Death of a Peer (16 page)

“Dotty?”

“Well—”

“You needn’t be apologetic, Mr. Alleyn. Violet popped into the drawing-room on her way to see you and if she kept up the form she showed then I’m surprised that you didn’t whisk a strait jacket out of your black bag. Was she very queer?”

“I thought her so, certainly. I wondered if it could all be put down to shock.”

Lady Charles said nothing but solemnly shook her head.

“No?” murmured Alleyn. “You don’t think so?”

“No. I’m afraid I can’t honestly say I do.”

“Has there ever been serious trouble?”

“Well, of course, we don’t see very much of them. My husband rather lost touch with Gabriel when we were in New Zealand but we did hear, from Aunt Kit and people, that she had gone away to a private nursing-home in Devonshire. It had been recommended by old Lady Lorrimer whose husband, as everybody knows, has been under lock and key for a hundred years. We heard that Violet’s trouble comes in sort of bursts, do you know? Cycles.”

“Is there anything of that sort in the family history?”

“Of that one hasn’t the faintest idea. Violet is a Hungarian, or a Yugo-Slav. One or the other. Her name isn’t Violet at all. It’s something beginning with ‘Gla,’ like Gladys, but ending too ridiculously. So Gabriel called her Violet. I think her maiden name was Zadody, but I’m not sure. She was nobody that anyone knew, even in Hungaria or Yugo-Slavia, which was quite another country, of course, in Gabriel’s wild-oatish youth. Gabriel said he had found her at the Embassy. I’m afraid Charlie used to say it was at a cabaret of that name or something slightly worse. You must remember her when you were a young man at parties. Or perhaps you are too young. He had her presented, of course, and everything. She was rather spectacular in those days, and looked like a Gibson Girl who didn’t wash very often. Of course you
were
too young, but I remember them both very well. I believe that even then there were
crises-de-nerfs
.”

“That must have been rather difficult for Lord Wutherwood.”

“Yes,
miserable
for him. Luckily there were no children. Luckily for us too, I suppose, as things have turned out, although I must say I don’t think it’s the pleasantest way of becoming the head of the family.”

Her cigarette had gone out and she lit another. Alleyn felt quite certain that there was more than a touch of bravura in this rapid flow of narrative. It was a little too bright; the inconsequence was overstressed; the rhythm somewhere at fault. He thought that he was being shown a perilous imitation of the normal Lady Charles Lamprey by a Lady Charles Lamprey who was by no means normal. Once or twice he heard the faintest suggestion of a stutter and that reminded him of Stephen who, he felt sure, was overwhelmingly present in his mother’s thoughts. Extreme maternal devotion had never seemed to Alleyn to be a sentimental or a pretty attachment, but rather a passionate concentration which, when its object was threatened, developed a painful intensity. Maternal anxiety, he thought, was the emotion that human beings most consistently misrepresent, degrading its passion into tenderness, its agony with pathos. He was too familiar with the look that appears in frightened maternal eyes to miss recognizing it in Lady Charles’s and, though he was perfectly prepared to make use of her terror, he did not enjoy the knowledge that he had stimulated it. He heard her voice go rattling on and knew that she was trying to force an impression on him. “She wants me,” he thought, “to believe that her sister-in-law is insane.”

“… and I’m so terrified,” she was saying, “that this really will throw her completely off her balance although, to be quite honest, we all thought she was very alarming when she arrived this afternoon.”

“In what way?”

“Well, quite often she didn’t answer when you spoke to her and then when she did speak it was all about this wretched supernatural nonsense, unseen forces, and all the rest of it. The oddest part about it was—”

“Yes?” asked Alleyn, as she hesitated.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you this.”

“We shall be grateful if you will tell us anything that occurs to you. I think,” Alleyn added without emphasis, “that I can promise you we shall not lose our sense of proportion.”

She glanced at Fox who was placidly contemplating his notes.

“I’m sure you won’t,” she said. “It’s only that I’m afraid of losing mine. It’s just that it seems so strange, now, to remember what Violet said to me.”

“What was that?”

