Ngaio Marsh: Death in a White Tie

“Don’t be so damned facetious,” said Troy.

“All right. Where was I?”

“You had got to the third point against Davidson.”

“Yes. The third point was in the method used in committing the crime. I don’t think Bunchy would mind if he knew that even while I described his poor little body I was thinking of the woman to whom I spoke. Do you? He was such an understanding person, wasn’t he, with just the right salty flavour of irony? I’m sure he knew how short-lived the first pang of sorrow really is if only people would confess as much. Well, Troy, the man who killed him knew how easy it was to asphyxiate people and I didn’t think many killers would know that. The only real mark of violence was the scar made by the cigarette-case. A doctor would realize how little force was needed and Bunchy’s doctor would know how great an ally that weak heart would be. Davidson told me about the condition of the heart because he knew I would discover he had examined Bunchy. He kept his head marvellously when I interviewed him, did Sir Daniel. He’s as clever as paint. We’re searching his house tonight. Fox is there now. I don’t think we’ll find anything except perhaps the lethal cigarette-case, but I’ve more hopes of Dimitri’s desk. I couldn’t get into that yesterday.”

“What about the cloak and hat?”

“That brings us to a very curious episode. We have searched for the cloak and hat ever since four o’clock yesterday morning and we have not found them. We did our usual routine stuff, going round all the dust-bin experts and so on and we also notified the parcels-post offices. This afternoon we heard of a parcel that had been dumped at the Main Western office during the rush hour yesterday. It was over-stamped with tuppenny stamps and addressed to somewhere in China. The writing was script which was our blackmailer’s favourite medium of expression. It’s gone, alas, but I think there’s just a chance we may trace it. It’s a very long chance. Now who is likely to have an unlimited supply of tuppenny stamps, my girl?”

“Somebody who gives receipts?”

“Bless me, if you’re not a clever old thing. Right as usual, said the Duchess. And who should give receipts but Sir Daniel, the fashionable physician? Who but he?”

“Dimitri for one.”

“I’m sorry to say that is perfectly true, darling. But when I was in Davidson’s waiting-room, I saw several of those things that I think are called illustrated brochures. They appealed for old clothes for the Central Chinese Medical Mission at God knows where. It is our purpose, my dear Troy, to get one of those brochures and write to the Central Chinese Mission asking for further information.”

“I wonder,” murmured Troy.

“And so, you may depend upon it, do I. There’s one other point which has been kindly elucidated by the gibbering Dimitri. This morning he sent his servant out for a Times . When we heard of this we had a look at The Times , too. We found the agony-column notice that I talked about when poor Mildred was trying not to go to sleep, and before I could tell you how much I approve of the solemn way you knit your brows when you listen to me. Now, this notice read like this: ‘Childie Darling. Living in exile. Longing. Only want Daughter. Daddy.’ A rum affair, we thought, and we noticed in our brilliant way that the initial letters read ‘CD. Lie low. D.D.’ which might not be too fancifully elaborated into ‘Colombo Dimitri, lie low, Daniel Davidson.’ And, in fact, Mr Dimitri confessed to this artless device. It was arranged, he says, that if anything unprecedented, untoward, unanticipated, ever occurred, Davidson would communicate with Dimitri in precisely this manner. It was a poor effort, but Sir Daniel hadn’t much time. He must have composed it as soon as he got home after his night’s work. Anything more?”

“What about Dimitri and Withers?”

“They were taken to the charge-room, and duly charged. The one with blackmail, the other with running a gaming-house. I’ll explain the gaming-house some other time. They are extremely nasty fellows, but if Dimitri hadn’t been quite such a nasty fellow, we wouldn’t have stood as good a chance of scaring him into fits and getting the whole story about Davidson. I gambled on that, and by jingo, Troy, it was a gamble.”

“What would have happened if Dimitri had kept quiet even though he did think you were going to arrest him for murder?”

“We would still have arrested him for blackmail, and would have had to plug away at Davidson on what we’d got. But Dimitri saw we had a clear case on the blackmail charge. He’d nothing to gain in protecting Davidson.”

“Do you think he really knows Davidson did the murder?”

“I think we shall find that Davidson tried to warn him against collecting Evelyn Carrados’s bag at the ball. Davidson saw Bunchy was with Evelyn, when Bridget returned her bag the first time.”

“You didn’t tell me about that.”

Alleyn told her about it.

“And isn’t that really all?” he asked.

“Yes. That’s all.”

“Troy, I love you more than anything in life. I’ve tried humility; God knows, I am humble. And I’ve tried effrontery. If you can’t love me, tell me so, and please let us not meet again because I can’t manage meeting you unless it is to love you.”

Troy raised a white face and looked solemnly at him.

“I know my mind at last,” she said. “I couldn’t be parked.”

“Darling, darling Troy.”

“I do love you. Very much indeed.”

“Wonder of the world!” cried Alleyn, and took her in his arms.

Down a sun-baked mud track that ran through the middle of the most remote of all the Chinese Medical Mission’s settlements in Northern Manchuria walked a short, plump celestial. He was followed by six yellow urchins upon each of whose faces was an expression of rapt devotion, and liveliest envy. If his face and legs had been visible, it would have been seen that sweat poured down them in runnels. But his face was hidden by a black hat, and his legs by the voluminous folds of a swashbuckling cloak. There was glory in his gait.

In the receiving office of the mission, a jaded young Englishman gazed in perplexity at a telegram a month old. It had been forwarded from the head depot and had done the rounds of most of the settlements. It was from New Scotland Yard, London.

The young Englishman gazed blankly through the open door at the little procession in the sun-baked track outside.

The End