False Scent (16 page)

He went out into the passage and along to the landing. The door of Miss Bellamy’s room was open. Dr. Curtis and Dr. Harkness stood just inside it watching the activities of two white-coated men. They had laid Miss Bellamy’s body on a stretcher and had neatly covered it in orthodox sheeting. P.C. Philpott from the half-landing said, “O.K. chaps,” and the familiar progress started. They crossed the landing, changed the angle of their burden and gingerly began the descent. Thus Miss Bellamy made her final journey downstairs. Alleyn heard a subdued noise somewhere above him. He moved to a position from which he could look up the narrower flight of stairs to the second-floor landing. Florence was there, scarcely to be seen in the shadows, and the sound he had heard was of her sobbing.

Alleyn followed the stretcher downstairs. He watched the mortuary van drive away, had a final word with his colleagues, and went next door to call on Octavius Browne.

Octavius, after hours, used his shop as his sitting-room. With the curtains drawn, the lamp on his reading table glowing and the firelight shining on his ranks of books, the room was enchanting. So, in his way, was Octavius, sunk deep in a red morocco chair with his book in his hand and his cat on his knee.

He had removed his best suit and, out of habit, had changed into old grey trousers and a disreputable but becoming velvet coat. For about an hour after Richard Dakers left (Anelida having refused to see him), Octavius had Been miserable. Then she had come down, looking pale but familiar, saying she was sorry she’d been tiresome. She had kissed the top of his head and made him an omelette for his supper and had settled in her usual Monday night place on the other side of the fireplace behind a particularly large file in which she was writing up their catalogue. Once, Octavius couldn’t resist sitting up high in order to look at her and as usual she made a hideous face at him and he made one back at her, which was a private thing they did on such occasions. He was reassured but not entirely so. He had a very deep affection for Anelida, but he was one of those people in whom the distress of those they love begets a kind of compassionate irritation. He liked Anelida to be gay and dutiful and lovely to look at; when he suspected that she had been crying he felt at once distressed and helpless and the sensation bored him because he didn’t understand it.

When Alleyn rang the bell Anelida answered it. He saw, at once, that she had done her eyes up to hide the signs of tears.

Many of Octavius’s customers were also his friends and it was not unusual for them to call after hours. Anelida supposed that Alleyn’s was that sort of visit and so did Octavius, who was delighted to see him. Alleyn sat down between them, disliking his job.

“You look so unrepentantly cosy and Dickensian,” he said, “both of you, that I feel like an interloper.”

“My dear Alleyn, I do hope your allusion is not to that other and unspeakable little Nell and her drooling grandparent. No, I’m sure it’s not. You are thinking of
Bleak House
, perhaps, and your fellow-investigator’s arrival at his friend’s fireside. I seem to remember, though, that his visit ended uncomfortably in an arrest. I hope you’ve left
your
manacles at the Yard.”

Alleyn said, “As a matter of fact, Octavius, I
am
here on business, though not, I promise, to take either of you into custody.”

“Really? How very intriguing! A bookish reference perhaps? Some malefactor with a flair for the collector’s item?”

“I’m afraid not,” Alleyn said. “It’s a serious business, Octavius, and indirectly it concerns you both. I believe you were at Miss Mary Bellamy’s birthday party this evening, weren’t you?”

Anelida and her uncle both made the same involuntary movement of their hands. “Yes,” Octavius said. “For a short time. We were.”

“When did you arrive?”

“At seven. We were asked,” Octavius said, “for six-thirty, but Anelida informed me it is the ‘done thing’ nowadays to be late.”

“We waited,” Anelida said, “till other people had begun to stream in.”

“So you kept an eye on the earlier arrivals?”

“A bit. I did. They were rather intimidating.”

“Did you by any chance see anybody go in with a bunch of Parma violets?”

Octavius jerked his leg. “Damn you, Hodge,” he ejaculated and added mildly, “He makes bread on one’s thigh. Unconscionable feline, be gone.”

