Overture to Death (15 page)

Georgie grinned.

“But how about the music? You’d forgotten about that, hadn’t you?”

“Nah, I had not. My pistol’s proper strong pistol. ’Twould have bowled over the music, for certain, sure.”

“You may be right,” said Alleyn. “Did you try it after you had fixed it up?”

“Nah.”

“Why not?”

“ ’Cause something happened.”

“What happened?”

“Nuthin! Somebody made a noise. I went away.”

“Where did you get the idea?” said Alleyn after a pause. “Come on, now.”

“I’ll be bound I know, the bad boy,” interrupted his mother. “If our Georgie’s been up to such-like capers, it’s out of one of the clap-trappy tales he’s always at. Ay, only last week he tied an alarm clock under faather’s chair and set ’un for seven o’clock when he takes his nap, and there was the picture in this rubbish to give him away.”

“Was it out of a book, Georgie?”

“Yaas. Kind of.”

“I see. And partly out of your Twiddletoy model, wasn’t it?”

Georgie nodded.

“When did you do it?”

“Froiday.”

“What time?”

“Aafternoon. Two o’clock, about.”

“How did you get Into the hall?”

“Was there with them girls and I stayed behind.”

“Tell me about it. You must have been pretty smart for them not to see what you were up to.”

Georgie, it seemed, had slipped into a dark corner as the Friendly Young People left at about a quarter-past two. His idea had been to shoot at them with his water-pistol as they passed; but at the last moment a more amusing notion occurred to him. He remembered the diverting tale of a piano booby-trap which he had read with the greatest enjoyment in the last number of
Bingo Bink’s Weekly
. He had some odds and ends of Twiddletoy in his pockets, and as soon as the front door slammed he got to work. First he silently examined the piano and made himself familiar with the action of the pedals. At this juncture his mother told Alleyn that Georgie was of a markedly mechanical turn of mind and had made many astonishing models from Twiddletoy all of which could be made to revolve or even propel. Georgie had gone solidly to work. Stimulated by Alleyn’s ardent attention, he described his handiwork. When it was finished he played a triumphant stanza or two of chop-sticks, taking care to use the loud pedal only.

“And nobody came?”

The devilish child turned white again.

“Nobody saw,” he muttered. “They never saw nuthun. Only banged at door and shouted.”

“And you didn’t answer? I see. Know who it was?”

“I never seen ’em.”

“All right. How did you leave?”

“By front door. I shut ’un behind me.”

There was a brief silence. Georgie’s face suddenly twisted into a painful grimace, his lip trembled again, and he looked piteously at Alleyn.

“I never meant no harm,” he said. “I never meant it to kill her.”

“That’s all right,” said Alleyn. He reached out a hand and took the child by the shoulder.

“It’s nothing to do with you, young Biggins,” said Alleyn.

But over the boy’s head he saw the mother’s stricken face and knew he could not help her so easily.

i

Alleyn went alone to Pen Cuckoo. He left Fox to visit Miss Campanula’s servants, find out the name of her lawyers, and pick up any grain of information that might be the fruit of his well-known way with female domestics.

The Biggins’s car chugged doggedly up the Vale Road in second gear. It was a stiff grade. The Vale rises steeply above Chipping, mounting past Winton to Pen Cuckoo Manor and turning into Cloudyfold Rise at the head of the valley. It is not an obviously picturesque valley, but it has a charm that transcends mere prettiness. The lower slopes of Cloudyfold make an agreeable pattern, the groups of trees are beautifully disposed about the flanks of the hills, and the scattered houses, being simple, seem to have grown out of the country, as indeed they have, since they are built of Dorset stone. It is not a tame landscape, either. The four winds meet on Cloudyfold, and in winter the small lake in Pen Cuckoo grounds holds its mask of ice for days together.