“It was when we were in my bedroom. Gabriel had been rather acid about Violet’s black magic, or whatever it is, and apparently she rather hated him sort of sneering at her. She sat on my bed and stared at the opposite wall until really I could have shaken her, she looked so gloomy and odd, and then suddenly she said in a very bogus voice (only somehow it wasn’t
quite
bogus, do you know): ‘Gabriel is in jeopardy.’ It was so melodramatic that it made one feel quite shy. She went on again, very fast, about somebody who foretold the future and had said that Gabriel’s sands were running out at a great rate. I supposed she must go in for a little fortune-telling or something, as a kind of relaxation from witchcraft. It all sounds too silly and second-rate but she herself was so wildly incoherent that I honestly
did
think she had gone completely dotty.”

Lady Charles paused and looked up at Alleyn. He had not returned to his chair but stood with his hands in the pockets of his jacket, listening. Perhaps she read in his face something that she had not expected to see there — a hint of compassion or of regret. Her whole attitude changed. She broke into a storm of words.

“Why do you look like that,” Lady Charles cried out. “You ought to be an effigy of a man. Don’t look as if you were sorry for somebody. I…” She stopped as abruptly as she had begun, beat twice with her closed hands on the wooden arms of her chair, and then leant towards him. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid you are quite right about people’s nerves. Mr. Alleyn, it’s no use for me to beat about the bush, with you looking on at my antics. I’m not a clever or a deliberate woman. My tongue moves faster than my brain and already I am in a fair way to making a fool of myself. I think perhaps I shall do better if I’m terribly frank.”

“I think so, too,” Alleyn said.

“Yes. I’m sure you have guessed my view of this awful business. Everything that I have told you is quite true. I do exaggerate sometimes, I know, but not over important things, and I haven’t exaggerated or over-stressed anything that I have told you about Violet Wutherwood. I think she is quite mad. And I believe she killed her husband.”

The point of Fox’s pencil broke with a sharp snap. He looked resignedly at it and took another from his pocket.

“You will think,” said Lady Charles, “that I am working for my husband and my children. I know Aunt Kit told you we were practically sunk and had asked Gabriel for money. I know that will look like a pretty strong motive. I know the twins have behaved idiotically. I don’t even expect you to believe me when I tell you that it’s always been their way, when one of them is in trouble, for both to stand the racket. I realized that all these things must make you a bit wary of anything I say and I can’t expect you to be very impressed when I tell you I know, as surely as I breathe, that none of my children could, under circumstances a thousand times worse than ours, hurt any living creature. But if they were not my children, if I’d only been a looker on, like Robin Grey, only less interested, less of a partisan than Robin, I would still be certain that Gabriel was killed by his wife.”

“It’s a perfectly tenable theory,” said Alleyn, “at present. Can you give me anything more than her condition and her conversation in the bedroom? Motive?”

“They had been at daggers drawn for years. Once or twice they have separated. Not legally. Gabriel would never have considered a divorce, I’m sure. He wouldn’t like the idea of displaying his failure; he would never admit that anything he did was a mistake. And I don’t suppose Violet has ever been normal enough to think of getting rid of him. She seemed to have merely settled down to hating him. And even if she had ever thought of it I don’t suppose she’d altogether fancy the idea. I mean there
are
certain amenities — Deepacres and the London house and all the rest of it. She
could
have divorced him, of course. He had a series of rather squalid little affairs that everybody knew about and nobody mentioned. They’d loathed each other for years, in a dreary sort of way, but this afternoon there was something quite different. I mean Violet seemed to be actively venomous. It was as if
she
had poured all her dislikes of other people or things into one enormous hatred of Gabriel. That’s how it was, exactly.”

“I see. When do you think she could have done it?”

“I’ve been thinking it out. You see, she left Aunt Kit and me in the bedroom round about the first time Gabriel yelled for her. She didn’t come back until after the second time he yelled, and then we both went along to the landing and I went into the drawing-room. There was no one else on the landing or in the hall.”

“Did she seem very odd at that time?”

“I can’t
tell
you how strange and ominous. I put out my hand to bring her along the passage but she drew away as thought I’d hit her and followed behind me. I was almost alarmed. I scuttled away as quickly as I could to get out of her reach. But she muttered along after me. It was like having a doubtful dog at one’s heels. At any moment I expected her to growl and snap.”

There was a pause. Alleyn had turned aside and moved to one of the windows. Fox looked up in surprise.

“
Mr. Alleyn
,” said Lady Charles, “what are you doing? You — you’re not
laughing
?”

Alleyn turned round. His face was scarlet. He stood before her, his hands stretched out. “Lady Charles,” he said, “I fully deserve that you should report me and have me turned out of the force. I’ve done the unforgivable thing — there’s no excuse for me but I do apologize with all my heart.”

“I don’t want you to be turned out of any force. But why did you laugh?”

“It — I’m afraid the explanation will only add to the offence. I — you see—”

“It was at me,” said Lady Charles with conviction. The strain had gone from her voice. “People do laugh at me. But what did I say? Mr. Alleyn, I insist on knowing what it was.”

“It was nothing. There are some people who can’t hold back a nervous laugh when they hear of somebody’s death. Heaven knows a detective officer isn’t one of them, but I’m afraid that if I hear anything very sinister and dramatic related with great
empressement
it sometimes has that effect on me. It was the way you described Lady Wutherwood as she followed you, muttering. I — it’s no use. I’m abject.”

“I suppose you’re not a relation of ours by any chance,” said Lady Charles thoughtfully.

“I don’t think so.”

“You never know. All the Lampreys laugh at disastrous pieces of news so I thought you might be. We must go into it sometime. I’m a distant Lamprey myself, you know. Nothing hygienically sinister. What was your mother’s maiden name?”

“Blandish,” said Alleyn helplessly.

“I must ask Charlie. Blandish. But in the meantime hadn’t we better go back to poor Violet?”

“By all means.”

“Not that there’s very much more to say. Except that she might have done it
instead
of going to the lavatory or
while
I was in the drawing-room, although she would have to be pretty nippy to manage it then.”

“Yes.”

“Is that all?”

“One other question. Can you give the name of the doctor Lady Wutherwood saw before she went to the nursing home?”

“Good heavens, no! It was years ago.”

“Or the nursing-home?”

“It was in Devonshire. Could it have been on Dartmoor or am I thinking of something else?”

“How did you get on,
Maman
?” asked Frid in French.

“Not so badly,” answered her mother in the same tongue. “I have made him laugh, at least.”

“Laugh!” Lord Charles ejaculated. “
Mon Dieu
, what at?”

“I had to work for it,” said Charlot wearily. “He thinks I’m a sort of elderly
enfant terrible
. He thinks he made the most formidable gaffe in laughing at me. He apologized quite charmingly.”

“I hope you didn’t overdo it, Immy.”

“Not I, darling. He hasn’t the faintest inkling of what I was up to. Don’t worry.
Soyez tranquil
.”

“
Soyez tranquil
,” wrote P. C. Martin faithfully, on the last page of his note-book and, with, a sigh, took a fresh one from the pocket of his tunic.

“Blast that woman!” said Alleyn in the dining-room. “She was determined to break me up, and, damn her, so she did. I hope she thinks she got away with it.”

“You apologized very nicely, Mr. Alleyn,” said Fox. “I expect she does.”

“We’ll have the twins, Gibson,” said Alleyn.

“You see,” said Alleyn, looking carefully at the twins, “you are not absolutely identical. In almost everybody the distance between the outer corner of the left-hand eye and the left-hand corner of the mouth is not precisely the same as the distance between the outer corner of the right-hand eye and the right-hand corner of the mouth. A line drawn through both eyes and prolonged is hardly ever parallel with a line drawn along the lips and prolonged. You get an open-angled and close-angled side to every face. That’s why reflection in a looking-glass of somebody you know very well always seems distorted and queer. In both of your faces, the close-angle is on the left. But in Lord Stephen the angle is the least fraction more emphatic.”

“Is this the B-B-Bertillon system?” asked Stephen. “
P-portrait parle
?”

