Final Curtain (29 page)

‘I mean'—Barker tightened his unsteady lips—‘I mean the way things were conducted lately.'

‘Miss Orrincourt?'

‘T'uh!' said Barker, and thus established his life-long service to the Ancreds.

‘Look here,' Alleyn said suddenly, ‘do you know what the family have got into their heads about this business?'

There was a long pause before the old voice whispered: ‘I don't like to think. I don't encourage gossip below stairs, sir, and I don't take part in it myself.'

‘Well,' Alleyn suggested, ‘suppose you tell me about this room.'

It was, after all, only a slow enlargement of what he had already heard. The darkened room, the figure hunched on the bed, ‘as if,' Barker said fearfully, ‘he'd been trying to crawl down to the floor,' the stench and disorder and the broken bell-cord.

‘Where was the end?' Alleyn asked. ‘The bell-push itself?'

‘In his hand, sir. Tight clenched round it, his hand was. We didn't discover it at first.'

‘Have you still got it?'

‘It's in his dressing-table drawer, sir. I put it there, meaning to get it mended.'

‘Did you unscrew it or examine it in any way?'

‘Oh, no, sir. No. I just put it away and disconnected the circuit on the board.'

‘Right! And now, Barker, about the night before, when Sir Henry went to bed. Did you see anything of him?'

‘Oh, yes, indeed, sir. He rang for me as usual. It was midnight when the bell went, and I came up to his room. I'd valeted him, sir, since his own man left.'

‘Did he ring his room bell?'

‘No, sir. He always rang the bell in the hall as he went through. By the time he reached his room, you see, I had gone up the servants' stairs and was waiting for him.'

‘How did he seem?'

‘Terrible. In one of his tantrums and talking very wild and angry.'

‘Against his family?'

‘Very hot against them.'

‘Go on.'

‘I got him into his pyjamas and gown and him raging all the while and troubled with his indigestion pain as well. I put out the medicine he took for it. He said he wouldn't take it just then so I left the bottle and glass by his bed. I was offering to help him into bed when he says he must see Mr Rattisbon. He's the family solicitor, sir, and always comes to us for The Birthday. Well, sir, I tried to put Sir Henry off, seeing he was tired and upset, but he wouldn't hear of it. When I took him by the arm he got quite violent. I was alarmed and tried to hold him but he broke away.'

Alleyn had a sudden vision of the two old men struggling together in this grandiose bedroom.

‘Seeing there was nothing for it,' Barker went on, ‘I did as he ordered, and took Mr Rattisbon up to his room. He called me back and told me to find the two extra helps we always get in for The Birthday. A Mr and Mrs Candy, sir, formerly on the staff here and now in a small business in the village. I understood from what Sir Henry said that he wished them to witness his Will. I showed them up, and he then told me to inform Miss Orrincourt that he would be ready for his hot drink in half an hour. He said he would not require me again. So I left him.'

‘And went to give this message?'

‘After I had switched over the mechanism of his bell, sir, so that if he required anything in the night it would sound in the passage outside Mrs Henry's door. It has been specially arranged like this, in case of an emergency, and, of course, sir, it must have broke off in his hand before it sounded, because even if Mrs Henry had slept through it, Miss Dessy was sharing her room and must have heard. Miss Dessy sleeps very light, I understand.'

‘Isn't it strange that he didn't call out?'

‘He wouldn't be heard, sir. The walls in this part of the house are very thick, being part of the original outer walls. The previous baronet, sir, added this wing to Ancreton.'

‘I see. At this time where was Miss Orrincourt?'

‘She had left the company, sir. They had all moved into the drawing-room.'

‘
All
of them?'

‘Yes, sir. Except her and Mr Rattisbon. And Mrs Alleyn, who was a guest. They were all there. Mrs Kentish said the young lady had gone to her room and that's where I found her. Mr Rattisbon was in the hall.'

‘What was the business with the hot drink?'

The old man described it carefully. Until the rise of Sonia Orrincourt, Millamant had always prepared the drink. Miss Orrincourt had taken over this routine. The milk and ingredients were left in her room by the housemaid, who turned down her bed. She brewed the drink over a heater, put it in a Thermos flask, and, half an hour after he had retired, took it to his room. He slept badly and sometimes would not drink it until much later in the night.

‘What happened to the Thermos flask and the cup and saucer?'

‘They were taken away and washed up, sir. They've been in use since.'

‘Had he drunk any of it?'

‘It had been poured into the cup, sir, at all events, and into the saucer for that cat, as was always done, and the saucer set on the floor. But the cup and the flask and the medicine bottle had been overturned and there was milk and medicine soaked into the carpet.'

‘Had he taken his medicine?'

‘The glass was dirty. It had fallen into the saucer.'

‘And has, of course, been washed,' said Alleyn. ‘What about the bottle?'