Alleyn noticed that several lanes came down into the Vale Road. He could see that at least one of them led crookedly up to the Manor, and one seemed to be a sort of bridle path from the Manor down to the church. He drove on through the double gates, up the climbing avenue and out on the wide sweep before Pen Cuckoo house.

A flood of thin sunshine had escaped the heavy clouds, and Pen Cuckoo looked its wintry best, an ancient and gracious house, not so very big, not at all forbidding, but tranquil. “A happy house,” thought Alleyn, “with a certain dignity.”

He gave his card to Taylor.

“I should like to see Mr. Jernigham, if I may.”

“If you will come this way, sir.”

As he followed Taylor through the west wing, he thought: “With any luck, it’ll be the study.”

It was, and the study was empty.

As soon as the door had shut behind Taylor, Alleyn looked for the box described by Sergeant Roper. He found it on a table underneath one of the windows. He lifted the lid and saw that the box was empty. He looked closely at the notice “LOADED,” which was printed in block capitals. Alleyn gently let fall the lid and walked over to the french window. It was not locked. It looked across the end of the gravelled sweep and over the tops of the park trees right down Pea Cuckoo Vale to Chipping and beyond.

Alleyn was still tracing the course of the Vale Road as it wound through the valley when the squire walked in.

Jocelyn looked fresh and composed. Perhaps his eyes were a little more prominent than usual and his face a little less red, but he had the look of a man who has come to a decision and there was a certain dignity and resolution in his manner.

“I’m glad to see you,” he said as he shook hands. “Sit down, won’t you? This is a terrible affair.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “It’s both terrible and bewildering.”

“Good God, I should think it was bewildering! It’s the most damned complicated, incomprehensible business I ever want to come up against. I suppose Blandish has told you that in Dillington’s absence I’ve got his job?”

“As Chief Constable? Yes, sir, he told me. That’s partly my reason for calling on you.”

The squire stared solemnly into the fire and said, “Quite.”

“Blandish says you were present when the thing happened.”

“Good God, yes. I don’t know why it happened, though, or exactly how. As soon as we decided to call you in, Blandish was all for leaving things severely alone. Be damn’ glad if you’d explain.”

Alleyn explained. Jocelyn listened with his eyes very wide open and his mouth not quite closed.

“Beastly, underhand, ingenious sort of thing,” he said. “Sounds more like a woman’s work to me. I don’t mean to say I think women are particularly underhand, you know; but when they do turn nasty, in my opinion they are inclined to turn crooked-nasty.”

He laughed unexpectedly and uncomfortably.

“Yes,” agreed Alleyn.

“Sort of inverse ratio or something, what?” added the squire dimly.

“That’s it, sir. Now, the first thing we’ve got to tackle is the ownership of the Colt. I don’t know — ”

“Wait a bit,” said Jocelyn. He stood up, drove his hands into his breeches pockets and walked over to the french windows.

“It’s mine,” he said.

Alleyn did not answer. The squire turned and looked at him. Seeing nothing but polite attention in Alleyn’s face, he made a slight inarticulate noise, strode to the table under the window and opened the box.

“See for yourself,” he said. “It’s been in that box for the last twenty years. It was there last week. Now it’s gone.”

Alleyn joined him.

“Hellish unpleasant,” said Jocelyn, “isn’t it? I only found out this morning. My son was thinking about the business, it seems, and suddenly remembered that the Colt is always lying there, loaded. He came downstairs and looked, and then he came to my room and told me. I’m wondering if I ought not to resign my position as C.C.”

“I shouldn’t do that, sir,” said Alleyn. “With any luck, we ought to be able to clear up the disappearance of the automatic.”

“I feel pretty shaken up about it, I don’t mind telling you.”

“Of course you do. As a matter of fact, I’ve brought the Colt up here to show you. May I just fetch it? I can slip out to the car this way.”

He went straight through the french windows and returned with his case, from which he took the automatic wrapped in a silk handkerchief.