“A version of it,” said Alleyn. “Bertillon paid great attention to ears. He divided the ear into twelve major sections and noticed a great many subdivisions. Yours are not quite identical with your brother’s. And then, of course, there’s that mole on the back of your neck. Lady Wutherwood noticed it in the lift.” He turned to Colin. “So you see you really would be rather foolish if you persisted in saying you went down in the lift. It would be a false statement and the law is not very amiable about false statements.

“Bad luck, Col,” said Stephen with a shaky laugh. “You’re sunk.”

“I think you’re trying to bamboozle us, Mr. Alleyn,” Colin said. “You’ve got a fifty-fifty chance, after all. I don’t believe Aunt V. would have noticed a carbuncle, much less a mole, on anybody’s neck. She’s too dotty. I stick to my statement. I can tell you exactly what happened.”

“I’m sure you can,” said Alleyn politely. “But do you know, I don’t think we want to hear it. You both had plenty of time to put your heads together before the police arrived. I’m sure the stories would tally to a hair’s-breadth, but I don’t think we’ll trouble you for yours. I won’t ask you for a statement. I don’t think we need bother you any longer. Good night.”

“It’s a trap,” said Colin slowly. “I’m not going. You’ll damn well take my statement, whether you like it or not.”

“We’re not allowed to set traps, I promise you, I should be setting a trap if I pretended not to know which of you worked the lift and so encouraged you to carry on with your comedy of errors.”

“Do p-pipe down, Colin,” said Stephen rapidly. “It’s no go. I didn’t want you to do it. Mr. Alleyn, you’re quite right. I didn’t kill Uncle G. but, on my word of honour, I t-took him down in the lift and Colin stayed in the drawing-room. Don’t commit any more p-perjury, Col, for God’s sake, just go b-buzz off.”

The twins, white to the lips, stared at each other. It so chanced that each of them reflected the other’s pose to the very slant of their narrow heads. The impression made by identical twins is always startling to strangers. It is accompanied by a sensation of shifted focus. It seems to us that the physical resemblance must be an outward sign of mental unity. It is easy to believe that twins are aware of each other’s thoughts, difficult to imagine them in dissonance; and Alleyn wondered if these twins were in agreement when Colin suddenly said: “Let me stay here while you talk to Stephen, please. I’m sorry I was objectionable. I’d like to stay.”

Alleyn did not answer and Colin added: “I won’t butt in. I’d just be here, that’s all.”

“He knows everything about it,” Stephen said. “I t-told him.”

“If he first tells us what he did while you were in the lift,” said Alleyn, “he may stay.”

“Please do, Col,” said Stephen. “You’ll only make me look every kind of bloody skunk if you d-don’t.”

“All right,” said Cohn, slowly. “I’ll explain.”

“That’s excellent,” said Alleyn. “Suppose you both sit down.”

They sat on opposite sides of the table, facing each other.

“I’d rather explain first of all,” Colin began, “that it’s not a new sort of stunt, our joining with the same story. It’s a kind of arrangement we’ve always had. When we were kids we fixed it up between us. I daresay it sounds pretty feeble-minded and sort of ‘ “I did it, sir!” said little Eric,’ but it doesn’t strike us like that. It’s just an arrangement. Not over everything but when there’s a really major row brewing. It doesn’t mean that I think Stephen bumped off Uncle G. I know he didn’t. He told me he didn’t. So I know.”

Colin said this with an air of stolid assurance. Stephen looked at him dully. “Well, I didn’t,” he said.

“I know. I was only explaining.”

“Later on,” said Alleyn, “we’ll look for something that sounds a little more like police-court evidence. In the meantime, what did you do?”

“Me?” asked Colin. “Oh, I just stayed in the drawing-room with Henry and my father.”

“What did you talk about?”

“I didn’t. I looked at a
Punch
.”

