False Scent (17 page)

“The story is that they were together in their parlour until they went downstairs to the party. They’re at daggers-drawn. Do you think that if one of them had popped out of the parlour the other would feel disposed to keep mum about it?”

“Ah. There is that, of course. But it might have been forgotten.”

“Come off it, Foxkin.”

“The same goes for Mr. Templeton and Mr. Dakers. They’ve said, independently of each other, that they were together in the study. I don’t know how you feel about that one, Mr. Alleyn, but I’m inclined to accept it.”

“So am I. Entirely.”

“If we do accept all this, we’ve got to take it that the job was fixed after the guests began to arrive. Now, up to the row in the conservatory the three gentlemen were all in the reception rooms. The Colonel was in attendance on the deceased. Mr. Templeton was also with her receiving the guests and Mr. Dakers was on the lookout for his young lady.”

“What’s more, there was a press photographer near the foot of the stairs, a cinematographer half-way up, and a subsidiary bar at the foot of the backstairs with a caterer’s man on duty throughout. He saw Florence and Ninn and nobody else go up. What’s that leave us in the way of a roaring-hot suspect?”

“It means,” Fox said, “either that one of those two women fixed it then…”

“But when? You mean before they met on the landing and tried to listen in on the famous scene?”

“I suppose I do. Yes. While the photograph was being taken.”

“Yes?”

“Alternatively someone else went up before that.”

“Again, when? It would have to be after the cinema unit moved away and before Mrs. Templeton left the conservatory and came out into the hall where she was photographed with Dakers glowering in the background. And it would have to be before she took him upstairs.”

“Which restricts you to the entrance with the birthday cake and the speeches. I reckon someone could have slipped upstairs then.”

“The general attention being focused on the speakers and the stairs being clear? Yes. I agree with you. So far. But, see here, Fox; this expert didn’t do the trick as simply as that, I’m inclined to think there was one more visit at least, more likely that there were two more, one before and one after the death. Tidying up, you know. If I’m right, there was a certain amount of tidying up.”

“My God,” Fox began with unwonted heat, “what are you getting at, Mr. Alleyn? It’s tough enough as it is, d’you want to make it more difficult? What’s the idea?”

“If it’s any good it’s going to make it easier. Much easier.”

Alleyn stood up.

“You know, Br’er Fox,” he said, “I can see only one explanation that really fits. Take a look at what’s offering. Suicide? Leave her party, go up to her bedroom and spray herself to death? They all scout the notion and so do I. Accident? We’ve had it: the objection being the inappropriateness of the moment for her to horticult and the nature of the stains. Homicide? All right. What’s the jury asked to believe? That she stood stock-still while her murderer pumped a deluge of Slaypest into her face at long and then at short range? Defending counsel can’t keep a straight face over that one. But if, by any giddy chance, I’m on the right track, there’s an answer that still admits homicide. Now, listen, while I check over and see if you can spot a weakness.”

Mr. Fox listened placidly to a succinct argument, his gaze resting thoughtfully the while on the tin, the bottle, and the scent-spray.

“Yes,” he said when Alleyn had finished. “Yes. It adds up, Mr. Alleyn. It fits. The only catch that I can see rests in the little difficulty of our having next-to-nothing to substantiate the theory.”

Alleyn pointed a long finger at the exhibits. “We’ve got those,” he said, “and it’ll go damn hard if we don’t rake up something else in the next half hour.”

“Motive?”

“Motive unknown. It may declare itself. Opportunity’s our bird, Fox. Opportunity, my boy.”

“What’s the next step?”

“I rather fancy shock tactics. They’re all cooped up in the dining-room, aren’t they?”

“All except Mr. Templeton. He’s still in the study. When I looked in they were having supper. He’d ordered it for them. Cold partridge,” Mr. Fox said rather wistfully. “A bit of a waste, really, as they didn’t seem to have much appetite.”

“We’ll see if we can stimulate it,” Alleyn said grimly, “with these,” and waved his hand at the three exhibits.

Pinky Cavendish pushed her plate away and addressed herself firmly to her companions.

“I feel,” she said, “completely unreal. It’s not an agreeable sensation.” She looked round the table. “Is there any reason why we don’t say what’s in all our minds? Here we sit, pretending to eat: every man-jack of us pea-green with worry but cutting the whole thing dead. I can’t do with it. Not for another second. I’m a loquacious woman and I want to talk.”

