Ngaio Marsh - A Man Lay Dead

“Well?” asked Nigel.

Alleyn passed him the little note-book. In it, written in an incredibly fine upright hand, Nigel read:

“Wilde. Mrs. Marjorie. Age about thirty-two. Height five foot four approx.” Here followed a detailed description of Marjorie Wilde, in which even the size of her gloves were noted. Then:

“Wardrobe. In hanging cupboard. Harris tweed coat and skirt, Shepherd’s plaid overcoat, Burberry raincoat, blue. Black astrakhan overcoat, black fur collar and cuffs.”

“Black fur collar and cuffs,” repeated Nigel aloud. “Oh, Lord!”

“Size in gloves, six and a quarter,” said Alleyn, and took the book. “Where is Mrs. Wilde at the moment, Bathgate?”

“She was in the library.”

“Go and see if she’s still there and come back and tell me.”

Nigel was away three minutes.

“They are all there,” he said; “it’s nearly tea-time.”

“Then come upstairs after me and walk slowly to your own door. If you see anyone approaching, come through the bathroom into Wilde’s dressing-room and warn me. I shall be in Mrs. Wilde’s room.”

He went out swiftly, and Nigel followed in time to see him running, cat-like, upstairs. By the time Nigel reached the landing the Inspector had disappeared.

Nigel walked to his own door and paused, taking his cigarette case out and groping in his pocket for matches. His heart was beating thickly. Had he been standing there hours or seconds when he heard a light footstep coming from the long corridor? He struck a match as Florence appeared, strolled through his own door, and then darted swiftly into the bathroom.

“Alleyn!” he whispered urgently. “Alleyn!” Then he stopped short, flabbergasted.

Arthur Wilde was washing his hands at the basin.

Nigel was so greatly taken aback that some seconds elapsed before he realized that Wilde was equally disconcerted. His face was extremely pale, and he stood very still, his hands plunged incongruously in the soapy water.

“I–I’m sorry,” stammered Nigel at last. “I thought you were Alleyn.”

Wilde achieved a wan smile. “Alleyn?” he said. “Yes, so I gathered, Bathgate. Will you tell me, did you think Alleyn was here or — in my wife’s room?”

Nigel was silent.

“I wish you could see your way to answering me,” said Wilde very quietly. He took a towel from the rack and began to dry his hands. Suddenly he dropped the towel on the floor and whispered, “My God, this is a terrible business.”

“Terrible!” echoed Nigel helplessly.

“Bathgate,” said Wilde in a sudden gust of passion, “you must tell me — did you expect to find the Inspector here or behind that dressing-room door in Marjorie’s room? Answer me.”

The door from the bathroom into the dressing-room was wide open, but the one beyond it was shut. Nigel looked involuntarily towards this door.

“I assure you—” he began.

“You are a bad liar, Bathgate,” said a voice from beyond. The door was opened, and Alleyn walked through.

“You were quite right, Mr. Wilde,” he said. “I have been carrying out a little investigation in your wife’s room. I have done so in all your rooms, you know. It is essential.”

“You had already been through everything,” said Wilde. “Why must you torture us like this? My wife has nothing — nothing to conceal. How could she have killed Rankin, and in that way? She has a horror of knives, an inhibition against them. Everyone knows that she can’t touch a knife or a blade of any sort. Why, even on the night of this crime — Bathgate, you remember! — she got into a fever at the very sight of that filthy dagger. It’s impossible, I tell you, it’s impossible!”

“Mr. Wilde, that is all I am trying to prove, that it is impossible.”

Something like a sob escaped the little man.

“Steady, Wilde,” said Nigel sheepishly.

“Will you hold your tongue, sir!” shouted the archaeologist. Involuntarily, Nigel had a swift mental picture of him turning on an unruly or impertinent student. “I must ask you to forgive me, Bathgate,” he added immediately. “I am not myself, indeed I am not.”

“Of course you are not,” said Nigel quickly; “and remember Mrs. Wilde has an alibi, a perfect alibi surely. Florence, Angela’s maid, and I myself both know she was in- her room. Don’t we, Alleyn?” He turned desperately to the detective. Alleyn did not answer.

There was a rather ghastly silence. Then abruptly:

“I think tea is waiting, Mr. Wilde,” said the Inspector. “Bathgate, may I have a word with you downstairs before I go?”

Nigel followed him to the door, and they were about to go out when an exclamation from Wilde arrested them.

“Stop!”

They both turned.

Wilde was standing in the middle of the room, his hands were pressed tightly together, his face, raised a little, was yet in shadow since the window was behind him. He spoke slowly.

“Inspector Alleyn,” he said, “I have decided to confess. I killed Rankin. I hoped that the necessity for this admission would not arise. But I can’t bear the strain any longer — and now — my wife! I killed him.”

Alleyn said nothing. He and Wilde were looking fixedly at each other. Nigel had never seen a face so devoid of expression as the detective’s.

“Well?” Wilde’s voice was hysterical. “Aren’t you going to give me the usual warning? The customary cliché! Anything in evidence against me?”

Nigel suddenly heard himself speaking, “… it’s impossible — impossible,” he was saying. “You were in your bath, there in that bath, I spoke to you, I know you were there. Good God, Wilde, you can’t do this, you can’t tell us… When — how did you do it?” He stopped, appalled by the inadequacy of his own words. At last Alleyn spoke.

“Yes,” he said gently; “when did you do it, Mr. Wilde?”

“Before I came upstairs. When I was alone with him.”

“What about Mary, the under-housemaid, who saw him alive after you had gone?”

“She — she made a mistake — she has forgotten. I was still there.”

“Then how did you manage to talk through this door to Mr. Bathgate here?”

Wilde did not answer.

“You tell me,” said Alleyn, turning to Nigel, “that you were talking to each other continuously before and while the lights were out?”

“Yes.”

“Yet, Mr. Wilde, you turned the lights out, and then took the trouble to sound the gong and thus warn the entire household you had committed murder.”

“It was the game. I–I didn’t mean to kill him, I didn’t realize—”

“You mean that while you were busily talking to Mr. Bathgate upstairs, you were also in the hall where, under the nose of a housemaid who did not happen to notice, you struck Mr. Rankin in fun with an exceedingly sharp dagger which you had previously had leisure to examine?”

Silence.

“Well, Mr. Wilde?” said Alleyn compassionately.

“Don’t you believe me?” cried Wilde.

“Frankly, no.” Alleyn opened the door. “But you have been playing an extremely dangerous game. I shall be in the study for a minute or two, Bathgate.”

He went out, shutting the door behind him. Wilde walked to the window and leant across the ledge. Suddenly he bent his head and buried his face in his arm. Nigel thought he had never before seen so tragic a figure.

“Look here,” he said swiftly, “you’ve been letting your nerves get the better of you. I am certain no one suspects your wife. Alleyn himself knows it is impossible. We three, you, she and I, are on the face of it exempt. You’ve told a brave lie, but a damn silly one. Pull yourself together and forget it.” He touched Wilde lightly on the shoulder and left him.