“Henry said: ‘Have they gone?’ and my father said ‘Yes,’ and Henry said ‘Three rousing cheers.’ I don’t think anybody said anything else until Aunt V. started yelling, and then Henry said; ‘Is that a fire engine or do they ring bells?’ and my father said ‘It’s a woman,’ and Henry said: ‘How revolting!’ and my father said: ‘It’s coming from the lift,’ and Henry said: ‘Then it must be Aunt V. and she’s coming back.’ It had got a good deal nearer by then. I think Henry said ‘How revolting!’ again and then my father said; ‘Something has happened,’ and went out of the room. Henry said: ‘She’s gone completely crackers, it seems. Come on.’ So he went out. My mother and Frid and, I think, Patch, were on the landing and the lift was up. Stephen opened the doors and came out. He held the doors back. Aunt V. came screeching out. The rest of it’s rather a muddle and I daresay you’ve heard it already.”

“I should like to know when your brother decided to take up the option on your agreement.”

“I didn’t want—” Stephen began.

“Shut up,” said Colin. “While they were all fussing round and ringing up doctors and policemen Stephen said: ‘I’m going to be sick,’ so I went with him and he was. And then we went to my room and he told me all about it. And I said that if anything cropped up like you, and so on, the arrangement would be good. Stephen said he didn’t want me to crash in on the party but I did, of course, as you know. That’s all.”

“Thank you,” said Alleyn. Colin lit a cigarette.

“I suppose I say what happened in the lift,” said Stephen.

“If you will,” Alleyn agreed. “From the time Lady Charles came to the drawing-room.”

Stephen played a little tattoo with his fingers on the table. His movements as well as his speech, Alleyn noticed were much more staccato than his twin’s. Colin had spoken with a deliberation so marked as to seem studied. He had looked placidly at Alleyn through his light eyelashes. Stephen spoke in spurts; his stutter became increasingly marked; he kept glancing at Alleyn and away again. Fox’s notes seemed to disturb him.

“My mother,” Stephen said, “asked for someone t-to work the lift. So I went out.”

“To the lift?”

“Yes.”

“Who was in the lift?”

“He was. Sitting there.”

“With the doors shut?”

“Yes.”

“Who opened them?”

“I did. Aunt V. was sort of hovering about on the landing. When I opened the d-doors she tacked over and floated in.”

“And then? Did you follow at once?”

“Well, I stopped long enough to wink at my mother and then I got in and s-simply t-took the lift down—”

“Just a moment. What were Lord and Lady Wutherwood’s positions in the lift?”

“He was sitting in the corner. His hat was on and his scarf pulled up and his c-coat collar turned up. I — th-thought he was asleep.”

“Asleep? But a minute or so before, he had shouted at the top of his voice.”

“Well, asleep or sulking. As a matter of fact, I rather thought he was s-sulking.”

“Why should he do that?”

“He was a sulky sort of man. Aunt V. had kept him waiting.”

“Did you notice his hat?”

“It was a poisonous hat.”

“Anything in particular about it?”

“Only that it looked as if it belonged to a bum. As a matter of fact I couldn’t see him very well. Aunt V. — Violet stood b-between us and the light wasn’t on.”

“Was she facing him?”

“N-no. Facing the doors.”

“Right. And then?”

“Well, I p-pushed the button and we went down.”

“What happened next?”

“When we’d got about half-way d-down, she started screaming. I hadn’t looked at either of those two. I just heard the scream and jumped like hell and sort of automatically shoved down the stop button. So we stopped. We were nearly down. Just below the first floor.”

“Yes?”

“Well, of course, I turned round. I didn’t see Uncle G. She was between us, with her b-back to me, yelling in a disgusting sort of way. It was b-beastly. As sudden as a train whistle. I’ve always hated t-train whistles. She moved away a bit and I l-looked and s-saw him.”

“What did you see?”

“You know what it was.”

“Not exactly. I should like an exact description.”

Stephen moistened his lips and passed his fingers across his face. “Well,” he said, “he was sitting there. I remember now that there was a dent in his hat. She had hold of him and she sort of sh-shook him and he s-sort of t-tipped forward. His head was between his knees and his hat fell off. Then she pulled him up. And then I s-saw.”

“What did you see? I’m sorry,” said Alleyn, “but it really is important and Lady Wutherwood’s description was not very clear. I want a clear picture.”

“I wish,” said Stephen violently, “that I hadn’t got one. I c-can’t — Col, tell him I c-can’t — it was t-too beastly.”

