Ngaio Marsh - Death In Ecstasy

“Not exactly a cast-iron alibi. Did you pick up any gossip about that — that inexpressibly tedious lady?”

“Mrs. Candour? Well, she’s not very much liked in the hall, sir. Rita said it was her opinion the mistress was half-dopey most of her time, and Mrs. Bulsome, who’s a very plain-spoken woman, said the kitchen cat, a fine female tortoiseshell, had a better sense of decency. That was the way Mrs. Bulsome put it.”

“You have all the fun, Fox.”

“Rita says Mrs. Candour set her cap at monsieur and was always ringing him up and about three weeks ago she got him there and there was a scene. They heard her voice raised and after he’d gone Rita went in and she found Mrs. C. in a great state. She never rang up after that and monsieur never came back. About that time, they said, she left off visits to Miss Quayne.”

“As we saw by Miss Quayne’s appointment book. Here we are at the Château Ogden. Don’t let me forget any important questions, Fox. I’ll have to go carefully with Ogden. He’s feeling rather self-conscious about his book.”

“That’s not to be wondered at,” said Fox grimly.

“There’s a telephone-box. Pop in and ring up the Yard, Foxkin. I’d like to know if there’s an answer from Madame la Comtesse.”

Fox was away for some minutes. He returned looking more than usually wooden.

“There’s an answer. I’ve taken it down word for word; It’s in French, but as far as I can make it out the Countess is in a private hospital and can’t be disturbed.”

“Hell’s boots!” said Alleyn. “I’ll disturb her if I have to dress up as a French gynæcologist to do it!”

Mr. Ogden lived in an old-fashioned maisonette. His sitting room was on the street level and opened off a small hall from which a break-neck stair led up to his dining room and kitchen and then on to his bedroom and bathroom. He was served by a family who lived in the basement. He answered his own door and gave Alleyn and Fox a hearty, but slightly nervous, greeting.

“Hello! Hello! Look who’s here! Come right in.”

“You must be sick of the sight of us,” said Alleyn.

“Where d’you get that stuff?” demanded Mr. Ogden with somewhat forced geniality. “Say, when this darn business is through, maybe we’ll be able to get together like regular fellows.”

“But until then—?” suggested Alleyn with a smile.

Mr. Ogden grinned uncomfortably.

“Well, I won’t say nothing,” he admitted, “but I’ll try and act like I was a pure young thing. What’s new, Chief?”

“Nothing much. We’ve come to look at your house, Mr. Ogden.”

Mr. Ogden paled slightly.

“Sure,” he said. “What’s the big idea?”

“Don’t look so uncomfortable. We’re not expecting to find a body in the destructor.”

“Aw gee!” protested Mr. Ogden. “You make me nervous when you pull that grim British humour stuff.”

He showed them over the maisonette, which had the peculiarly characterless look of the ready-furnished dwelling. Mr. Ogden, however, appeared to like it.

“It’s never recovered from the shock it got when Queen Victoria okayed gas lighting,” he said. “It’s just kind of forgotten to disappear. Look at that grate. I reckon it would have a big appeal in the States as a museum specimen. Some swell apartment! When I first saw it I thought I’d side-slipped down time’s speedway. I asked the real estate agent if it was central heated and the old guy looked so grieved I just hadn’t the nerve to come at it again.”

“There are plenty of modern flats in London, sir,” said Inspector Fox rather huffily, as they went into the kitchen.

“Sure there are. Erected by Rip Van Winkle and Co. You don’t want to get sore, Inspector. I’m only kidding. I took this apartment because it’s old-world and British. I get a kick out of buying coal for this grate and feeling Florida in front and Alaska down the back.”

“It’s a very cosy little kitchenette, sir,” said Fox, still on the defensive. “All those nice modern Fyrexo dishes!”

“I’ve pepped it up some. There was no ice-chest and a line of genuine antiques for fixing the eats. And will you look at that hot-squat, coal-consuming range? I reckon that got George Whatsit Stevenson thinking about trains.”

Fox mumbled impotently.

They completed their tour of the maisonette and returned to the sitting room. Mr. Ogden drew armchairs up to the hearth and attacked the smoldering coals with a battered stump of a poker.

“How about a drink?” he asked.

“Thank you so much, not for me,” said Alleyn.

Mr. Ogden again looked nervous.

“I forgot,” he mumbled, “I kinda asked for that.”

“Good Heavens,” protested Alleyn, “you mustn’t jump to conclusions like this, Mr. Ogden. We’re on duty. We don’t drink when we’re on duty. That’s all there is to it.”

“Maybe,” said Mr. Ogden eyeing him doubtfully. “What can I do for you, Chief?”

“We’re still trying to untangle the business of the book. I think you can help us there, if you will. I take it that this is the room where you held your party?”

“Yup.”

“And there are your books,” continued Alleyn, pointing to where a dispirited collection of monthly journals and cheap editions propped each other up in an old bookcase.

“That’s the library. Looks world-weary, doesn’t it? I’m not crazy about literature.”

“I notice there are no red backs there, so the Curiosities must have showed up rather well.”

“That’s so. It looked like it was surprised at being there,” said Mr. Ogden with one of his imaginative flights.

“Well now, can you show me where it was on the night of your party?”

“Lemme see.”

He got up and walked over to the shelves.

“I reckon I can,” he said. “M. de Ravigne had parked his drink in that gap along by the stack of Posts and spilled it over. I remember that because it marked the shelf and he was very repentant about it. He called me over and apologised and I said: ‘What the hell’s it matter,’ and then I saw the old book. That’s how I come to show it to him.”

“You showed it to him. You’re positive of that? He did not find it for himself, and you didn’t see him with it before anything was said about it?”

Mr. Ogden thought that over. The significance of Alleyn’s question obviously struck him. He looked worried, but he answered with every appearance of complete frankness.

“No, sir. Raoul de Ravigne did no snooping around those books. I showed it to him. And get this, Chief. If I hadn’t showed it to him he’d never have seen it. He had turned away from the books and was telling Garnette how thoughtless he’d acted putting his glass down on the shelf.”

“But he would have seen it before, when he put his glass down.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s so. But even if that is so you can bet your suspenders Ravigne is on the level. See here, Chief, I get you with this book stuff and God knows I feel weak under my vest whenever I remember the Curiosities belonged to me. But if you’re thinking of Raoul de Ravigne for the quick hiccough, forget it. He worshipped Cara. He surely worshipped her.”

“I know, I know,” said Alleyn abstractedly.

Fox, who had examined the shelf, suddenly remarked:

“There’s the mark of the stuff there still. Spirit. It’s lifted the varnish.”

“So it has,” said Alleyn. “After you had shown him the book what happened to it?”

“Why, I don’t just remember. Wait a while. Yeah, I got it. He looked at it sort of polite but not interested, and handed it to Garnette.”

“And then?”