Ngaio Marsh - Death In Ecstasy

“Just when did you get your big idea that I’m interested financially?”

“I got it the first time I saw you. I know that there are, if you will forgive me for saying so, many hardheaded Americans who can be taken in by highly-coloured religious sects. I told myself you might be one of them, but somehow I didn’t think you were. You seemed to me to be too shrewd. Your attitude towards Mr. Garnette, when the theft of the bonds was discovered, confirmed my opinion. Of course, if you prefer not to tell me how matters stand, we can ferret round and find out. Mr. Garnette is now so alarmed he will not doubt be ready to give me his version.”

“Like hell he will, the dirty what’s it,” said Mr. Ogden indignantly. “See here, Chief, you win this deal, hands down. Bar one point. Until today I was putting my O.K. stamp on the doctrine of the Sacred Flame. I’ve never backed a phony deal in my life and I’m not starting in now. No, sir. The Sacred Flame and Jasper Garnette looked like clean peppy uplift to me. When Garnette and me met up on that trip, he outlined his scheme and he slipped me the line of talk. He told me it’d need capital. Well, I heard him address the passengers and the way he had those society dames asking if he’d accept ten dollars as a favour for the Seamen’s Fund got me thinking. Before we landed I’d figured it out. I floated the concern on a percentage basis and Garnette couldn’t have done it without me. We were in cahoots, and now, the dirty so-and-so, he’s pulled out those bonds on me.”

“Are there any other shareholders?”

“M. de Raveenje put five hundred pounds into it. All he could find. The slump hit him up some. Say, I reckon he’ll want to know the how-so about those bonds. He’s white all through, and he saw Cara way up among the gods.”

“Did you,” asked Alleyn, “have a written agreement?”

“Certainly we did. Drawn up by a lawyer. Each of us has got a copy. Want to see it, Chief?”

“Yes, we’d better have a look at it. I wonder where Mr. Garnette keeps his.”

“Most likely at his bank. He’s a wise coon!”

“You are convinced Garnette took the bonds?”

“I wish to God I wasn’t,” said Mr. Ogden unexpectedly. “I–I kind of reverenced that guy. Me! Maybe I’ll learn sense — next year.”

“Did you keep books?”

“Yes, sir. I did the books and Raveenje and Garnette could see them any time. Raveenje has got them home right now.”

“How did it work?”

“Like any regular company. I’m the biggest shareholder — I put up the most dollars. Garnette is paid a salary and he draws twenty per cent of the profits. That was square enough.”

“Do you know Mr. Garnette is a fellow-countryman of yours?”

Mr. Ogden looked as if he might be a sign for an inn called The Incredulous Man . “Forget it,” he said briefly. “Him! No, sir! We certainly breed one brand of polecat, but it ain’t called Garnette. Look at his line of talk! Where do you get that stuff, anyway?”

“You might say,” said Alleyn with a glance at Fox, “that the gentleman told me himself.”

“Then he piled up one more lie on to his total.”

“Ah, well,” sighed Alleyn, “I think that’s all for the moment, Mr. Ogden.”

“Good! But listen, Chief, I don’t want to get in wrong over the financial side of this joint. Get this. I put up the dollars. I saw it as a commercial proposition and I banked it. I’ve run my department straight and I’ve had no more’n my fair share. Same goes for Raveenje. He’s on the level all right. I look at it this way. This temple has brought colour and interest into folk’s lives. I’d thought it was something more than that, day-before-yesterday, when Garnette looked like a regular guy. But even if Garnette’s synthetic, and he certainly is, it’s been a great little party.” He paused and then repeated as though it was a manufacturer’s slogan: “It has brought colour and interest into otherwise drab and grey lives.”

“Together with hysteria and heroin, Mr. Ogden.”

Nigel, who had managed to make unostentatious shorthand notes throughout this interview, now watched Ogden eagerly. Would this shot go home? He decided that the American’s astonishment bore the unmistakable stamp of sincerity.

“What the sweltering hell d’you mean?” asked Ogden. “Heroin? Snow? Who’s doping in this crowd? By heck!” he added after a moment’s pause, “is that what’s wrong with young Pringle? Who’s started it?”

“To the best of my belief, Mr. Garnette.”

The American swore, heartily, solidly, and with lurid emphasis. Alleyn listened, politely, Fox with a dispassionate air of expert criticism,

“By God,” ended Mr. Ogden. “I wish to— I’d never touched this — concern. Never no more! It’s taken a murder to put me wise, but never no more. Say, listen, Chief, as God’s my witness I never — Aw, what’s the use?”

“It’s all right,” said Alleyn quietly. “We have been told you were not mixed up in it.”

“How’s that?”

“Pringle told me. Don’t worry about it too much, Mr. Ogden. We’re not going to pull you in for drug-running.”

Ogden looked nervously from Fox to Alleyn.

“Not for drug-running ,” he said. “I’m not raving about the way you said it.”

“Now look here,” said Alleyn, “don’t you go making things more difficult by getting the wind up. I can’t go round like a child in a nursery game saying: ‘It isn’t you! It isn’t you! until I get to the ‘he.’ I can only repeat my well-worn slogan that the innocent are safe as long as they stick to the truth.”

“I hope to hell you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. It’ll all come out what the Australians call ‘jakealoo.’ Have any of the Initiates ever been to Australia, do you know?”

“I don’t know, Chief. I haven’t.”

“They have a strong way of putting things there. But I wander. Don’t worry, Mr. Ogden.”

“That damned book! If only I knew when it went”

“Never mind about the book. I think I can guess when it went and who took it.”

“Well, ain’t you the clam’s cuticle!” said Mr. Ogden.

After Mr. Ogden had gone Alleyn thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and stood staring at Fox.

“What are we to make of all this, Fox?” he asked, “What do you make of it? You’re looking very blank and innocent, and that means you’ve got hold of an idea.”

“Not to say an idea, sir. I wouldn’t go so far as that, I’ve been trying to string up a sequence as you might say.”

“May we hear it? I’ve got to such a state I hardly know which of these creatures is which.”

“Now then, sir,” said Fox good-humouredly, “you know we won’t believe that. Well, this is as far as I’ve got. We know Miss Quayne went out yesterday afternoon. We know she came here between two-thirty and three. We know she got some sort of a shock while she was here. We know the bonds were stolen, but we don’t know when. We know she was murdered last night.”

“True, every word of it.”

“Starting from there,” continued Fox in his slow way, “I’ve wondered. I’ve wondered whether she discovered the theft yesterday afternoon and whether the thief knew she discovered it. She used the word ‘discovery’ in her note. Now if Garnette pinched the bonds she didn’t know it was him or she wouldn’t have left that note for him. That’s if the note was meant for him, and I don’t see how it could be otherwise. Well, say the safe was open when she got here, and for some reason she wanted to see the bonds and found they were gone. She perhaps hung round waiting for him until the people began to come in for the afternoon show — the chauffeur chap said they did — and then came away leaving the note. I don’t quite like this,” continued Fox. “It’s got some awkward patches on it. Why did she put the bonds away all tidily? Would the safe be unlocked?”