Ngaio Marsh - Artists in Crime

“Maybe Pilgrim’s,” said Alleyn, and put them in his case. “Now for the correspondence.”

They found more than enough of that. Two of her dressing-table drawers were filled with neatly tied-up packets of letters.

“Help!” said Alleyn. “We’ll have to glance at these, Fox. There might be something. Here, you take this lot. Very special. Red ribbon. Must be Pilgrim’s, I imagine. Yes, they are.”

Fox put on his spectacles and began impassively to read Basil Pilgrim’s love-letters.

“Very gentlemanly,” he said, after the first three.

“You’re out of luck. I’ve struck a most impassioned series from a young man, who compares her bitterly and obscurely to a mirage. Golly, here’s a sonnet.”

For some time there was no sound but the faint crackle of note-paper. Bailey came in and said he had drawn a blank in Phillida Lee’s room. Alleyn threw a bundle of letters at him.

“There’s something here you might like to see,” said Fox. “The last one from the Honourable Mr. Pilgrim.”

“What’s he say?”

Fox cleared his throat.

“ ‘Darling,’ ” he began, ‘I’ve got the usual sort of feelings about not being anything like good enough for you. Your last letter telling me you first liked me because I seemed a bit different from other men has made me feel rather bogus. I suppose, without being an insufferable prig, I might agree that I can at any rate bear comparison with the gang we’ve got to know — the studio lot — like Garcia and Malmsley and Co. But that’s not a hell of a compliment to myself, is it? As a matter of fact, I simply loathe seeing you in that setting. Men like Garcia have no right to be in the same room as yourself, my lovely, terrifyingly remote Valmai. I know people scream with mirth at the sound of the word “pure.” It’s gone all déclassé like “genteel.” But there is a strange sort of purity about you, Valmai, truly. If I’ve understood you, you’ve seen something of — God, this sounds frightful — something of the same sort of quality in me. Oh, darling, don’t see too much of that in me. Just because I don’t get tight and talk bawdy, I’m not a blooming Galahad, you know. This letter’s going all the wrong way. Bless you a thousand, thousand—’ I think that’s the lot, sir,” concluded Fox.

“Yes. I see. Any letters in Pilgrim’s room?”

“None. He may have taken them to Ankerton Manor, chief.”

“So he may. I’d like to see the one where Miss Seacliff praised his purity. By the Lord, Fox, she has without a doubt got a wonderful technique. She’s got that not undesirable parti, who’ll be a perfectly good peer before very long, if it’s true that old Pilgrim is failing; she’s got him all besotted and wondering if he’s good enough.” Alleyn paused and rubbed his nose. “Men turn peculiar when they fall in love, Brer Fox. Sometimes they turn damned peculiar, and that’s a fact.”

“These letters,” said Fox, tapping them with a stubby forefinger, “were all written before they came down here. They’ve evidently been engaged in a manner of speaking for about a month.”

“Very possibly.”

“Well,” said Fox, “there’s nothing in these letters of Mr. Pilgrim’s to contradict any ideas we may have about Garcia, is there?”

“Nothing. What about Pilgrim’s clothes?”

“Nothing there. Two overcoats, five suits, two pairs of odd trousers and an odd jacket. Nothing much in the pockets. His week-end suit-case hasn’t been unpacked. He took a dinner suit, a tweed suit, pyjamas, dressing-gown, and toilet things.”

“Any aspirin?”

“No.”

“I fancy I found his bottle in one of Miss Seacliff’s pockets. Come on. Let’s get on with it.”

They got on with it. Presently Bailey said: “Here’s one from Garcia.”

“Let me see, will you?”

Like the note to Sonia, this was written in pencil on an odd scrap of paper. It was not dated or addressed, and the envelope was missing.