He cuffed the cat and it leapt indignantly to the floor.

Alleyn said, “I know you left early. I believe I know why.”

“Mr. Alleyn,” Anelida said. “What’s happened? Why are you talking like this?”

Alleyn said, “It
is
a serious matter.”

“Has Richard…?” she began and stopped. “What are you trying to tell us?”

“He’s all right. He’s had a shock but he’s all right.”

“My dear Alleyn…”

“Unk,” she said, “we’d better just listen.”

And Alleyn told them, carefully and plainly, what had happened. He said nothing of the implications.

“I wonder,” he ended, “that you haven’t noticed the comings and goings outside.”

“Our curtains are drawn, as you see,” Octavius said. “We had no occasion to look out. Had we, Nelly?”

Anelida said, “This will hurt Richard more than anything else that has ever happened to him.” And then with dismay, “I wouldn’t see him when he came in. I turned him away. He won’t forgive me and I won’t forgive myself.”

“My darling child, you had every cause to behave as you did. She was an enchanting creature but evidently not always prettily behaved,” Octavius said. “I always think,” he added, “that one does a great disservice to the dead when one praises them inaccurately.
Nil nisi
, if you will, but at least let the
bonum
be authentic.”

“I’m not thinking of her!” she cried out. “I’m thinking of Richard.”

“Are you, indeed, my pet?” he said uncomfortably.

Anelida said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Alleyn. This is bad behaviour, isn’t it? You must put it down to the well-known hysteria of theatre people.”

“I put it down to the natural result of shock,” Alleyn said, “and believe me, from what I’ve seen of histrionic behaviour, yours is in the last degree conservative. You must be a beginner.”

“How right you are!” she said and looked gratefully at him.

The point had been reached where he should tell them of the implications and he was helped by Octavius, who said, “But why, my dear fellow, are you concerned in all this? Do the police in cases of accident…”

“That’s just it,” Alleyn said. “They do. They have to make sure.”

He explained why they had to make sure. When he said that he must know exactly what had happened in the conservatory, Anelida turned so pale that he wondered if she, too, was going to faint. But she waited for a moment, taking herself in hand, and then told him, very directly, what had happened.

Timon Gantry, Montague and Richard had been talking to her about her reading the leading role in
Husbandry in Heaven
. Mary Bellamy had come in, unnoticed by them, and had heard enough to make her realize what was afoot.

“She was very angry,” Anelida said steadily. “She thought of it as a conspiracy and she accused me of — of—” Her voice faltered but in a moment she went on. “She said I’d been setting my cap at Richard to further my own ends in the theatre. I don’t remember everything she said. They all tried to stop her, but that seemed to make her more angry. Kate Cavendish and Bertie Saracen had come in with Mr. Templeton. When she saw them she attacked them as well. It was something about another new production. She accused them, too, of conspiracy. I could see Unk on the other side of the glass door, like somebody you want very badly in a nightmare and can’t reach. And then Mr. Templeton went out and spoke to him. And then I went out. And Unk behaved perfectly. And we came home.”

“Beastly experience,” Alleyn said. “For both of you.”

“Oh horrid,” Octavius agreed. “And
very
puzzling. She was, to meet, you know, so perfectly enchanting. One is quite at a loss…!” He rumpled his hair.

“Poor Unky!” Anelida said.

“Was Colonel Warrender in the conservatory?”

“That is Templeton’s cousin, isn’t it? One sees the likeness,” said Octavius. “Yes, he was. He came into the hall and tried to say something pleasant, poor man.”

“So did the others,” Anelida said. “I’m afraid I wasn’t as responsive as I ought to have been. I — we just walked out.”

“And Richard Dakers walked out after you?”

“Yes,” she said. “He did. And I went off to my room and wouldn’t see him. Which is so awful.”

“So what did he do?” Alleyn asked Octavius.

