Overture to Death (28 page)

“So she had. I’ll swear,” said Mrs. Ross.

“Mr. Jernigham?”

“Yes. Yes, she suggested that.”

“She told you perhaps, that you could trust her?”

“Oh, my God!” said the squire.

“I arrived too late at this place,” said Mrs. Ross, “to be able to do anything to the piano.” She looked at Dinah. “You know that.”

“Yes,” said Dinah.

“It was soon after that,” said Miss Prentice abruptly, “that she began to set traps for me, you know. Then I saw it all in a flash. She must have seen me through a glass darkly, and because I witnessed the unpardonable sin she will destroy me. You understand, don’t you, because it is very important. She is in league with The Others, and it won’t be long before one of them catches me.”

Templett said, “Alleyn, you must see. This has gone on long enough. It’s perfectly obvious what’s wrong here.”

“We will go on, if you please,” said Alleyn. “Mr. Copeland, you told me that on Friday night you expected Miss Prentice at the rectory.”

The rector, very pale, said, “Yes.”

“She didn’t arrive?”

“No. I told you. She telephoned.”

“At what time?”

“Not long after ten.”

“From Pen Cuckoo?”

“It was my hand, you know,” said Miss Prentice rapidly. “I wanted to rest my hand. It was so
very
naughty. The blood tramped up and down my arm. Thump, thump, thump. So I said I would stay at home.”

“You rang up from Pen Cuckoo?”

“I took the message, Mr. Alleyn,” said Dinah. “I told you.”

“And what do you say, Miss Copeland, if I tell you that on Friday night the Pen Cuckoo telephone was out of order from 8.20 until the following morning?”

“But — it couldn’t have been.”

“I’m afraid it was.” He turned to Henry Jernigham. “You agree?”

“Yes,” said Henry without raising his head.

“You can thank The Others for that,” said Miss Prentice in a trembling voice.

“The Others?”

“
The Others
, yes. They are always doing those sort of tricks; and she’s the worst of the lot, that woman over there.”

“Well, Miss Copeland?”

“I took the message,” repeated Dinah. “Miss Prentice said she was at home and would remain at home.”

“This contradiction,” said Alleyn, “takes us a step further. Mrs. Ross, on Friday night you drove down to Chipping by way of Church Lane?”

“Yes.”

“You have told me that you saw a light in this hall.”

“Yes.”

“You think it was in Mr. Jernigham’s dressing-room?”

“Yes.”

“The telephone is in that room, Miss Dinah, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” whispered Dinah. “Oh, yes.”

Alleyn took a card from his pocket and scribbled on it. He handed it over to Henry.

“Will you take Miss Dinah to the rectory?” he said. “In half an hour I want you to ring through to here on the extension. Show this card to the man at the door and he will let you out.”

Henry looked fixedly at Alleyn.

“Very well, sir.” he said. “Thank you.”

Henry and Dinah went out.

iv

“Now,” said Alleyn, “we come to the final scene. I must tell you — though I dare say you have heard it all by now — that at 6.30 Miss Gladys Wright used the piano and pressed down the soft pedal. Nothing untoward happened. Since it is inconceivable that anybody could remove the pot plants and rig the automatic after 6.30, we know that the automatic must have been already in position. The safety-catch, which Mr. Henry Jernigham showed to all of you, and particularly to Mrs. Ross, accounts for Gladys Wright’s immunity. How, then, did the guilty person manage to release the safety-catch after Gladys Wright and her fellow-helpers were down in the front of the hall? I will show you how it could have been done.”

He went down to the footlights.

“You notice that the curtain falls on the far side of the improvised footlights and just catches on the top of the piano. Now, if you’ll look.”

He stooped and pushed his hand under the curtain. The top of the piano, with its covering of green and yellow bunting, could just be seen.

“This bunting is pinned down as it was on Saturday. It is stretched tight over the entire top of the piano. The lid is turned back, but of course that doesn’t show. The pot plants stand on the inside of the lid. I take out the centre drawing-pin at the back and slide my hand under the bunting. I am hidden by the curtain, and the pot plants also serve as a mask for any slight movement that might appear from the front of the hall. My fingers have reached the space beyond the open lid. Inside the opening they encounter the cold, smooth surface of the Colt. Listen.”

Above the sound of rain and wind they all heard a small click.

“I have pushed over the safety-catch,” said Alleyn. “The automatic is now ready to shoot Miss Campanula between the eyes.”

“Horrible,” said the rector violently..

“There is one sequence of events about which we can be certain,” said Alleyn. “We know that the first person to arrive was Gladys Wright. We know that she entered the hall at 6.30, and was in front of the curtain down there with her companions until and after the audience came in. We know that it would have been impossible for anybody to come down from the stage into the front of the hall unnoticed. Miss Wright is ready to swear that nobody did this. We know that Miss Dinah Copeland arrived with her father soon after Gladys Wright, and was here behind the scenes. We know Mr. Copeland sat on the stage until he made his announcement to the audience, only leaving it for a moment to join the others at the telephone, and once again when he persuaded Miss Prentice not to play. Mr. Copeland, did you at any time see anybody stoop down to the curtains as I did just then?”

“No. No! I am quite certain that I didn’t. You see, my chair faced the exact spot.”

“Yes, therefore we know that unless Mr. Copeland is the guilty person, the safety-catch must have been released during one of his two absences. But Mr. Copeland believed, up to the last moment, that Miss Prentice was to be the pianist. We are satisfied that Mr. Copeland is not the guilty person.”

The rector raised one of his large hands in a gesture that seemed to repudiate his immunity. The squire, Miss Prentice, Mrs. Ross and Templett kept their eyes fixed on Alleyn.

“Knowing the only means by which the safety-catch might be released, it seems evident that Miss Prentice was not the intended victim. Miss Prentice, you are cold. Do you feel a draught?”

Miss Prentice shook her head, but she trembled like a wet dog and looked not unlike one. There was a faint sound of movement behind the scenes. Alleyn went on:

“When you were all crowded round her and she gave in and consented to allow Miss Campanula to play, it would have been easy enough to come up here and put the safety-catch on again. Why run the risk of being arrested for the murder of the wrong person?”

Alleyn’s level voice halted for a moment. He leant forward, and when he spoke again it was with extreme deliberation:

“No! The trap was set for Miss Campanula. It was set before Miss Prentice yielded her right to play, and it was set by someone who knew she would not play. The safety-catch was released at the only moment when the stage was empty. The moment when you were all crowded round the telephone. Then the murderer sat back and waited for the catastrophe to happen. Beyond the curtain at this moment someone is sitting at the piano. In a minute you will hear the opening chords of the “Prelude” as you heard them on Saturday night. If you listen closely you will hear the click of the trigger when the soft pedal goes down. That will represent the report of the automatic. Imagine this guilty person. Imagine someone whose hand stole under the curtain while the hall was crowded and set that trap. Imagine someone who sat, as we sit now, and waited for those three fatal chords.”

Alleyn paused.

As heavy as lead and as loud as ever the dead hand had struck them out, in the empty hall beyond the curtain, thumped the three chords of Miss Campanula’s “Prelude.”

“Pom.
Pom
. POM!”

And very slowly, in uneven jerks, the curtain began to rise.

As it rose, so did Miss Prentice. She might have been pulled up by an invisible hand in her hair. Her mouth was wide open, but the only sound she made was a sort of retching groan. She did not take her eyes from the rising curtain, but she pointed her hand at the rector and waved it up and down.

“
It was for you
,” screamed Miss Prentice. “
I did it for you
!”

And Nigel, seated at the piano, saw Alleyn take her by the arm.

“Eleanor Prentice, I arrest you — ”

i

Henry and Dinah sat by the fire in the rectory study and watched the clock.

“
Why
does he want us to ring up?” said Dinah for perhaps the sixth time. “I don’t understand.”

“I think I do. I think the telephoning’s only an excuse. He wanted us out of the way.”

“But why?”

Henry put his arm round her shoulders and pressed his cheek against her hair.

“Oh, Dinah,” he said.

“What, darling?”

Dinah looked up. He sat on the arm of her chair and she had to move a little in his embrace before she could see his eyes.

“Henry! What is it?”

“I think we’re in for a bad spin.”

“But — isn’t it Mrs. Ross?”

“I don’t think so.”

Without removing her gaze from his face she took his hand.

“I think it’s Eleanor,” said Henry.

“
Eleanor
!”

“It’s the only answer. Don’t you see that’s what Alleyn was driving at all the time?”

“But she
wanted
to play. She made the most frightful scene over not playing.”

“I know. But Templett said two days before that she’d never be able to do it. Don’t you see, she worked it so that we should find her crying and moaning, and insist on her giving up?”

“Suppose we hadn’t insisted.”

“She’d have left the safety-catch on or not used the soft pedal, or perhaps she’d have ‘discovered’ the automatic and accused Miss C. of putting it there. That would have made a glorious scene.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Can you believe it of any one else?”

“Mrs. Ross,” said Dinah promptly.

“No, darling. I rather think Mrs. Ross has merely tried to blackmail my papa. It is my cousin who is a murderess. Shall you enjoy a husband of whom every one will say: ‘Oh, yes, Henry Jernigham! Wasn’t he the Pen Cuckoo murderess’s nephew or son or something?’”

“I shall love my husband and I shan’t hear what they say. Besides, you don’t know. You’re only guessing.”

“I’m certain of it. There are all sorts of things that begin to fit in. Things that don’t fit any other way. Dinah, I know she’s the one.”

“Anyway, my dear darling, she’s mad.”

“I hope so,” said Henry. “God, it’s awful, isn’t it?”

He sprang up and began to walk nervously up and down.

“I can’t stand this much longer,” said Henry.

“It’s time we rang up.”

“I’ll do it.”

But as he reached the door they heard voices in the hall.

The rector came in, followed by Alleyn and the squire.

“Dinah! Where’s Dinah?” cried the rector.

“Here she is,” said Henry. “Father!”

The squire turned a chalk-white face to his son.

“Come here, old boy,” he said. “I want you.”

“That chair,” said Alleyn quickly.

Henry and Alleyn put the squire in the chair.

“Brandy, Dinah,” said the rector. “He’s fainted.”

“No, I haven’t,” said Jocelyn. “Henry, old boy, I’d better tell you — ”

“I know,” said Henry. “It’s Eleanor.”

Alleyn moved back to the door and watched them. He was now a detached figure. The arrest came like a wall of glass between himself and the little group that hovered round Jocelyn. He knew that most of his colleagues accepted these moments of isolation. Perhaps they were scarcely aware of them. But, for himself, he always felt a little like a sort of Mephistophelcs, who looked on at his own handiwork. He didn’t enjoy the sensation. It was the one moment when his sense of detachment deserted him. Now, as they remembered him, he saw in the faces turned towards him the familiar guarded antagonism of herded animals.

He said, “If Mr. Jernigham would like to see Miss Prentice, it shall be arranged. Superintendent Blandish will be in charge.”

He bowed, and was going when Jocelyn said loudly:

“Wait a minute.”

“Yes, sir?” Alleyn moved quickly to the chair. The squire looked up at him.

“I know you tried to prepare me for this,” he said. “You guessed that woman had told me. I couldn’t admit that until — until it was all up — I wouldn’t admit it. You understand that?”

“Yes.”

“I’m all to blazes. Think what to do in the morning. Just wanted to say I appreciate the way you’ve handled things. Considerate.”

“I would have avoided the final scene, sir, if I had seen any other way.”

“I know that. Mustn’t ask questions, of course.

There are some things I don’t understand — Alleyn, you see she’s out of her mind?”

“Dr. Templett, I’m sure, will advise you about an alienist, sir.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

The squire blinked up at him and then suddenly held out his hand.

“Good-night.”

“Good-night, sir.”

Henry said, “I’ll come out with you.”

As they walked to the door, Alleyn thought there were points about being a Jernigham of Pen Cuckoo.

“It’s queer,” said Henry. “I suppose this must be a great shock to us; but at the moment I feel nothing at all. Nothing. I don’t realise that she’s— Where is she?”

“The Yard car is on the way to Great Chipping. She’ll need things from Pen Cuckoo. We’ll let you know what they are.”

Henry stopped dead at the rectory door. His voice turned to ice.

“Is she frightened?”

Alleyn remembered that face with the lips drawn back from the projecting teeth, the tearless bulging eyes, the hands that opened and closed as if they had let something fall.

“I don’t think she is conscious of fear,” he said. “She was quite composed. She didn’t weep.”

“She can’t. Father’s often said she never cried as a child.”

“I remembered your father told me that.”

“I hated her,” said Henry. “But that’s nothing now; she’s insane. It’s strange, because there’s no insanity in the family. What happens? I mean, when will they begin to try her. We — what ought we to do?”

Alleyn told him what they should do. It was the first time he had ever advised the relatives of a person accused of murder, and he said, “But you must ask your lawyer’s advice first of all. That is really all I may tell you.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. Thank you, sir.” Henry peered at Alleyn. He saw him against rods of rain that glinted in the light from the open door.

“It’s funny,” said Henry jerkily. “Do you know, I was going to ask you about Scotland Yard — how one began.”

“Did you think seriously of this?”

“Yes. I want a job. Hardly suitable for the cousin of the accused.”

“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t try for the police.”

“I’ve read your book. Good Lord, it’s pretty queer to stand here and talk like this.”

“You’re more shocked than you realise. If I were you I should take your father home.”

“Ever since yesterday, sir, I’ve had the impression I’d seen you before. I’ve just remembered. Agatha Troy did a portrait of you, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“It was very good, wasn’t it? Rather a compliment to be painted by Troy. Is she pleasant or peculiar?”

“I think her very pleasant indeed,” said Alleyn. “I have persuaded her to say she will marry me. Goodnight.”

He smiled, waved his hand and went out into the rain.

ii

Nigel had driven his own car over to the rectory, and he took Alleyn to Great Chipping.

“The others have only just got away,” said Nigel. “She fainted after you left, and Fox had to get Templett to deal with her. They’re picking the wardress up at the sub-station.”

“Fainted, did she?”

“Yes. She’s completely dotty, isn’t she?”

“I shouldn’t say so. Not completely.”

“Not?”

“The dottiness has only appeared since Saturday night. She’s probably extremely neurotic. Unbalanced, hysterical, all that. In law, insanity is very closely defined. Her counsel will probably go for moral depravity, delusion, or hallucination. If he can prove a history of disturbance of the higher levels of thought, he may get away with it. I’m afraid poor old Copeland will have to relate his experiences. They’ll give me fits for your performance on the piano, but I’ve covered myself by warning the listeners. I don’t mind betting that even if lunacy is not proved, there’ll be a recommendation for mercy. Of course, they may go all out for ‘not guilty’ and get it.”

“You might give me an outline, Alleyn.”

“All right. Where are we? It’s as dark as hell.”

“Just coming into Chipping. There’s the police car ahead.”

“Ah, yes. Well, here’s the order of events as we see it. On Friday, by 2.40, Georgie had set the booby-trap. Miss Campanula tried to get into the hall before he left it. He hid while the chauffeur looked through the window. When the chauffeur had gone, Georgie re-pinned the bunting over the open top of the piano, replaced the aspidistras and decamped. At a minute or two after half-past two, Miss C. passed Miss P. in the church porch. Miss P. was seen by Gibson. She crossed Church Lane and would pass the hall on her way to Top Lane. In Top Lane she met Dinah Copeland and Henry Jernigham at three o’clock.

“Apparently she had taken half an hour to walk a quarter of a mile. We did it yesterday in five minutes. Our case is that she’d gone into the hall in a great state of upset because the rector had ticked her off at confession. She must have sat at the piano, worked the booby-trap and got the jet of water full in the face. She removed the pistol, and probably the first vague idea of her crime came into her head, because she kept quiet about the booby-trap. Perhaps she remembered the Colt and wondered if it would fit. We don’t know. We only know that at three o’clock she had the scene in Top Lane with Henry and Dinah, the scene that was watched and overheard by that old stinker, Tranter. Tranter and Dinah noticed that the bosom of her dress was wet. That, with the lapse in time, are the only scraps of evidence we’ve got so far to give colour to this bit of our theory, but I’d like to know how else the front of her bodice got wet, if not from the pistol. It wasn’t raining, and anyhow rain wouldn’t behave like that. And I’d like to know how else you can account for her arrival, as late as three, at a spot five minutes away.”

“Yes, it’ll certainly take a bit of explaining.”

“The butler remembered she got back at four. At five Henry explained the mechanism of the Colt to the assembled company, stressing and illustrating the action of the safety-catch. Miss P. had told the rector she wanted to see him that evening. Of course, she wanted to give him a distorted and poisonous version of the meeting between Henry and his Dinah. She was to come to the rectory after Reading Circle activities. About ten o’clock, that would be. Now, soon after ten, Miss C. flung herself into the rector’s arms in the rectory study.”

“Christopher!”

“Yes. I hope for his sake we won’t have to bring this out; but it’s a faint hope. The curtains were not drawn, and anybody on the path to the hall could have seen. Round about 10.15, Miss Dinah heard the gate into the wood give its customary piercing shriek. She thought somebody had gone out that way and believed it was Miss C. We contend it was Miss P. coming in for her appointment. We contend she stood inside the gate transfixed by the tableau beyond the window, that she put the obvious interpretation on what she saw, and fell a prey to whatever furies visit a woman whose ageing heart is set on one man and whose nerves, desires and thoughts have been concentrated on the achievement of her hope. We think she turned, passed through the post-stile and returned to Church Lane. To help this theory we’ve got two blurred heel-prints, the statements that nobody else used the gate that night, and the fact that Miss P. rang up shortly afterwards from the hall.”

“How the devil d’you get that?”

“The telephone operator is prepared to swear nobody rang up the rectory. But Miss P. rang up and the old housemaid called Dinah Copeland, who went to the telephone. She evidently didn’t notice it was an extension call. Miss P. said she was speaking from Pen Cuckoo. Miss P. has admitted she rang up. The hall telephone is an extension and doesn’t register at the exchange. Mrs. Ross saw a light in the hall telephone room, at the right moment. It’s the only explanation. Miss P. didn’t know the Pen Cuckoo telephone was out of order and thought she was safe enough to establish a false alibi. She probably got the water-pistol that night and took it away with her to see if the Colt was the same length. It was an eleventh of an inch shorter which meant that the nozzle would fit in the hole without projecting. Now we come to Saturday afternoon. She told me she was in her room. Mrs. Ross recognised her through the hall window, and we’ve got the scraps of rubber to prove that she handled the box. She looked through the hall window to see if the coast was clear. I imagine Templett was embracing his dubious love, who saw the onlooker over his shoulder. Miss P. took to cover, leaving the box. When they’d gone, she crept into the hall and put the Colt in position. She’d had four emotional shocks in twenty-six hours. The rector had given her fits. She’d seen Henry making ardent love to Dinah. She’d seen Idris Campanula, apparently victoriously happy, in the rector’s arms, and she’d watched Templett and Mrs. Ross in what I imagine must have been an even more passionate encounter. And though I do
not
consider her insane in law, I do consider that these experiences drove her into an ecstasy of fury. Since it is the rector with whom she herself is madly and overwhelmingly in love, Idris Campanula was the object of her hatred. It was Idris who had robbed her of her hopes. Incidentally, it is Idris who left her a fortune. Georgie Biggins had shown her the way. It’s worth noting here that she won a badge for tying knots, and taught the local Guides in this art. At half-past four she was back at Pen Cuckoo and waked the squire in time for tea. This account, too, sounds like conjecture, but the finger-stall proves she lied once, the telephone proves she lied twice, and the fingerprints in the teapot prove she lied three times.”

“In the teapot?”

“I’ll explain them in a minute.”

They reached the top of Great Chipping Rise, and the lights of the town swam brokenly beyond the rain.

“There’s not much more,” said Alleyn. “The prosecution will make the most of this last point. The only time the stage was deserted, after they arrived in the evening, was when all the others stood round the telephone trying to get through to Mrs. Ross and Dr. Templett. Only Miss Prentice was absent. She appeared for a moment, saw the squire in his under-pants, scuttled off to the stage and did her stunt with the safety-catch. Our case really rests on this. We can check and double-check the movements of every one of them from half-past six onwards. The rector sat on the stage, and will swear nobody touched the piano from that side. Gladys Wright and her helpers were in the hall and will swear nobody touched it from that side. The only time the catch could have been moved was when they were all round the telephone, and Miss P. was absent. She is literally the only person who could have moved the catch.”