Final Curtain (34 page)

‘Mr Alleyn,' Cedric began, opening his eyes very wide, ‘I couldn't be more sorry about rushing away just now after Aunt Pauline. Really, it was too stupid. But one does like to tell people things in one's own way, and there she was, huffing and puffing and going on as if I'd been trying to conceal some dire skeleton in my, I assure you, too drearily barren cupboard.'

Alleyn waited.

‘You see—(Milly, my sweet, this is going to be a faint shock to you, but never mind)—you see, Mr Alleyn, there's been a—what shall I call it?—a—well, an
understanding
, of sorts, between Sonia and me. It only really developed quite lately. After dearest Mrs Alleyn came here. She seems to have noticed quite a number of things; perhaps she noticed that.'

‘If I understand you,' Alleyn said, ‘she, I am sure, did not.'

‘Really?'

‘Are you trying to tell me why you visited Miss Orrincourt's rooms on the night of your grandfather's death?'

‘Well,' Cedric muttered petulantly, ‘after Aunt Pauline's announcement—and, by the way, she gleaned her information through a nocturnal visit to the
archaic
offices at the end of the passage—after that there seems to be nothing for it but an elaborate cleaning of the breast, does there?'

‘Cedric,' Millamant said, ‘what has this woman done to you?'

‘My sweet, nothing, thank God. I'm trying to tell you. She really is too beautiful, Mr Alleyn, don't you think? I know you didn't like her, Milly dear, and how right you seem to have been. But I really was quite intrigued and she was so bored and it was only the teeniest flutter, truly. I merely popped in on my way to bed and had a good giggle with her about the
frightful
doings down below.'

‘Incidentally,' Alleyn suggested, ‘you may have hoped to hear the latest news about Sir Henry's Will.'

‘Well, that among other things. You see, I did rather wonder if the flying cow hadn't been sort of once too often, as it were. Sonia did it before dinner, you know. And then at the dinner the Old Person announced a Will that was really quite satisfactory from both our points of view, and with the insufferable Panty not even a starter, one rather wished Sonia had left well alone.'

‘Cedric,' said his mother suddenly, ‘I don't think, dear, you should go on. Mr Alleyn won't understand. Stop.'

‘But, Milly, my sweet, don't you see dear old Pauline has already planted a horrid little seed of suspicion, and one simply must tweak it up before it sprouts. Mustn't one, Mr Alleyn?'

‘I think,' Alleyn said, ‘you'll be well advised to make a complete statement.'

‘There! Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Now, all would have been well if Carol Able, who is so scientific and “un-thing” that she's a sort of monster, hadn't made out a water-tight alibi for that septic child. This, of course, turned the Old Person's suspicious glare upon all of us equally, and so he wrote the second Will and so we were all done in the eye except Sonia. And to be
quite
frank, Milly and Mr Alleyn, I should so like to have it settled whether she's a murderess or not, rather quickly.'

‘Of course she is,' Millamant said.

‘Yes, but are you
positive
? It really is of mountainous significance for me.'

‘What do you mean, Cedric? I don't understand—'

‘Well—well, never mind.'

‘I think I know what Sir Cedric means,' Alleyn said. ‘Isn't it a question of marriage at some time in the future with Miss Orrincourt?'

Millamant, with a tightening of her hold on Cedric's shoulder, said, ‘No!' loudly and flatly.

‘Oh, Milly darling,' he protested, wriggling under her hand, ‘please let's be civilized.'

‘It's all nonsense,' she said. ‘Tell him it's all nonsense. A disgusting idea! Tell him.'

‘What's the use when Sonia will certainly tell him something else.' He appealed to Alleyn. ‘You do understand, don't you? I mean, one can't deny she's decorative and in a way it would have been quite fun. Don't you think it would have worked, Mr Alleyn? I do.'

His mother again began to protest. He freed himself with ugly petulance and scrambled to his feet. ‘You're idiotic, Milly. What's the good of hiding things.'

‘You'll do yourself harm.'