“Do? Dakers? He was in a great taking-on. I felt sorry for him. Angry, you know, with
her
. He said a lot of hasty, unpleasant things which I feel sure he didn’t mean.”

“What sort of things?”

“Oh!” Octavius said. “It was, as far as I recollect, to the effect that Mrs. Templeton had ruined his life. All very extravagant and ill-considered. I was sorry to hear it.”

“Did he say what he meant to do when he left here?”

“Yes, indeed. He said he was going back to have it out with her. Though how he proposed to do anything of the sort in the middle of a party, one can’t imagine. I went to the door with him, trying to calm him down, and I saw him go into the house.”

“And that was the last you saw of him?”

“In point of fact, yes. The telephone rang at that moment. It’s in the back room as you’ll remember. I answered it and when I returned here I thought for a moment he had done so, too. I suppose because he was so much in my mind.”

Anelida made a small ejaculation, but her uncle went on:

“A ludicrous mistake. It was dark in here by then — very — and he was standing in silhouette against the windows. I said, ‘My dear chap, what now?’ or something of that sort, and he turned and then, of course, I saw it was Colonel Warrender, you know.”

“What had
he
come for?” Anelida asked rather desperately.

“Well, my dear, I suppose on behalf of his cousin and to repeat his vicarious apologies and to attempt an explanation. I felt it much better to make as little of the affair as possible. After all we don’t
know
Warrender and in any case it was really nothing to do with him. He meant very well, no doubt. I was, I hope, perfectly civil, but I got rid of him in a matter of seconds.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “I see. To sidetrack for a moment, I suppose you’re by way of being an authority on Victorian tinsel pictures, aren’t you? Do you go in for them? I seem to remember…”

“How
very
odd!” Octavius exclaimed. “My dear fellow, I sold one this morning to young Dakers, as a birthday present for — oh, well, there you are! — for his guardian.”

“Madame Vestris?”

“You saw it then? Charming, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Charming.”

Anelida had been watching Alleyn, as he was well aware, very closely. She now asked him the question he had expected.

“Mr. Alleyn,” Anelida said. “Do you think it was not an accident?”

He gave her the inevitable answer. “We don’t know. We’re not sure.”

“But what do you believe? In your heart? I must know. I won’t do anything silly or make a nuisance of myself. Do you believe she was murdered?”

Alleyn said, “I’m afraid I do, Anelida.”

“Have you told Richard?”

“Not in so many words.”

“But he guessed?”

“I don’t know,” Alleyn said carefully, “what he thought. I’ve left him to himself for a little.”

“Why?”

“He’s had a very bad shock. He fainted.”

She looked steadily at him and then with a quick collected movement rose to her feet.

“Unk,” she said, “don’t wait up for me and don’t worry.”

“My dear girl,” he said, in a fluster, “what do you mean? Where are you going?”

“To Richard,” she said. “Where else? Of course to Richard.”

When Anelida rang the bell at 2 Pardoner’s Place, it was answered, almost at once, by a policeman.

She said, “It’s Miss Lee. I’ve been talking to Superintendent Alleyn. He knows I’m here and I think is probably coming himself in a moment. I want to speak to Mr. Richard Dakers.”

The policeman said, “I see, Miss. Well, now, if you’ll wait a moment I’ll just find out whether that’ll be all right. Perhaps you’d take a chair.”

“No, thank you. I want to see him at once, please.”

“I’ll ascertain…” he had begun rather austerely when Alleyn himself arrived.

“Sir?”

“Yes, all right. Is Mr. Dakers still in the drawing-room? Good.” Alleyn looked at Anelida. “Come along,” he said. She lifted her chin and went to him.

She was in a state of mind she had never before experienced. It was as if her thoughts and desires and behaviour had been abruptly simplified and were governed by a single intention. She knew that somewhere within herself she must be afraid, but she also knew that fear, as things had turned out, was inadmissible.