‘It had been knocked over, sir, as I mentioned. It was a new bottle. I was very much put out, sir, but I tried to tidy the room a bit, not knowing exactly what I was doing. I remember I took the dirty china and the bottle and Thermos downstairs with me. The bottle was thrown out, and the other things cleared up. The medicine cupboard has been cleaned out thoroughly. It's in the bathroom, sir, through that door. The whole suite,' said Barker conscientiously, ‘has been turned out and cleaned.'

Fox mumbled inarticulately.

‘Well,' said Alleyn. ‘To go back to the message you took to Miss Orrincourt that night. Did you actually see her?'

‘No, sir. I tapped on the door and she answered.' He moved uneasily.

‘Was there anything else?'

‘It was a queer thing—' His voice faded.

‘What was a queer thing?'

‘She must have been alone,' Barker mused, ‘because, as I've said, sir, the others were downstairs, and afterwards,
just
afterwards, when I took in the grog-tray, there they all were. But before I knocked on her door, sir, I could have sworn that she was laughing.'

When Barker had gone, Fox sighed gustily, put on his spectacles and looked quizzically through them at the naked end of the bell-cord.

‘Yes, Br'er Fox, exactly,' said Alleyn, and went to the dressing-table. ‘That'll be the lady,' he said.

A huge photograph of Sonia Orrincourt stood in the middle of the dressing-table.

Fox joined Alleyn. ‘Very taking,' he said. ‘Funny, you know, Mr Alleyn. That's what they call a pin-up girl. Plenty of teeth and hair and limbs. Sir Henry put it in a silver frame, but that, you might say, is the only difference. Very taking.'

Alleyn opened the top drawer on the left.

‘First pop,' Fox remarked.

Alleyn pulled on a glove and gingerly took out a pear-shaped wooden bell-push. ‘One takes these pathetic precautions,' he said, ‘and a hell of a lot of use they are. Now then.' He unscrewed the end of the bell-push and looked into it.

‘See here, Fox. Look at the two points. Nothing broken. One of the holding-screws and its washer are tight. No bits of wire. The other screw and washer are loose. Got your lens? Have a look at that cord again.'

Fox took out a pocket lens and returned to the bed. ‘One of the wires is unbroken,' he said presently. ‘No shiny end, and it's blackened like they do get with time. The other's different, though. Been dragged through and scraped, I'd say. That's what must have happened. He put his weight on it and they pulled through.'

‘In that case,' Alleyn said, ‘why is one of the screws so tight, and only one wire shiny? We'll keep this bell-push, Fox.'

He had wrapped his handkerchief round it and dropped it in his pocket, when the door was opened and Sonia Orrincourt walked in.

She was dressed in black, but so dashingly that mourning was not much suggested. Her curtain of ashen hair and her heavy fringe were glossy, her eyelids were blue, her lashes incredible and her skin sleek. She wore a diamond clasp and bracelet and ear-rings. She stood just inside the room.

‘Pardon the intrusion,' she said, ‘but am I addressing the police?'

‘You are,' said Alleyn. ‘Miss Orrincourt?'

‘That's the name.'

‘How do you do? This is Inspector Fox.'

‘Now listen!' said Miss Orrincourt, advancing upon them with a professional gait. ‘I want to know what's cooking in this icehouse. I've got my rights to look after, same as anybody else, haven't I?'

‘Undoubtedly.'

‘Thank you. Very kind I'm sure. Then perhaps you'll tell me who asked you into my late fiancé's room and just what you're doing now you've got there.'

‘We were asked by his family and we're doing a job of work.'

‘
Work?
What sort of work? Don't tell me the answer to that one,' said Miss Orrincourt angrily. ‘I seem to know it. They're trying to swing something across me. Is that right? Trying to pack me up.
What is it?
That's what I want to know. Come on.
What is it?
'

‘Will you first of all tell me how you knew we were here and why you thought we were police officers?'

She sat on the bed, leaning back on her hands, her hair falling vertically from her scalp. Behind her was spread the crimson counterpane. Alleyn wondered why she had ever attempted to be an actress while there were magazine artists who needed models. She looked in a leisurely manner at Fox's feet. ‘How do I know you're police? That's a scream! Take a look at your boy friend's boots.'

‘Yours, partner,' Alleyn murmured, catching Fox's eye.

Fox cleared his throat. ‘Er—
touché
,' he said carefully. ‘Not much good me trying to get by with a sharp-eyed young lady, is it, sir?'

‘Well, come on,' Miss Orrincourt demanded. ‘What's the big idea? Are they trying to make out there's something funny in the Will? Or what? What are you doing, opening my late fiancé's drawers? Come on!'

‘I'm afraid,' said Alleyn, ‘you've got this situation the wrong way round. We're on a job, and part of that job is asking questions. And since you're here, Miss Orrincourt, I wonder if you'd mind answering one or two?'

She looked at him, he thought, as an animal or a completely unselfconscious child might look at a stranger. It was difficult to expect anything but perfect sounds from her. He experienced a shock each time he heard the Cockney voice with its bronchial overtones, and the phrases whose very idiom seemed shoddy, as if she had abandoned her native dialect for something she had half-digested at the cinema.