“There’s really no need for all these precautions,” said Alleyn as he unwrapped it. “We’ve been all over it for prints and found none. My fingerprint man travels with half a laboratory in his kit. This thing’s been dusted, peered at and photographed. It was evidently very thoroughly cleaned after it was put in position.”

He laid the automatic in the box. It exactly fitted the indentation in the green baize lining.

“Seems a true bill,” said Alleyn.

“How many rounds gone?” asked Jocelyn.

“Three,” answered Alleyn.

“I fired the first two in 1917,” said Jocelyn; “but I swear before God I’d nothing to do with the third.”

“I hope you’ll at least have the satisfaction of knowing who had,” said Alleyn. “Did you write this notice, ‘Loaded,’ sir?”

“Yes,” said Jocelyn. “What of it?”

Alleyn paused for a fraction of a second before he said, “Only routine, sir. I was going to ask if it always lay on top of the Colt.”

“Certainly.”

“Do you mind, sir, if I take this box away with me? There may be prints; but I’m afraid your housemaids are too well trained.”

“I hope to God you find something. Do take it. I tell you, I’m nearly worried to death by the whole thing. It’s a damned outrage that this blasted murderer — ”

The door opened and Henry came into the room.

“This is my son,” said Jocelyn.

ii

From an upstairs window Henry had watched the arrival of Alleyn’s car. Ever since his visit to the study at dawn and his subsequent interview with the abruptly awakened Jocelyn, Henry had been unable to think coherently, to stay still, or to do anything definite. It struck him that he was in very much the same condition as he had been last night while waiting in the wings for the curtain to go up. He had telephoned to Dinah and arranged to see her at the rectory. He had prowled miserably about the house. At intervals he had tried to reassure his father, who had taken the news well, but was obviously very shaken. He had wondered what they would do with Eleanor when she chose to appear. She had gone straight to her room on her return from church, and was reported to be suffering from a headache.

When Jocelyn went downstairs to meet Alleyn, Henry’s condition became several degrees more uncomfortable. He imagined his father making a bad job of the automatic story, getting himself further and further involved, and finally losing his temper. The Yard man would probably be maddeningly professional and heavy handed. Henry pictured him seated on the edge of one of the study chairs, staring at his father with sharp, inhuman eyes set in a massive policeman’s face. “He will carry his bowler in with him and his boots will be intolerable,” thought Henry. “A mammoth of officialdom!”

At last his own idleness became insupportable, and he ran downstairs and made for the study.

He could hear his father’s voice raised, as it seemed, in protest. He opened the door and walked in.

“This is my son,” said Jocelyn.

Henry’s first thought was that this was some stranger, or perhaps a friend of Jocelyn’s arrived with hideous inconvenience to visit them. He saw an extremely tall man, thin, and wearing good clothes, with an air of vague distinction.

“This is Mr. Alleyn,” said Jocelyn, “from Scotland Yard.”

“Oh,” said Henry.

He shook hands, felt suddenly rather young, and sat down. His next impression was that he had seen Mr. Alleyn before. He found himself looking at Alleyn in terms of a pencil drawing. A drawing that might have been done by Dürer with a sharp, hard pencil and then washed delicately with blue-blacks and ochres. “A grandee turned monk,” thought Henry, “but retaining some amusing memories.” And he sought to find a reason for this impression which seemed more like a recollection. The accents of the brows, the winged corners to, the mouth and eyes, the sharp insistence of the skull — he had seen them all before.

“Henry!” said his father sharply.

Henry realised that Alleyn had been speaking.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid I didn’t — I’m very sorry.”

“I was only asking,” said Alleyn, “if you could help us with this business of the Colt. Your father says it was in its box last week. Can you get any nearer to it than that?”

“It was there on Friday afternoon at five,” said Henry.

“How d’you know?” demanded the squire.