She followed Alleyn across the hall. He said, “Here you are,” and opened a door. She went from the hall into the drawing-room.

Immediately inside the door was a tall leather screen. She walked round it and there, staring out of a window, was Richard. Anelida moved a little towards him and halted. This gave her time to realize how very much she liked the shape of his head and at once she felt an immense tenderness for him and even a kind of exultation. In a second, she would speak his name, she would put herself absolutely on his side.

“Richard,” she said.

He turned. She noticed that his face had bleached, not conventionally, over the cheekbone, but at the temples and down the jaw-line.

“Anelida?”

“I had to come. I’m trying to make up for my bad behaviour. Here, you see, I am.”

He came slowly to her and when he took her hands in his, did so doubtfully. “I can’t believe my luck,” he said. “I thought I’d lost you quite irrevocably. Cause enough, God knows.”

“On the contrary, I assure you.”

He broke into an uncertain smile. “The things you say! Such grand phrases!” His hands tightened on hers. “You know what’s happened, don’t you? About Mary?”

“Yes. Richard, I’m so terribly sorry. And what a hopeless phrase
that
is!”

“I shouldn’t let you stay. It’s not the place for you. This is a nightmare of a house.”

“Do you want me? Am I any good, being here?”

“I love you.” He lifted her hands to his face. “Ah no! Why did I tell you! This isn’t the time.”

“Are you all right now — to talk, I mean? To talk very seriously?”

“I’m all right. Come over here.”

They sat together on the sofa, Richard still holding her hands. “He told us you fainted,” said Anelida.

“Alleyn? Has he been worrying you?”

“Not really. But it’s because of what he did say that I’m here. And because — Richard, when I wouldn’t see you and you went away — did you come back here?”

“Yes,” he said. “I did.”

“Did you see her?”

He looked down at their clasped hands. “Yes.”

“Where?”

“In her room. Only for a few minutes. I — left her there.”

“Was anyone else with you?”

“Good God, no!” he cried out.

“And then? Then what?”

“I went away. I walked for heaven knows how long. When I came back — it was like this.”

There was a long silence. At last Richard said very calmly, “I know what you’re trying to tell me. They think Mary has been murdered and they wonder if I’m their man. Isn’t it?”

Anelida leant towards him and kissed him. “That’s it,” she said. “At least, I think so. We’ll get it tidied up and disposed of in no time. But I think that’s it.”

“It seems,” he said, “so fantastic. Too fantastic to be frightening. You mustn’t be frightened. You must go away, my darling heart, and leave me to — to do something about it.”

“I’ll go when I think it’ll make things easier for you. Not before.”

“I love you so much. I should be telling you how much, not putting this burden upon you.”

“They may not leave me with you for long. You must remember exactly what happened. Where you went. Who may have seen you. And Richard, you must tell them what she was doing when you left.”

He released her hands and pressed the palms of his own to his eyes. “She was laughing,” he said.

“Laughing? They’ll want to know why, won’t they? What you both said to make her laugh.”

“Never!” he said violently. “Never!”

“But — they’ll ask you.”

“They can ask and ask and ask again. Never!”

“You must!” she said desperately. “Think! It’s what one always reads — that innocent people hold out on the police and muddle everything up and put themselves in the wrong. Richard, think what they’ll find out anyway! That she spoke as she did to me, that you were angry, that you said you’d never forgive her. Everyone in the hall heard you. Colonel Warrender…”

“He!” Richard said bitterly. “He won’t talk. He daren’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh!” she cried out. “You are frightening me! What’s going to happen when they ask you about it? What’ll they think when you won’t tell them!”

“They can think what they like.” He got up and began to walk about the room. “Too much has happened. I can’t get it into perspective. You don’t know what it’s like. I’ve no right to load it on to you.”

“Don’t
talk
like that,” Anelida said desperately. “I love you. It’s my right to share.”

“You’re so young.”

“I’ve got all the sense I’m ever likely to have.”

“Darling!”