Dear Valmai,

I hear you’re going to Troy’s this term. So am I. I’m broke. I haven’t got the price of the fare down, and I want one or two things — paints, mostly. I’m going to paint for a bit. I took the liberty of going into Gibson’s, and getting a few things on your account. I told old Gibson it would be all right, and he’d seen me in the shop with you, so it was. Do you think Basil Pilgrim would lend me a fiver? Or would you? I’ll be O.K. when Troy gets back, and I’ve got a good commission, so the money’s all right. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll ask Pilgrim. I can’t think of anyone else. Is it true you’re going to hitch up with Pilgrim? You’d much better try a spot of free love with me.—G.

“Cool,” said Fox.

“Does this bloke live on women?” asked Bailey.

“He lives on anyone that will provide the needful, I’d say,” grunted Fox.

“That’s about it,” said Alleyn. “We’ll keep this and any other Garcia letters we find, Fox. Well, that’s all, isn’t it? Either of you got any more tender missives? All right then, we’ll pack up. Fox, you might tell them all they may turn in now. My compliments and so on. Miss Troy has gone to her room. The others, I suppose, will still be in the dining-room. Come on, Bathgate.”

A few minutes later they all met in the hall. Tatler’s End House was quiet at last. The fires had died down in all the grates, the rooms had grown cold. Up and down the passages the silence was broken only by the secret sounds made by an old house at night, small expanding noises, furtive little creaks, and an occasional slow whisper as though the house sighed at the iniquity of living men. Alleyn had a last look round and spoke to the local man who was to remain on duty in the hall. Bailey opened the door and Fox turned out the last of the lights. Nigel, huddled in an overcoat, stowed his copy away in a pocket and lit a cigarette. Alleyn stood at the foot of the stairs, his face raised, as if he listened for something.

“Right, sir?” asked Fox.

“Coming,” said Alleyn. “Good night.”

“Good night, sir,” said the local man.

“By the way — where’s the garage?”

“Round the house to the right, sir.”

“Thank you. Good night.”

The front door slammed behind them.

“Blast that fellow!” said Alleyn. “Why the devil must he wake the entire household?”

It was a still, cold night, with no moon. The gravel crunched loudly under their feet.

“I’m just going to have a look at the garage,” said Alleyn. “I’ve got the key from a nail in the lobby. I won’t be long. Give me my case, Bailey. Bathgate — you drive on.”

He switched on his torch and followed the drive round the house to an old stable-yard. The four loose-boxes had been converted into garages, and his key fitted all of them. He found an Austin, and a smart super charged sports car—“Pilgrim’s,” thought Alleyn — and in the last garage a small motor caravan. Alleyn muttered when he saw this. He examined the tyre-treads, measured the distance between the wheels and took the height from the ground to the rear doorstep. He opened the door and climbed in. He found a small lamp on a battery in the ceiling, and switched it on. It was not an elaborate interior, but it was well planned. There were two bunks, a folding table, a cupboard and plenty of lockers. He looked into the lockers and found painting gear and one or two canvases. He took one out. “Troy’s,” he said. He began to look very closely at the board floor. On the doorstep he found two dark indentations. They were shiny and looked as though they had been made by small wheels carrying a heavy load. The door opened outwards. Its inner surface had been recently scored across. Alleyn looked through a lens at the scratches. The paint had frilled up a little and the marks were clean. The floor itself bore traces of the shiny tracks, but here they were much fainter. He looked at the petrol gauge and found it registered only two gallons. He returned to the floor and crawled over it with his torch. At last he came upon a few traces of a greenish-grey substance. These he scraped off delicately and put in a small tin. He went into the driver’s cabin, taking an insufflator with him, and tested the wheel. It showed no clear prints. On the floor of the cabin Alleyn found several Player’s cigarette-butts. These he collected and examined carefully. The ray from his torch showed him a tiny white object that had dropped into the gear-change slot. He fished it out with a pair of tweezers. It was the remains of yet another cigarette and had got jammed and stuck to the inside of the slot. A fragment of red paper was mixed with the flattened wad of tobacco strands. One of Troy’s, perhaps. An old one. He had returned to the door with his insufflator, when a deep voice said: