False Scent (15 page)

“But why do you suppose this? Why?”

Her lips trembled and she rubbed her hand across them. “
Why! Why
! I’ll tell you why. Because she smelt of that scent. Smelt of it, I tell you, so strong it would sicken you. So if you’re going to lock anybody up, you can start on Clara Plumtree.”

Her mouth twisted. Suddenly she burst into tears and blundered out of the room.

Fox shut the door after her and removed his spectacles. “A tartar,” he observed.

“Yes,” Alleyn agreed. “A faithful, treacherous, jealous, pig-headed tartar. You never know how they’ll cut up in a crisis. Never. And I fancy, for our pains, we’ve got a brace of them in this party.”

As if to confirm this opinion there was a heavy single bang on the door. It swung violently open and there, on the threshold, was Old Ninn Plumtree with P.C. Philpott, only less red-faced than herself, towering in close attendance.

“Lay a finger on me, young man,” Old Ninn was saying, “and I’ll make a public example of you.”

“I’m sure I’m very sorry, sir,” said Philpott. “The lady insists on seeing you and short of taking her in charge I don’t seem to be able to prevent it.”

“All right, Philpott,” Alleyn said. “Come in, Ninn. Come in.”

She did so. Fox resignedly shut the door. He put a chair behind Ninn, but she disregarded it. She faced Alleyn over her own folded arms. To look in his face she was obliged to tilt her own acutely backwards and in doing so gave out such an astonishingly potent effluvium that she might have been a miniature volcano smouldering with port and due to erupt. Her voice was sepulchral and her manner truculent.

“I fancied,” she said, “I knew a gentleman when I saw one and I hope you’re not going to be a disappointment. Don’t answer me back. I prefer to form my own opinion.”

Alleyn did not answer her back.

“That Floy,” Old Ninn continued, “has been at you. A bad background, if ever there was one. What’s bred in the child comes out in the woman. Don’t believe a word of what she tells you. What’s she been saying about the boy?”

“About Mr. Dakers?”

“Certainly. A man to you, seem he may; to me who knows him inside out, he’s a boy. Twenty-eight and famous, I daresay, but no more harm in him than there ever has been, which is never. Sensitive and fanciful, yes. Not practical, granted. Vicious, fiddle! Now. What’s that Floy been putting about?”

“Nothing very terrible, Ninn.”

“Did she say he was ungrateful? Or bad-mannered?”

“Well…”

“He’s nothing of the sort. What else?”

Alleyn was silent. OLd Ninn unfolded her arms. She laid a tiny gnarled paw on Alleyn’s hand. “Tell me what else,” she said, glaring into his face, “I’ve got to know. Tell me.”

“
You
tell
me
” he said and put his hand over hers. “What was the matter between Mr. Richard and Mrs. Templeton? It’s better I should know. What was it?”

She stared at him. Her lips moved but no sound came from them.

“You saw him,” Alleyn said, “when he came out of her room. What was the matter? Florence told us…”

“
She
told you!
She
told you that!”

“I’d have found out, you know. Can you clear it up for us? Do, if you can.”

She shook her head in a very desolate manner. Her eyes were glazed with tears and her speech had become uncertain. He supposed she had fortified herself with an extra glass before tackling him and it was now taking full effect.

“I can’t say,” she said indistinctly. “I don’t know. One of her tantrums. A tyrant from the time she could speak. The boy’s never anything but good and patient.” And after a moment she added quite briskly, “Doesn’t take after
her
in that respect. More like the father.”

Fox looked up from his notes. Alleyn remained perfectly still. Old Ninn rocked very slightly on her feet and sat down.

“Mr. Templeton?” Alleyn said.

She nodded two or three times with her eyes shut. “You may well say so,” she murmured, “you — may — well…” Her voice trailed into silence and she dozed.

Fox opened his mouth and Alleyn signalled him and he shut it again. There was a considerable pause. Presently Old Ninn gave a slight snore, moved her lips and opened her eyes.

Alleyn said, “Does Mr. Richard know about his parentage?”

She looked fixedly at him. “Why shouldn’t he?” she said. “They were both killed in a motor accident and don’t you believe anything you’re told to the contrary. Name of Dakers.” She caught sight of Fox and his notebook. “Dakers,” she repeated and spelt it out for him.

“Thank you very much,” said Fox.

Alleyn said, “Did you think Mr. Richard looked very much upset when he came out of her room?”

“She had the knack of upsetting him. He takes things to heart.”

“What did he do?”

“Went downstairs. Didn’t look at me. I doubt if he saw me.”

“Florence,” Alleyn said, “thought he looked like death.”

Ninn got to her feet. Her little hands clutched at his arm. “What’s she mean? What’s she been hinting? Why didn’t she say what I heard? After she went downstairs? I told her. Why didn’t she tell you?”

“What did you hear?”

“She knows! I told her. I didn’t think anything of it at the time and now she won’t admit it. Trying to lay the blame on the boy. She’s a wicked girl and always has been.”

“What did you hear?”

“I heard the Lady using that thing. The poison thing. Hissing.
Heard
it! She killed herself,” Ninn said. “Why, we’ll never know and the sin’s on her head forever. She killed herself.”

There was a long pause during which Ninn showed signs of renewed instability. Fox put his arm under hers. “Steady does it,” he said comfortably.

“That’s no way to talk,” she returned sharply and sat down again.

“Florence,” Alleyn said, “tells us Miss Bellamy was incapable of any such thing.”

The mention of Florence instantly restored her.

“Florence said this and Florence said that,” she barked. “And did Florence happen to mention she fell out with her lady and as good as got her notice this morning? Did she tell you that?”

“No,” Alleyn murmured, “she didn’t tell us that.”

“Ah! There you are, you see!”

“What did you do after Mr. Richard left the room and went downstairs? After Florence had gone and after you’d heard the spray?”

She had shut her eyes again and he had to repeat his questions. “I retired,” she said with dignity, “to my room.”

“When did you hear of the catastrophe?”

“There was a commotion. Floy with a hot bottle on the landing having hysterics. I couldn’t get any sense out of her. Then the doctor came out and told me.”

“And after that, what did you do?”

He could have sworn that she made a considerable effort to collect herself and that his question had alarmed her. “I don’t remember,” she said and then added, “Went back to my room.” She had opened her eyes and was watching him very warily.

“Are you sure, Ninn? Didn’t you have a look at Mr. Templeton in the dressing-room?”

“I’ve forgotten. I might have. I believe I did. You can’t think of everything,” she added crossly.

“How was he? How did you find him?”

“How would you expect him to be?” she countered. “Very low. Didn’t speak. Upset. Naturally. With his trouble, it might have been the death of him. The shock and all.”

“How long were you in the dressing-room?”

“I don’t remember. Till the police came and ordered everybody about.”

“Did you,” Alleyn asked her, “go into the bedroom?”

She waited for a long time. “No,” she said at last.

“Are you sure? You didn’t go through into the bathroom or begin to tidy the room?”

“No.”

“Or touch the body?”

“I didn’t go into the bedroom.”

“And you didn’t let Florence go in either?”

“What’s she been telling you?”

“That she wanted to go in and that you — very properly — told her that the doctor had forbidden it.”

“She was hysterical. She’s a silly girl. Bad in some ways.”

“Did Mr. Templeton go into the bedroom?”

“He had occasion,” she said with great dignity, “to pass through it in order to make use of the convenience. That is not forbidden, I hope?”

“Naturally not.”

“Very well then,” she stifled a hiccough and rose. “I’m going to bed,” she said loudly, and as there was nothing further to be collected from her, they let her out.

Fox offered assistance but was rebuffed. She tacked rapidly towards the door.

He opened it quickly.

There, on the landing, looking remarkably uncomfortable, was Richard Dakers.

He had been caught, it was evident, in the act of moving away from the door. Now, he stood stock-still, an uncomfortable smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. Old Ninn stopped short when she saw him, appeared to get her bearings and went up to him.

“Ninn,” he said, looking past her at Alleyn and speaking with most unconvincing jauntiness, “what
have
you been up to!”

She stared into his face. “Speak up for yourself,” she said. “They’ll put upon you if you don’t.”

“Hadn’t you better go to bed? You’re not yourself, you know.”

“Exactly,” Ninn said with hauteur. “I’m going.”

She made off at an uncertain gait towards the backstairs. Alleyn said, “Mr. Dakers, what are you doing up here?”

“I wanted to get into my room.”

“I’m afraid we’re occupying it at the moment. But if there’s anything you need…”

“Oh God!” Richard cried out. “Is there to be no end to these indignities? No! No, there’s nothing I need. Not now. I wanted to be by myself in my room where I could make some attempt to think.”

“You had it all on your own in the drawing-room,” Fox said crossly. “Why couldn’t you think down there? How did you get past the man on duty, sir?”

“He was coping with a clutch of pressmen at the front door and I nipped up the backstairs.”

“Well,” Alleyn said, “you’d better nip down again to where you came from and if you’re sick of the drawing-room, you can join the party next door, Unless, of course, you’d like to stay and tell us your real object in coming up here.”

Richard opened his mouth and shut it again. He then turned on his heels and went downstairs. He was followed by Fox, who returned looking portentous. “I gave that chap in the hall a rocket,” he said. “They don’t know the meaning of keeping observation these days. Mr. Dakers is back in the drawing-room. Why do you reckon he broke out, sir?”

“I think,” Alleyn said, “he may have remembered the blotting-paper.”

“Ah, there is that. May be. Mrs. Plumtree wasn’t bad value, though, was she?”

“Not bad. But none of it proves anything, of course,” Alleyn said. “Not a damn thing.”

“Floy getting the sack’s interesting. If true.”

“It may be a recurrent feature of their relationship, for all we know. What about the sounds they both heard in the bedroom?”

“Do we take it,” Fox asked, “that Floy’s crash came before Mrs. Plumtree’s hiss?”

“I suppose so. Yes.”

“And that Florence retired after the crash?”

“While Ninn remained for the hiss. Precisely.”

“The inference being,” Fox pursued, “that as soon as Mr. Dakers left her, the lady fell with a deafening crash on the four-pile carpet.”

“And then sprayed herself all over with Slaypest.”

“Quite so, Mr. Alleyn.”

“I prefer a less dramatic reading of the evidence.”

“All the same, it doesn’t look very pleasant for Mr. Dakers.” And as Alleyn didn’t reply, “D’you reckon Mrs. Plumtree was talking turkey when she let out about his parentage?”

“I think it’s at least possible that she believes it.”

“Born,” Fox speculated, “out of wedlock and the parents subsequently married?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Wait a bit.” He took down the copy of
Who’s Who in the Theatre
. “Here we are. Bellamy. Sumptuous entry. Birth, not given. Curtis says fifty. Married 1932, Charles Gavin Templeton. Now, where’s the playwright? Dakers, Richard. Very conservative entry. Born 1931. Educated Westminster and Trinity. List of three plays. That’s all. Could be, Foxkin. I suppose we can dig it out if needs must.”

Fox was silent for a moment. “There is this,” he then said. “Mrs. Plumtree was alone on the landing after Florence went downstairs?”

“So it seems.”

“And she says she heard deceased using the Slaypest. What say she went in and used it herself? On deceased.”

“All right. Suppose she did. Why?”

“Because of the way deceased treated her ward or son or whatever he is? Went in and let her have it and then made off before Florence came back.”

“Do you like it?”

“Not much,” Fox grunted. “What about this story of Mrs. Plumtree going into the bedroom and rearranging the remains?”

“She didn’t. The body was as Harkness and Gantry left it. Unless Harkness is too much hungover to notice.”

“It might be something quite slight.”

“What, for pity’s sake?”

“God knows,” Fox said. “Could you smell scent on Mrs. P?”

“I could smell nothing but rich old tawny port on Mrs. P.”

“Might be a blind for the perfume. Ah, forget it!” Fox said disgustedly. “It’s silly. How about this crash they heard after Mr. Dakers left the room?”

“Oh that. That was the lady pitching Madame Vestris into the bathroom.”

“Why?”

“Professional jealousy? Or perhaps it was his birthday present to her and she was taking it out on the Vestris.”

“Talk about conjecture! We do nothing else,” Fox grumbled. “All right. So what’s the next step, sir?”

“We’ve got to clear the ground. We’ve got to check, for one thing, Mr. Bertie Saracen’s little outburst. And the shortest way with that one, I suppose, is to talk to Anelida Lee.”

“Ah, yes. You know the young lady, don’t you, Mr. Alleyn?”

“I’ve met her in her uncle’s bookshop. She’s a charming girl. I know Octavius quite well. I tell you what, Foxkin, you go round the camp, will you? Talk to the butler. Talk to the maids. Pick up anything that’s offering on the general setup. Find out the pattern of the day’s events. Furious Floy suggested a dust-up of some sort with Saracen and Miss Cavendish. Get the strength of it. And see if you can persuade the staff to feed the troops. Hullo — what’s that?”