“You’ll scarcely credit it,” said Henry slowly, “but I’ve only just remembered. It was before you came down. I was here with Cousin Eleanor waiting for the others to come in for Dinah’s run-through for words. They all arrived together, or within two or three minutes of each other. Somebody, Dr. Templett, I think, said something about the burglaries in Somerset last week. Posh Jimmy and his Boys, and all that. We wondered if they’d come this way. Miss Campanula talked about burglar alarms and what she’d do if she heard stealthy footsteps in the small hours. I told them about your war relic, Father, and we all looked at it. Mrs. Ross said she didn’t think it was safe to have a loaded firearm lying about. I showed her that the safety catch was on. Then we talked about something else. You came in and we started the rehearsal.”

“That’s a help,” said Alleyn. “It narrows the time down to twenty-seven hours. That was Friday evening. Now, did either of you go to the hall on Friday afternoon?”

“I was hunting,” said Jocelyn. “I didn’t get back till five, in time for this run-through.”

Alleyn looked at Henry.

“I went for a walk,” said Henry. “I left at about half-past two. I remember now. It was half-past two.”

“Did you go far?”

Henry looked straight before him.

“No. About half-way down to the church.”

“How long were you away?”

“About two hours.”

“You stopped somewhere, then?”

“Yes.”

“Did you speak to anybody?”

“I met Dinah Copeland.” Henry looked at his father. “
Not
by appointment. We talked. For some time. Then my cousin, Eleanor Prentice, came up. She had been to church. If it’s of any interest, I remember hearing the church clock strike three when she came up. After that Dinah went back to the rectory and I struck up a path to Cloudyfold. I came home by the hill path.”

“At what time did you get home?”

“Tea-time. About half-past four.”

“Thank you. Now for Friday at five, when the company met here and you showed them the automatic. Did they all leave together?”

“Yes,” said Henry.

“At what time?”

“Soon after six.”

“Nobody was alone in here at any time before they left?”

“No. We rehearsed in here. They all went out by the french window. It saves trailing through the house.”

“Yes. Is it always unlocked?”

“During the day it is.”

“I lock it before we go to bed,” said Jocelyn, “and fasten the shutters. Lock up the whole place.”

“You did this on Friday night, sir?”

“Yes. I was in here reading, all Friday evening.”

“Alone?”

“I was here part of the time,” Henry said. “Something had gone wrong with one of Dinah’s light plugs in the hall and I’d brought it up here to mend. I started in here, and then went to my own room where I had a screwdriver. I tried to ring Dinah up, but our telephone was out of order. A branch had fallen across it in Top Lane.”

“I see. Now, how about yesterday? Any visitors?”

“Templett came up in the morning to borrow an old four-in-hand tie of mine,” said Jocelyn. “He seemed to think he’d like to wear it in in the play. He offered to look at my cousin’s finger, but she wouldn’t come down.”

“She was afraid he’d tell her she couldn’t play her filthy ‘Venetian Suite,’ ” said Henry. “Do you admire the works of Ethelbert Nevin, Mr. Alleyn?”

“No,” said Alleyn.

“They’re gall and wormwood to me,” said Henry gloomily. “And I suppose we’ll have them here for the rest of our lives. Not that I like the bloody Prelude much better. Do you know what that Prelude is supposed to illustrate?”

“Yes, I think I do. Isn’t it — ”

“Burial,” said Henry. “It’s supposed to be a man buried alive. Bump, bump, bump on the coffin lid. Well, I suppose it’s not so frightfully inappropriate.”

“Not so frightfully,” agreed Alleyn rather grimly. “Now, about yesterday’s visitors.”

But Henry and his father were rather vague about yesterday’s visitors. The squire had driven into Great Chipping in the morning.

“And Miss Prentice?” asked Alleyn.

“Same thing. She went with us. She was in the hall all the morning. They were all there.”

“All?”

“Well, not Templett,” said Henry. “He called in here as we’ve described, at about ten o’clock, and my father gave him the tie. And a pretty ghastly affair it is, I may add.”