Ngaio Marsh - Death In Ecstasy

“I was a fool.”

“Why?”

“To make friends with — your friend.”

“On the contrary,” said Alleyn, “you were very wise. If I may say so without impertinence you would do well to make friends with me.”

Janey laughed unpleasantly.

“Dilly, dilly, dilly,” she said.

“No. Not ‘dilly, dilly, dilly.’ You didn’t murder Miss Quayne, did you?”

“You can hardly expect me to answer ‘yes.’ ”

“I expect an answer, however.”

“Then,” said Janey, “I did not murder Cara Quayne.”

“Did Mr. Pringle murder Miss Quayne?”

“No.”

“You see,” said Alleyn with a smile, “we get on like a house on fire. Where was Mr. Pringle at three o’clock on Sunday afternoon?”

She drew in her breath with a little gasp.

“I’ve told you.”

“But I’m asking you again. Where was he?”

“Here.”

“That,” said Alleyn harshly, “is your story and you are sticking to it? I wish you wouldn’t.”

“What do you mean!”

“It’s not true, you know. He may have lunched with you but he did not stay here all the afternoon. He went to the temple.”

“You knew—”

“Now you give me an opportunity for the detective’s favourite cliché. ‘I didn’t know, but you have just told me?’”

“You’re hateful!” she burst out suddenly. “Hateful! Hateful!”

“Don’t cry!” said Alleyn more gently. “It’s only a cliché and I would have found out anyway.”

“To come prying into my house! To find the weak place and go for it! To pretend to make friends and then trap me into breaking faith with — with someone who can’t take care of himself.”

“Yes,” he said, “it’s my job to do those sorts of things.”

“You call it a smart bit of work, I suppose.”

“The other word for it is ‘routine.’ ”

“I’ve broken faith,” said Janey. “I’ll never be able to help him again. We’re done for now.”

“Nonsense!” said Alleyn crisply. “Don’t dramatise yourself.”

Something in his manner brought her up sharply. For a second or two she looked at him and then she said very earnestly:

“Do you suspect Maurice?”

“I shall be forced to if you both insist on lying lavishly and badly. Come now. Do you know why he went to the temple on Sunday afternoon?”

“Yes,” said Janey, “I think I know. He hasn’t told me.”

“Is it something to do with the habit he has contracted?”

“He told you himself about that, didn’t he?”

“He did. We have analysed Mr. Garnette’s cigarettes and found heroin. I believe, however, that Mr. Pringle has gone further than an indulgence in drugged cigarettes. Am I right?”

“Yes,” whispered Janey.

“Mr. Garnette is responsible for all this, I suppose.”

“Yes.” She hesitated, oddly, and then with a lift of her chin repeated: “Yes.”

“Now,” Alleyn continued, “please will you tell me when Mr. Pringle left here on Sunday afternoon?”

She still looked very earnestly at him. Suddenly she knelt on the rug and held her hands to the heater, her head turned towards him. The movement was singularly expressive. It was as though she had come to a definite decision and had relaxed.

“I will tell you,” she said. “He went away from here at about half-past two. I’m not sure of the exact time. He was very restless and — and difficult. He had smoked three of those cigarettes and had got no more with him. We had a scene.”

“May I know what it was about?”

“I’ll tell you. Mr. Alleyn, I’m sorry I was so rude just now. I must have caught my poor Maurice’s manners, I think. I do trust you. Perhaps that’s not the right word because you haven’t said you think him innocent. But I know he’s innocent and I trust you to find out.”

“You are very brave,” said Alleyn.

“The scene was about — me. When he’s had much of that stuff he wants to make love. Not as if it’s me, but simply because I’m there. I’m not posing as an ingenue of eighteen — and they’re not so ‘ingenue’ nowadays either. I’m not frightened of passion and I can look after myself, but there’s something about him then that horrifies me. It’s like a nightmare. Sometimes he seems to focus his — his senses on one tiny little thing — my wrist or just one spot on my arm. It’s morbid and rather terrifying.”

She spoke rapidly now as though it was a relief to speak and without any embarrassment or hesitation.

“It was like that on Sunday. He held my arm tight and kissed the inside. Just one place over and over again. When I told him to stop he wouldn’t. It was horrible. I can give you no idea. I struggled and when he still went on, I hit his face. Then there was the real scene. I told him he was ruining himself and degrading me and all because of the drugs. Then we quarreled about Father Garnette, desperately. I said he was to blame and that he was rotten all through. I spoke about Cara.” She stopped short.

“That made him very angry?”

“Terribly angry. Hatefully angry. For a moment I was frightened. He said if that was what they did — You understand?”

“Yes,” said Alleyn.

“Then he suddenly let me go. He had been almost screaming, but now he began to speak very quietly. He simply told me he would go to the church flat and get more of — more heroin. ‘A damn’ big shot of it,’ he said. He told me quite slowly and distinctly that Father Garnette had some in the bedroom and that he would take it. Then he laughed, gently, and went away. And then in the evening, when he’d had more of that stuff, I suppose, he met me as though nothing had happened. That’s a pretty good sample of the happy wooing we enjoy together.”

She still knelt on the rug at Alleyn’s feet. She had gone very white and now she began to tremble violently.

“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “It’s silly. I don’t know why — I can’t help it.”

“Don’t mind!” said Alleyn. “It’s shock, and thinking about it again.”

She laid her hand on his knee and after a second he put his lightly over it.

“Thank you,” said Janey. “I didn’t see him again until the evening. After you had finished with us I walked back with him to his door. He told me I was to say he had been here all the afternoon. I promised. I promised: that’s what is so awful.

He said: ‘If they go for the wrong man—’ and then he stopped. I came on here by myself. That’s all.”

“I see,” said Alleyn. “Have you got any brandy on the premises?”

“There’s some — over there.”

He got a rug off the couch and dropped it over her shoulders. Then he found the brandy and brought her a stiff nip.

“Down with it,” he ordered.

“All right,” answered Janey shakily. “Don’t bully.” She drank the brandy and presently a little colour came back into her face.

“I have made a fool of myself. I suppose it’s because I’d kept it all bottled up inside me.”

“Another argument in favour of confiding in the police,” said Alleyn.

She laughed and again put her hand on his knee.

“—who are only human,” Alleyn added and stood up.

“You’re a very aloof sort of person to confide in, aren’t you?” said Janey abruptly. “Still, I suppose you must be human or I wouldn’t have done it. Is it time we went to the inquest?”

“Yes. May I drive you there or do you dislike the idea of arriving in a police car?”

“No, but I think I’d better collect Maurice.”

“In that case I shall go. Are you all right?”

“I’m not looking forward to it. Mr. Alleyn, shall I have to repeat all — this — to the coroner?”

“The conduct of an inquest is on the knees of the coroner. Sometimes he has housemaid’s knees and then it’s all rather trying. This gentleman is not of that type, however. I think we shall have a quick show and an adjournment.”