be very attached to her,” said Mildred, pausing at the door and looking at Alleyn with tear-stained eyes. “Is she a nice girl, Roderick?”

“Very nice. I think she’ll look after him. Good night, Mildred.”

“Good night.”

Alleyn shut the door after her and returned to Troy.

“May I stay for a little longer?”

“Yes, please. I want to hear the end of it all.” Troy looked sideways at him. “How extraordinarily well-trained your eye must be! To notice the grains of plate-powder in the tooling of a cigarette-case; could anything be more admirable? What else did you notice?”

“I notice that although your eyes are grey there are little flecks of green in them and that the iris is ringed with black. I notice that when you smile your face goes crooked. I notice that the third finger of your left hand has a little spot of vermillion on the inside where a ring should hide it; and from that, Miss Troy, I deduce that you are a painter in oils and are not so proud as you should be of your lovely fingers.”

“Please tell me the end of the case.”

“I would rather tell you that since this afternoon in the few spare moments I have had to spend upon it I have considered your case and that I have decided to take out a warrant for your arrest. The charge is impeding an officer of the law in the execution of his duty.”