“Never mind about me! You needn’t tell me anything you don’t want to. It’s what you’re going to say to them that matters.”

“I will tell you — soon — when I can.”

“If it clears you they won’t make any further to-do about it. That’s all they’ll worry about. Clearing it up. You must tell them what happened. Everything.”

“I can’t.”

“My God,
why
?”

“Have you any doubts about me? Have you!”

She went to him. “You must know I haven’t.”

“Yes,” he said. “I can see that.”

They stared at each other. He gave an inarticulate cry and suddenly she was in his arms.

Gracefield came through the folding doors from the dining-room.

“Supper is served, sir,” he said.

Alleyn rose from his comfortable seclusion behind the screen, slipped through the door into the hall, shut it soundlessly behind him and went up to their office.

“I’ve been talking,” Mr. Fox remarked, “to a press photographer and the servants.”

“And I,” Alleyn said sourly, “have been eavesdropping on a pair of lovers. How low can you get? Next stop, with Polonius behind the arras in a bedroom.”

“All for their good, I daresay,” Fox observed comfortably.

“There is that. Fox, that blasted playwright is holding out on us. And on his girl for a matter of that. But I’m damned if I like him as a suspect.”

“He seems,” Fox considered, “a very pleasant young fellow.”

“What the devil happened between him and Mary Bellamy when he came back? He won’t tell his girl. He merely says the interview ended in Miss Bellamy laughing. We’ve got the reports from those two intensely prejudiced women, who both agree he looked ghastly. All right. He goes out. There’s this crash Florence talked about. Florence goes down to the half-landing and Ninn hears a spray being used. Templeton comes out from the drawing-room to the foot of the stairs. He calls up to Florence to tell her mistress they’re waiting for her. Florence goes up to the room and finds her mistress in her death throes. Dakers returns two hours after the death, comes up to his room, writes a letter and tries to go away. End of information. Next step: confront him with the letter?”

“Your reconstruction of it?”

“Oh,” Alleyn said. “I fancy I can lay my hands on the original.”

Fox looked at him with placid approval and said nothing.

“What did you get from your press photographer? And which photographer?” Alleyn asked.

“He was hanging about in the street and said he’d something to tell me. Put-up job to get inside, of course, but I thought I’d see what it was. He took a picture of deceased with Mr. Dakers in the background at twenty to eight by the hall clock. He saw them go upstairs together. Gives us an approximate time for the demise, for what it’s worth.”

“About ten minutes later. What did you extract from the servants?”

“Not a great deal. It seems the deceased wasn’t all that popular with the staff, except Florence, who was hers, as the cook put it, body and soul. Gracefield held out on me for a bit, but he’s taken quite a liking to you, sir, and I built on that with good results.”

“What the hell have you been saying?”

“Well, Mr. Alleyn, you know as well as I do what snobs these high-class servants are.”

Alleyn didn’t pursue the subject.

“There was a dust-up,” Fox continued, “this morning with Miss Cavendish and Mr. Saracen. Gracefield happened to overhear it.” He repeated Gracefield’s account, which had been detailed and accurate.

“According to Anelida Lee this row was revived in the conservatory,” Alleyn muttered. “What were they doing here this morning?”

“Mr. Saracen had come to do the flowers, about which Gracefield spoke very sarcastically, and Miss Cavendish had brought the deceased that bottle of scent.”

“What!” Alleyn said. “Not the muck on her dressing-table? Not Formidable?
This morning
?”

“That’s right.”

Alleyn slapped his hand down on Richard’s desk and got up. “My God, what an ass I’ve been!” he said and then, sharply, “Who opened it?”

“She did. In the dining-room.”

“And used it? Then?”

“Had a bit of a dab, Gracefield said. He happened to be glancing through the serving-hatch at the time.”

“What became of it after that?”

“Florence took charge of it. I’m afraid,” Fox said, “I’m not with you, Mr. Alleyn, in respect of the scent.”

