Ngaio Marsh - Enter A Murderer

“That’s a very fair answer. Let me know at my flat this evening, will you? Now I must ask you both to go.”

Nigel followed Fox into the passage. At the door he turned and looked back.

“Well — good-bye for the present,” he muttered.

“Good-bye, you old sausage,” said Inspector Alleyn.

Fox told the constable at the entrance to the flat to go off. Then he turned to the still discomfited Nigel.

“I dare say you think the Chiefs been a bit hard, — sir,” he ventured, “but you don’t want to look at it that way. It’s a matter of what you might call professional etiquette. The Chief likes you, you see, and he’s so— so blasted honest, if you’ll excuse me. His job has to come before anything. Don’t you worry about Mr. Gardener. He’s been the cat’s-paw, and nothing else, and if he starts holding back information he’s very foolish.”

“I don’t think he has done anything of the sort,” complained Nigel.

“Well, all the better. If you decide to help us, Mr. Bathgate, I’m sure you won’t regret it and I’m sure Chief Inspector Alleyn will be very pleased.”

Nigel looked at his large, comfortable face and suddenly liked him very much.

“It’s nice of you to bother, inspector,” he said. “I was a bit disgruntled. He made me feel such an ass and — and I do admire him so very much.”

“You’re not alone in that, sir. Well, I must be off. Going my way, sir?”

“I’m for Chester Terrace.”

“And I’m for the Yard. No rest for the wicked. Good night, sir.”

“Good night, inspector.”

Nigel’s flat in Chester Terrace was a short walk from Gerald’s Row. He strode along quickly, still rather miserable over his lecture from Alleyn. He had only gone a couple of hundred yards when a taxi passed him, moving slowly along the kerb as though cruising for a passenger. Nigel automatically shook his head, and then saw that the man had a fare — a woman. As the cab passed him a streamer of light from the street lamp caught her face. It was Stephanie Vaughan. She gave no hint of recognition, and in a moment had passed him. He turned and stared after the taxi. She must have misunderstood, he thought, and is going now to the flat. However, the man drove slowly down the little street, past Surbonadier’s windows, and then turned off to the left and disappeared.

“Rum!” thought Nigel and walked on thoughtfully. “Very rum!” he said aloud.

Back in his own flat he turned on the light and, after further cogitation, decided to try and put himself in a better mood by writing to Angela North, who does not come into this story. She was an ardent admirer of Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn and would know just how raw Nigel felt. Would she suggest he kept in the game? Would she tell him his scruples about “pumping” Gardener were ridiculous? He couldn’t ask her without breaking confidence. Damn it all, what was he going to do? Perhaps he’d better go to the Queen’s in Cliveden Place and have an evening meal. He wasn’t hungry. Alleyn was fed up with him and had made him feel young, and a prig. He knew, Good Lord, that Felix hadn’t murdered Arthur Surbonadier. Why shouldn’t he ask him if—

The telephone pealed shrilly. Nigel muttered and grumbled and took off the receiver.

Gardener’s voice came urgently.

“Is that you, Nigel? Look here, I want to see you. There’s something I didn’t tell you, about Cambridge, this morning. I was a fool. Could I see you now?”

“Yes,” said Nigel. “Yes.”

“Will you come here or would you rather I came to you? How about dining here with me? Will you?”

“Yes,” said Nigel. “Thank you, Felix.”

“Well, don’t change — come along now.”

“Yes,” said Nigel. “Thank you, Felix.”

They rang off. He could have shouted with joy. His problem was solved. He rushed to the bathroom and washed, lavishly. He changed his shirt and brushed his hair. Seized with a desire to acquire a little merit in Alleyn’s eyes, he rang up Surbonadier’s flat He could hear the telephone ringing there and waited for some time, but nobody answered it. Alleyn had gone, after all. He would ring up again later. He seized his hat and ran downstairs. He hailed a taxi, gave Gardener’s address, and flung himself back. Only then did it occur to him that it was very clever of Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn to have guessed that Gardener would be able to tell them something more about the peculiar behaviour of Arthur Surbonadier, during the days when he was an undergraduate. Gradually he was conscious of an idea that edged in at the back of his mind, an idea that was still only half sensed. He examined it now more closely, letting it come up to the front of his consciousness. For a moment he shied round it nervously, but it was insistent, and presently he fell to reasoning it out with logical persistence. Then a great light dawned on Nigel.