“Do you know,” said Alleyn, “I think there’s something in the theory that it’s a mistake to bury a very bad experience. The Ancient Mariner’s idea was a sound one. In describing something unpleasant you get rid of part of its unpleasantness.”

“
Unp-pleasant
! My God, the skewer was jutting out of his eye and blood running down his face into his mouth. He made noises like an animal.”

“Was there any other injury to his face?” Alleyn asked.

Stephen put his face in his hands. His voice was muffled. “Yes. The side of his head. Something. I saw that when — I saw it!” His fingers moved to his own temple. “There.”

“Yes. What did you do?”

“I had my hand near the thing — the switchboard — you kn-know. I must have p-pushed the top b-button. I don’t think I did it on purpose. I d-don’t know. We went up. She was screaming. When I opened the d-doors she sort of fell out. That’s all.” Stephen gripped the edge of the table and for the first time looked steadily at Alleyn. “I’m sorry I’m not clearer,” he said. “I don’t know why I’m like this. I’ve been all right t-till now. I even sort of wondered why I
was
so all right.”

“Shock,” said Alleyn, “seems to have a period of incubation with some people. Now, as you went down in the lift you faced the switchboard?”

“Yes.”

“All the time?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hear any sort of movement behind you?”

“I d-don’t remember hearing anything at all. It’s not long, is it?”

“It’s precisely thirty seconds to the bottom,” said Alleyn. “You don’t go all the way. Did you hear any sort of thud?”

“If I did, I don’t remember it.”

“All right. To go back a little. While your father interviewed Lord Wutherwood, you were all in here, lying on the carpet in that corner.”

Stephen and Colin exchanged glances. Colin silently framed the word “Patch” with his lips.

“No,” said Alleyn. “Lady Patricia only told us you lay on the floor. She said it was a kind of game. We noticed it took place in that corner where a door has been boarded up. There’s a trace of lip-stick on the carpet close to the crack under the door and a bit of boot polish farther out. It’s difficult to avoid the presumption that your game involved listening to the conversation next door.”

“I say,” said Stephen suddenly, “do you speak French? Yes, I suppose you do. Yes, of course you do.”

“Shut up,” said Colin.

“I haven’t been lying on the carpet,” said Alleyn. “And Mr. Fox only stayed there long enough to catch a phrase, spoken. I think, by you. ‘
Taisez-vous, donc
’!”

“He’s always saying it,” Stephen muttered gloomily. “In English or in French.”

“And a fat lot of notice you take,” Colin pointed out. “If you’d only—”

“We won’t go into that,” said Alleyn. “Now, when this unusual game was ended, and after your brother Michael had come in, you two, with your elder brother, went into the drawing-room, while your sisters went into Flat 26. Did you go together and directly into the drawing-room?”

There was a moment’s silence before Colin answered: “Yes. We all went out together. The girls went first.”

“Henry just had a little snoop d-down the passage.”

“In which direction?”

“Towards the hall. He was only a second or two. He came into the d-drawing-room just after we did.”

“And did you all stay in the drawing-room until Lady Charles came?”

“Yes,” said the twins together.

“I see. That pretty well covers the ground. One more question, and I think I may put it to both of you. You’ll understand that we wouldn’t ask it unless we felt that it was entirely relevant. What impression did you get of Lady Wutherwood during the afternoon?”

“Mad,” said the twins together.

“In the strict sense of the word?”

“Yes,” said Colin. “We all thought so. Mad.”

“I see,” said Alleyn again. “That’s all, I think. Thank you.”

When the twins reappeared in the drawing-room Roberta thought they had a slightly attenuated and shivery air, rather as if they had been efficiently purged by Nanny. They looked coldly at the rest of their family, walked to the sofa and collapsed on it.

“Well,” said Colin after a long silence, “I see no reason why we should announce in anything but plain English the fact that the gaff is blown, the cat out of the bag, and the balloon burst.”

“What do you mean!” cried Charlot. “You didn’t—”

“No, Mama, we didn’t tell him because he already knew,” said Stephen. “I was the l-liftman. I did it with my little button.”