“My dear old boy, think! Think of the bottle.”

“Very big,” Fox said judiciously.

“Exactly. Very big. Well then…?”

“Yes. Ah, yes,” Fox said slowly and then, “Well, I’ll be staggered!”

“And so you jolly well should. This could blow the whole damn case wide open again.”

“Will I fetch them?”

“Do. And call on Florence, wherever she is. Get the whole story, Fox. Tactfully, as usual. Find out when the scent was decanted into the spray and when she used it. Watch the reactions, won’t you? And see if there’s anything in the Plumtree stories: about Richard Dakers’s parentage and Florence being threatened with the sack.”

Fox looked at his watch. “Ten o’clock,” he said. “She may have gone to bed.”

“That’ll be a treat for you. Leave me your notes. Away you go.”

While Fox was on this errand, Alleyn made a plot, according to information, of the whereabouts of Charles Templeton, the four guests, the servants and Richard Dakers up to the time when he himself arrived on the scene. Fox’s spadework had been exhaustive, as usual, and a pretty complicated pattern emerged. Alleyn lifted an eyebrow over the result. How many of them had told the whole truth? Which of them had told a cardinal lie? He put a query against one name and was shaking his head over it when Fox returned.

“Bailey’s finished with them,” Fox said and placed on Richard’s desk the scent-spray, the empty Formidable bottle and the tin of Slay pest.

“What’d he find in the way of dabs?”

“Plenty. All sorts, but none that you wouldn’t expect. He’s identified the deceased’s. Florence says she and Mr. Templeton and Colonel Warrender all handled the exhibit during the day. She says the deceased got the Colonel to operate the spray on her, just before the party. Florence filled it from the bottle.”

“And how much was left in the bottle?”

“She thinks it was about a quarter-full. She was in bed,” Fox added in a melancholy tone.

“That would tally,” Alleyn muttered. “No sign of the bottle being knocked over and spilling, is there?”

“None.”

Alleyn began to tap the Slaypest tin with his pencil. “About half-full. Anyone know when it was first used?”

“Florence reckons, a week ago. Mr. Templeton didn’t like her using it and tried to get Florence to make away with it.”

“Why didn’t she?”

“No chance according to her. She went into a great taking-on and asked me if I was accusing her of murder.”

“
Did
she get the sack, this morning?”

“When I asked her she went up like a rocket bomb, the story being that Mrs. Plumtree has taken against her and let out something that was told in confidence.”

Alleyn put his head in his hands. “Oh
Lord
!” he said.

“You meet that kind of thing,” Mr. Fox observed, “in middle-age ladies. Florence says that when Miss Bellamy or Mr. Templeton was out of humour, she would make out she was going to sack Florence, but there was nothing in it. She says she only told Mrs. Plumtree as a joke. I kind of nudged in a remark about Mr. Dakers’s parentage, but she wasn’t having any of that. She turned around and accused me of having a dirty mind and in the next breath had another go at Mrs. Plumtree. All the same,” Mr. Fox added primly, “I reckon there’s something in it. I reckon so from her manner. She appears to be very jealous of anybody who was near the deceased and that takes in Mr. Templeton, Mr. Dakers, Mrs. Plumtree and the Colonel.”

“Good old Florrie,” Alleyn said absent-mindedly.

“You know, sir,” Fox continued heavily, “I’ve been thinking about the order of events. Take the latter part of the afternoon. Say, from when the Colonel used the scent. What happened after
that
, now?”

“According to himself he went downstairs and had a quick one with Mrs. Templeton in the presence of the servants while Templeton and Dakers were closetcd in the study. All this up to the time when the first guests began to come in. It looks good enough, but it’s not cast iron.”

“Whereas,” Fox continued, “Florence and Mrs. Plumtree went upstairs. Either of them could have gone into Mrs. Templeton’s room, and got up to the odd bit of hanky-panky, couldn’t they, now?”