Ngaio Marsh - Artists in Crime

“Have they remembered your hot-water bottle, sir, and what time would you wish to be called?”

“Fox!” said Alleyn, “I am sorry. Have I been very long?”

“Oh no, sir. Bert Bailey’s in his beauty sleep in the back of our car, and Mr. Bathgate has gone off in his to her ladyship’s. Mr. Bathgate asked me to tell you, sir, that he proposed to make the telephone wires burn while the going was good.”

“I’d like to see him try. Fox, we’ll seal up this caravan and then we really will go home. Look here, you send Bailey back to London and stay the night with us. My mother will be delighted. I’ll lend you some pyjamas, and we’ll snatch a few hours’ sleep and start early in the morning. Do come.”

“Well, sir, that’s very kind of you. I’d be very pleased.”

“Splendid!”

Alleyn sealed the caravan door with tape, and then the door of the garage. He put the key in his pocket.

“No little jaunts for them to-morrow,” he said coolly. “Come along, Fox. Golly, it’s cold.”

They saw Bailey, arranged to meet him at the Yard in the morning, and drove back to Danes Lodge.

“Well have a drink before we turn in,” said Alleyn softly, when they were indoors. “In here.”

Fox tiptoed after him towards Lady Alleyn’s boudoir. At the door they paused and looked at each other. A low murmur of voices came from the room beyond.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Alleyn, and walked in. A large fire crackled in the open fireplace. Nigel sat before it cross-legged on the heathrug. Curled up in a wing-backed chair was Lady Alleyn. She wore a blue dressing-gown and a lace cap and her feet were tucked under her.

“Ma’am!” said Alleyn.

“Hullo, darling! Mr. Bathgate’s been telling me all about your case. It’s wonderfully interesting, and we have already solved it in three separate ways.”

She looked round the corner of her chair and saw Fox.

“This is disgraceful,” said Alleyn. “A scene of license and depravity. May I introduce Mr. Fox, and will you give him a bed?”

“Of course I will. This is perfectly delightful. How do you do, Mr. Fox?”

Fox made his best bow and took the small, thin hand in his enormous fist.

“How d’you do, my lady?” he said gravely. “It’s very kind of you.”

“Roderick, bring up some chairs, darling, and get yourselves drinks. Mr. Bathgate is drinking whisky, and I am drinking port. It’s not a bit kind of me, Mr. Fox. I have hoped so much that we might meet. Do you know, you look exactly as I have always thought you would look, and that is very flattering to me and to you. Roderick has told me so much about you. You’ve worked together on very many cases, haven’t you?”

“A good many, my lady,” said Fox. He sat down and contemplated Lady Alleyn placidly. “It’s been a very pleasant association for me. Very pleasant. We’re all glad to see Mr. Alleyn back.”

“Whisky and soda, Fox?” said Alleyn. “Mamma, what will happen to your bright eyes if you swill port at one a.m.? Bathgate?”

“I’ve got one, thank you. Alleyn, your mother is quite convinced that Garcia is not the murderer.”

“No,” said Lady Alleyn. “I don’t say he isn’t the murderer, but I don’t think he’s the man you’re after.”

“That’s a bit baffling of you,” said Alleyn. “How d’you mean?”

“I think he’s been made a cat’s-paw by somebody. Probably that very disagreeable young man with a beard. From what Mr. Bathgate tells me— ”

“I should be interested to know what Bathgate has told you.”

“Don’t be acid, darling. He’s given me a perfectly splendid acount of the whole thing — as lucid as Lucy Lorrimer,” said Lady Alleyn.

“Who’s Lucy Lorrimer?” asked Nigel.

“She’s a prehistoric peep. Old Lord Banff’s eldest girl she was, and never known to finish a sentence. She always got lost in the thickets of secondary thoughts that sprang up round her simplest remarks, so everybody used to say ‘as lucid as Lucy Lorrimer.’ No, but really, Roderick, Mr. Bathgate was as clear as glass over the whole affair. I am absolutely au fait , and I feel convinced that Garcia has been a cat’s-paw. He sounds so unattractive, poor fellow.”

“Homicides are inclined to be unattractive, darling,” said Alleyn.

“What about Mr. Smith? George Joseph? You can’t say that of him with all those wives. The thing that makes me so cross with Mr. Smith,” continued Lady Alleyn, turning to Fox, “is his monotony. Always in the bath and always a pound of tomatoes. In and out of season, one supposes.”

“If we consider Mr. Malmsley, Lady Alleyn,” said Fox with perfect gravity, “his only motive, as far as we know, would be vanity.”

“And a very good motive too, Mr. Fox. Mr. Bathgate tells me Malmsley is an extremely affected and conceited young man. No doubt this poor murdered child threatened him with exposure. No doubt she said she would make a laughing-stock of him by telling everybody that he cribbed his illustration from Pol de Limbourge. I must say, Roderick, he showed exquisite taste. It is the most charming little picture imaginable. Do you remember we saw it at Chantilly?”

“I do, but I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t at first spot it when I looked at his drawing.”

“That was rather slow of you, darling. Too gay and charming for words. Well, Mr. Fox, suppose this young Malmsley deliberately stayed behind on Friday, deliberately gave Garcia opium, deliberately egged him on to set the trap, and then came away, hoping that Garcia would do it. How about that?”

“You put it very neatly indeed, my lady,” said Fox, looking at Lady Alleyn with serious approval. “May I relieve you of your glass?”

“Thank you. Well now, Roderick, what about Basil Pilgrim?”

“What about him, little mum?”

“Of course, he might easily be unbalanced. Robert Pilgrim is as mad as a March hare, and I think that unfortunate wife of his was a cousin of sorts, so there you are. And she simply set to work and had baby after baby after baby — all gels, poor thing — until she had this boy Basil, and died of exhaustion. Not a very good beginning. And Robert turned into a Primitive Methodist in the middle of it all, and used to ask everybody the most ill-judged questions about their private lives. I remember quite well when this boy was born, Roderick, your father said Robert’s methods had been too primitive for Alberta. Her name was Alberta. Do you think the boy could have had anything to do with this affair?”

“Has Bathgate told you all about our interview with Pilgrim?” asked Alleyn.

“He was in the middle of it when you came in. What sort of boy has he grown into? Not like Robert, I hope?”

“Not very. He’s most violently in love.”

“With this Seacliff gel. What kind of gel is she, Roderick? Modern and hard? Mr. Bathgate says beautiful.”

“She’s very good-looking and a bit of a huntress?”

“At all murderish, do you imagine?”

“Darling, I don’t know. Do you realise you ought to be in bed, and that you’ve led Bathgate into the father and mother of a row for talking out of school?”

“Mr. Bathgate knows I’m as safe as the Roman Wall, don’t you, Mr. Bathgate?”

“I’m so much in love with you, Lady Alleyn,” said Nigel, “that I wouldn’t care if you were the soul of indiscretion. I should still open my heart to you.”

“There now, Roderick,” said his mother, “ isn’t that charming? I think perhaps I will go to bed.”

Ten minutes later, Alleyn tapped on his mother’s door. The familiar, high-pitched voice called: “Come in, darling,” and he found Lady Alleyn sitting bolt upright in her bed, a book in her hand, and spectacles on her nose.