Ngaio Marsh - Enter A Murderer

“Look at me!” said Stephanie Vaughan. “Look at me. Do I look like a murderess?”

He took her wrists and tried to pull them down, but she clung to his coat

“I promise you I didn’t mean what I said in that letter. I wanted to frighten him. He threatened me. I only wanted to frighten him.”

He wrenched her hands away, and straightened himself.

“You’ve hurt me,” she said.

“You obliged me to. We’d better not prolong this business.”

“At least let me explain myself. If, after you’ve heard me, you still think I’m guilty, I’ll go with you without another word.”

“I must warn you—”

“I know. But I must speak. Sit down for five minutes and listen to me. I won’t bolt Lock the door, if you like.”

“Very well.”

He locked the door and pocketed the key., Then he sat on the end of the bed, and waited.

“I’ve known Arthur Surbonadier for six years,” she said at last “I went to Cambridge to take part in a charity show that was being got up by some of the undergraduates. They engaged me to play Desdemona. I was a novice, then, and very young. Arthur was good-looking in those days and he always had a charm for women. I don’t expect you to understand that. He introduced me to Felix, but I hardly remembered Felix when we met again. He had never forgotten me, he says. Arthur was attracted to me. He introduced me to Jacob Saint, and through that I got a real start in my profession. We were both given parts in a Saint show that was produced at the end of the year. He was passionately in love with me. That doesn’t begin to express it. He was completely and utterly absorbed as though, apart from me, he had no reality. I was fascinated and — and so it happened. He asked me over and over again to marry him, but I didn’t want to get married, and I soon knew he was a rotter. He told me about all sorts of things he had done. He had a fantastic hatred of his uncle, and once, at Cambridge, he wrote an article that attributed all sorts of things to Saint. There was a case about it — I expect you remember — but Saint never thought Arthur had done it, because Arthur was so dependent on him. He told me all about that and his own vices. He still attracted me. Then I met Felix and—” She made a little gesture with her hands, a gesture that he might have recognized as one of her stage tricks.

“From that time onwards, I wanted to break off my relationship with Arthur. He terrified me, and he threatened to tell Felix about — all sorts of things.” She paused, and a different note came into her voice. “Felix,” she said, “was a different type. He belongs to another caste. In a funny sort of way he’s intolerant. But — he’s dreadfully honourable. If Arthur had told him! I was terrified. I began to write those letters, at the time I went to New York, but when I got back Arthur still dominated me. Yesterday — it seems years ago — he came to see me, and there was a scene. I thought I would try to frighten him and, after he left, I wrote that note.”

“In which you said: ‘If you don’t promise to-night to let me go I’ll put you out of it altogether.’ ”

“My God, I meant I’d tell Saint what he’d done— how he’d written that article!”

“He’s been blackmailing Saint for years. Surely you knew that?”

She looked as if she were thunderstruck.

“Did you know?” asked Alleyn.

“No. He never told me that.”

“I see,” said Alleyn.

She looked piteously at him. She was rubbing her wrists where he had gripped them. As if on an impulse, she held out her hand.

“Can’t you believe me — and pity me?” she whispered.

A silence fell between them. For some seconds neither moved or spoke, and then he was beside her, her hand held close between both of his. He raised it, her fingers threaded through his own. He had bent his head and stood in what seemed to be a posture of profound meditation.

“You’ve won,” he said at last.

She leant forward and touched her face against his fingers, and then, with her free hand, she pulled aside the eiderdown quilt and let it slide to the floor.

“Last night I thought you were going to kiss my hand,” she said.

“To-night—” He kissed it deliberately. In the silence that followed they heard someone come at a brisk walk down the narrow street. The sound of footsteps seemed to bring her back to earth. She drew her hand away and stood up.

“I congratulate you,” she said.

“On what?”

“On your intelligence. You would have made a bad gaffe if you had arrested me. Will you let me go away now?”

“If you must.”

“Indeed I must. Tell me — what made you first suspect me?”

“Your cosmetic was on the cartridges. ”

She turned away to the window and looked into the street.

“But how extraordinary,” she said quietly. “That bottle was overturned on my table. Arthur himself knocked it over.” She seemed to ponder this for a moment and then she said quickly: “That means whoever did it was in my room?”

“Yes. Your room was empty just before it happened. You were talking to Gardener next door.”

“No, no. That’s all wrong. At least he may have gone in there. No, he didn’t. He was on the stage by that time. Arthur knocked the bottle over. He was splashed with the stuff. When he put the cartridges in the drawer, there was some on his hands. Probably there was still some more of it on his thumb when he loaded the revolver. He realised it was all up with him, and he wanted Felix accused of murder. Or me. He may have deliberately used my wet-white. It would have been like him.”

“Would it? You poor child!”

“Yes. Oh, I know that’s it.”

“I wonder if you can be right,” said Alleyn.

“I’m sure I am.”

“I’ll approach it again from that angle,” he said, but he scarcely seemed aware of what he said. He looked at her hungrily, as though he would never be satisfied with looking.

“I must go now. May I take — the letters — or must they come out?”

“You may have them.”

He went into the next room and got the letters. When he came back with them she looked them through carefully.

“But there’s one missing,” she said.

“I don’t think so.”

“Indeed, there is. Are you sure you didn’t drop it?”

“Those are all we found.”

She looked distractedly round the room.

“I must find it,” she insisted. “It must be somewhere here. He threatened to show that one, in particular, to Felix.”

“We sifted everything. He must have burnt it.”

“No, no. I’m sure he didn’t. Please let me look. I know where he kept all his things.” She hunted frantically through all the rooms. Once she stopped and looked at him.

“You wouldn’t—?”

“I have held back none of your letters, on my word of honour.”

“Forgive me,” she said, and fell to hunting again. At last she confessed herself defeated.

“If it’s found you shall have it,” Alleyn assured her. She thanked him, but was clearly not satisfied. At last he persuaded her to stop hunting.

“I’ll telephone for a taxi,” he said.

“No, don’t do that. I’ll walk to the corner and get one. I’d rather.”

“I’ll come with you. I’ve just got to lock up.”

“No. We’ll say good night now,” she laughed. “I can’t be seen out with you — you’re too compromising.”

“ Nous avons change tout cela. ”

“You think so, do you, inspector? Good night.”

“Good night, Stephanie. If I weren’t a policeman—”

“Yes?”

“Give me that key, madam.”

“Oh! The key of the flat. Where did I put it? Now that’s lost.”