“Pinky,” Timon Gantry said. “Your sense of timing! Never quite successfully co-ordinated, dear, is it?”

“But,
actually
,” Bertie Saracen plaintively objected, “I do so feel Pinky’s dead right. I mean we
are
all devastated and for my part, at least, terrified; but there’s no
real
future, is there, in maintaining a
charnel-house
decorum? It can’t improve anything, or can it? And it’s so excessively wearing. Dicky, dear, you won’t misunderstand me, will you? The hearts, I promise you, are utterly in their right place which, speaking for myself, is in the boots.”

Richard, who had been talking in an undertone to Anelida, looked up. “Why not talk,” he said, “if you can raise something that remotely resembles normal conversation.”

Warrender darted a glance at him. “Of course,” he said. “Entirely agree.” But Richard wouldn’t look at Warrender.

“Even abnormal conversation,” Pinky said, “would be preferable to strangulated silence.”

Bertie, with an air of relief, said, “Well then, everybody, let’s face it. We’re
not
being herded together in a”—he swallowed—“in a communual cell just out of constabular whimsy. Now
are
we?”

“No, Bertie,” Pinky said, “we are not.”

“Under hawklike supervision,” Bertie added, “if Sergeant Philpott doesn’t mind my mentioning it.”

P.C. Philpott, from his post at the far end of the room, said, “Not at all, sir,” and surreptitiously groped for his notebook.

“
Thank
you,” Bertie said warmly. Gracefield and a maid came in and cleared the table in a deathly silence. When they had gone Bertie broke out again. “My God,” he said. “Isn’t it as clear as daylight that every one of us, except Anelida, is under suspicion for something none of us likes to mention?”

“I do,” Pinky said. “I’m all for mentioning it, and indeed if I don’t mention it I believe I’ll go off like a geyser.”

“No, you won’t, dear,” Gantry firmly intervened. He was sitting next to Pinky and looked down upon her with a cranelike tilt of his head. “You’ll behave beautifully and not start any free-associating nonsense. This is not the time for it.”

“Timmy darling, I’m sorry as sorry but I’m moved to defy you,” Pinky announced with a great show of spirit. “In the theatre — never. Outside it and under threat of being accused of murder — yes. There!” she ejaculated. “I’ve said it! Murder. And aren’t you all relieved?”

Bertie Saracen said at once, “Bless you, darling. Immeasurably.”

Timon Gantry and Colonel Warrender simultaneously looked at the back of Philpott’s head and then exchanged glances: two men, Anelida felt, of authority at the mercy of an uncontrollable situation.

“Very well, then,” Pinky continued. “The police think Mary was murdered and presumably they think one of us murdered her. It sounds monstrous, but it appears to be true. The point is does anyone here agree with them?”

“I don’t,” Bertie said. He glanced at the serving-hatch and lowered his voice. “After all,” he said uncomfortably, “we’re not the only ones.”

“If you mean the servants…” Richard said angrily.

“I don’t mean anybody in particular,” Bertie protested in a great hurry.

“—It’s quite unthinkable.”

“To my mind,” Pinky said, “the whole thing’s out of this world. I don’t and can’t and won’t believe it of anybody in the house.”

“Heah, heah,” Warrender ejaculated, lending a preposterously hearty note to the conversation. “Ridiculous idea,” he continued loudly. “Alleyn’s behaving altogether too damn high-handedly.” He looked at Richard, hesitated and with an obvious effort said, “Don’t you agree?”

Without turning his head, Richard said, “He knows his own business, I imagine.” ”

There was a rather deadly little silence broken by Timon Gantry.

“For my part,” Gantry said, “I feel the whole handling of the situation is so atrociously hard on Charles Templeton.”

A guilty look came into their faces, Anelida noticed, as if they were ashamed of forgetting Charles. They made sympathetic noises and were embarrassed.

“What I resent,” Pinky said suddenly, “is being left in the dark.
What
happened?
Why
the mystery?
Why not
accident? All we’ve been told is that poor Mary died of a dose of pest-killer. It’s hideous and tragic and we’re all shocked beyond words, but if we’re being kept here under suspicion”—she brought her clenched fist down on the table—“
we’ve a right to know why
!”

She had raised her not inconsiderable voice to full projection point. None of them had heard the door from the hall open.

“Every right,” Alleyn said, coming forward. “And I’m sorry that the explanation has been so long delayed.”

The men had half-risen, but he lifted his hand and they sat back again. Anelida, for all her anxiety, had time to reflect that he was possessed of an effortless authority before which even Gantry, famous for this quality, became merely one of a controllable group. The attentive silence that descended upon them was of exactly the same kind as that which Gantry himself commanded at rehearsals. Even Colonel Warrender, though he raised his eyebrows, folded his arms and looked uncommonly portentous, found nothing to say.

“I think,” Alleyn said, “that we will make this “a round-the-table discussion.” He sat in the vacant chair at the end of the table. “It gives one,” he explained with a smile at Pinky Cavendish, “a spurious air of importance. We shall need five more chairs, Philpott.’”

P.C. Philpott placed them. Nobody spoke.

Fox came in from the hall bringing Florence and Old Ninn in his wake. Old Ninn was attired in a red flannel gown. Florence had evidently redressed herself rather sketchily and covered the deficiencies with an alpaca overall. Her hair was trapped in a tortuous system of tin curlers.

“Please sit down,” Alleyn said. “I’m sorry about dragging you in again. It won’t, I hope, be for long.”

Florence and Ninn, both looking angry and extremely reluctant and each cutting the other dead, sat on opposite sides of the table, leaving empty chairs between themselves and their nearest neighbours.

“Where’s Dr. Harkness, Fox?”

“Back in the conservatory, I believe, sir. We thought it better not to rouse him.”

“I’m afraid we must do so now.”

Curtains had been drawn across the conservatory wall. Fox disappeared behind them. Stertorous, unlovely and protesting noises were heard and presently he re-appeared with Dr. Harkness, now bloated with sleep and very tousled.

“Oh torment!” he said in a thick voice. “Oh hideous condition!”

“Would you,” Alleyn asked, “be very kind and see if you think Mr. Templeton is up to joining us? If there’s any doubt about it, we won’t disturb him. He’s in the study:”

“Very well,” said Dr. Harkness, trying to flatten his hair with both hands. “Never, never, never, any of you, chase up four whiskies with three glasses of champagne. Don’t
do
it!” he added furiously as if somebody had shown signs of taking this action. He went out.

“We’ll wait,” Alleyn said composedly, “for Mr. Templeton,” and arranged his papers.

Warrender cleared his throat. “Don’t like the look of that sawbones,” he said.

“Poor pet,” Bertie sighed. “And yet I almost wish I were in his boots. A pitiable but
not
unenviable condition.”

“Bad show!” Warrender said. “Fellar’s on duty.”

“Are you true?” Gantry asked suddenly, gazing at Warrender with a kind of devotion.

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

Gantry clasped his hands and said ecstatically, “One would never dare! Never! And yet people say one’s productions tend towards caricature! You shall give them the lie in their teeth, Colonel. In your own person you shall refute them.”

“I’m damned if I know what you’re talking about, Gantry, but if you’re trying to be abusive.…”

“ ‘No abuse,’ ” Alleyn quoted unexpectedly. He was reading his notes. “ ‘No abuse in the world: no, faith, boys, none’.”

They stared at him. Gantry, thrown off his stride, looked round the table as if calling attention to Alleyn’s eccentricity. Bertie leant towards him. “Formidable!” he murmured, indicating Alleyn.

“
What
!” Pinky ejaculated. “
What
did you say, dear?”

“Formidable!” Bertie repeated. “I said’formidable.’ Why? Oh God! Sorry!”

Warrender made some sort of exclamation.

“I was talking about Mr. Alleyn, dear,” Bertie explained. “I said he was formidable.”

“Oh!” Pinky said. “That! Sorry!”

“A misunderstanding,” Alleyn remarked to his notes. “But don’t let it put you off the scent. We’re coming to that in a minute.”

Pinky, greatly disconcerted, had opened her mouth to reply but was prevented by the appearance of Charles Templeton. He had come in with Dr. Harkness. He was a bad colour, seemed somehow to have shrunk and walked like the old man he actually was. But his manner was contained and he smiled faintly at them.

Alleyn got up and went to him. “He’s all right,” Dr. Harkness said. “He’ll do. Won’t you, Charles?”

“I’ll do,” Charles repeated. “Much better.”

“Would you rather sit in a more comfortable chair?’ Alleyn suggested. “As you see, we are making free with your dining-room table.”

“Of course. I hope you’ve got everything you want. I’ll join you.”