“That’s it,” he whispered. “That’s it. Gosh, what a blind fool I’ve been.” And then with complete understanding he thought: “Poor old Felix!”

Meanwhile in Surbonadier’s flat it had grown very dark.

“If you don’t mind, Nigel,” said Gardener, “I’m going to get this off my chest, right away. It’ll clear the air. There’s a drink. Sit down.” He looked less jumpy and nightmare ridden, thought Nigel, and had the air of a man who has come to a decision and is glad of it.

“It’s this,” he began. “When you came this morning, I was properly under the weather. Hadn’t slept a wink and the — the awfulness of having killed Arthur Surbonadier had given place to the terror of being suspected by your friend, Alleyn. You simply can’t imagine what that sort of fear is like. Perhaps, if a man’s guilty, he is less panic-stricken than I was. It seemed to me I couldn’t prove I was not guilty, and that, in spite of everything you said, I was the man they really suspected.”

“You were quite wrong.”

“I hope so. Then, I was sure I was right. Well, I couldn’t think of anything coherently, but when you started asking me about the libel case and if I knew Surbonadier at Cambridge I thought: ‘He’s been sent to ask that. Alleyn thinks I’ll be off my guard with Nigel.’ I can’t tell you how awful I felt. No — let me go on. So I half lied. I said I didn’t know Arthur well in those days. It wasn’t true — I did know him pretty well for a short time — before I realized quite how unpleasant he was. I was younger than he, and perhaps even more of an ass than most youths. I thought it thrillingly daring and sort of ‘draining life to the dregs’ kind of thing, when he asked me to a heroin party.”

“Good Lord!” apostrophized Nigel.

“Yes. I only went once and it was quite beastly. I didn’t take nearly as much as the others, and it didn’t have a great effect. I probably offered more resistance. Next morning I felt I’d made a fool of myself, and I thought I’d make a clean break. So I called on Surbonadier to tell him so. I wanted to put it straight. He was still pretty dopey, and inclined to be maudlin. He began to confide in me. He told me things about his uncle and — and he talked about Stephanie Vaughan.” Gardener stopped speaking, hesitated, and then said:

“I’d seen her. She’d come up for a production of Othello . If I said I loved her from then onwards, I suppose you’d think it very highfalutin. It’s true, though. And when Surbonadier began to tell me how friendly they were, I hated him. Then he said his uncle was going to give her leading parts and he began to tell me how he hated his uncle, and what a lot he knew about him. He told me how Saint was mixed up in the drug trade. He told me about his mistresses. Stephanie seemed so innocent, and when I thought of her in that galère it had a terrible effect on me. I was dreadfully young. Saint seemed like the embodiment of all evil. It was nightmarish. I don’t understand psychology, and I expect the heroin had something to do with it. We were neither of us normal. Anyway, when Surbonadier told me, in a dopey sort of way, that he could, if he chose, deal his uncle a pretty shrewd blow, I encouraged him feverishly. He said that Saint was refusing to pay his bills, but that he knew too much and could make him. He then suggested writing that article, and I urged him to do it and egged him on. Then I suddenly remembered what I’d come for, and tried to tell him I wouldn’t go to any more of his parties. He didn’t seem to pay much attention. He was engrossed with the idea of the article. I left him and, from that time on, I had nothing to do with him. When the article came out I guessed who had done it, and once, when we met, he tried to pump me. I told him, shortly enough, that he’d nothing to fear from me and, until to-night, I’ve never spoken of it”