‘What harm? I'm in the same position, after all, as you. I don't know the truth about Sonia but I want to find out.' He turned to Alleyn with a smile. ‘When I saw her that night she told me about the new Will. I knew then that if he died I'd be practically ruined. There's no collaboration where I'm concerned, Mr Alleyn. I didn't murder the Old Person.
Pas si bête
!”

‘ “
Pas si bête
,” ' Fox quoted as they made their way to the school wing. ‘Meaning, “not such a fool.” I shouldn't say he was, either, would you, Mr Alleyn?'

‘Oh, no. There are no flies on the egregious Cedric. But what a cold-blooded little worm it is, Fox! Grandpapa dies, leaving him encumbered with a large unwanted estate and an insufficient income to keep it up. Grandpapa, on the other hand, dies leaving his extremely dubious fiancée a fortune. What more simple than for the financially embarrassed Cedric to marry the opulent Miss O.? I could kick that young man,' said Alleyn thoughtfully, ‘in fourteen completely different positions and still feel half-starved.'

‘I reckon,' said Fox, ‘it's going to be a case for the Home Secretary.'

‘Oh, yes, yes, I'm afraid you're right. Down this passage, didn't they say? And there's the green baize door. I think we'll separate here, Fox. You to collect your unconsidered trifles in Isabel's case and, by the way, you might take charge of Miss Orrincourt's. Here it is. Then, secretly, Foxkin, exhume Carabbas, deceased, and enclose him in a boot-box. By the way, do we know who destroyed poor Carabbas?'

‘Mr Barker,' said Fox, ‘got Mr Juniper to come up and give him an injection. Strychnine, I fancy.'

‘I hope, whatever it was, it doesn't interfere with the autopsy. I'll meet you on the second terrace.'

Beyond the green baize door the whole atmosphere of Ancreton was charged. Coir runners replaced the heavy carpets, passages were draughty and smelt of disinfectant, and where Victorian prints may have hung there were pictures of determined modernity that had been executed with a bright disdain for comfortable, but doubtless undesirable, prettiness.

Led by a terrific rumpus, Alleyn found his way to a large room where Miss Able's charges were assembled, with building games, with modelling clay, with paints, hammers, sheets of paper, scissors and paste. Panty, he saw, was conducting a game with scales, weights and bags of sand, and appeared to be in hot dispute with a small boy. When she saw Alleyn she flung herself into a strange attitude and screamed with affected laughter. He waved to her and she at once did a comedy fall to the floor, where she remained, apeing violent astonishment.

Miss Caroline Able detached herself from a distant group and came towards him.

‘We're rather noisy in here,' she said crisply. ‘Shall we go to my office? Miss Watson, will you carry on?'

‘Certainly, Miss Able,' said an older lady, rising from behind a mass of children.

‘Come along, then,' said Caroline Able.

Her office was near at hand and was hung with charts and diagrams. She seated herself behind an orderly desk, upon which he at once noticed a pile of essays written on paper with yellow lines and ruled margin.

‘I suppose you know what all this is about,' he said.

Miss Able replied cheerfully that she thought she did. ‘I see,' she said frankly, ‘quite a lot of Thomas Ancred and he's told me about all the trouble. It's been a pretty balanced account, as a matter of fact. He's fairly well adjusted, and has been able to deal with it quite satisfactorily so far.'

Alleyn understood this to be a professional opinion on Thomas, and wondered if a courtship had developed and if it was conducted on these lines. Miss Able was pretty. She had a clear skin, large eyes and good teeth. She also had an intimidating air of utter sanity.

‘I'd like to know,' he said, ‘what you think about it all.'

‘It's impossible to give an opinion that's worth much,' she replied, ‘without a pretty thorough analysis of one if not all of them. Obviously the relationship with their father was unsatisfactory. I should have liked to know about his marriage. One suspected, of course, that there was a fear of impotency, not altogether sublimated. The daughters' violent antagonism to his proposed second marriage suggests a rather bad father-fixation.'

‘Does it? But it wasn't a particularly suitable alliance from—from the ordinary point of view, was it?'

‘If the relationship with the father,' Miss Able said firmly, ‘had been properly adjusted, the children should not have been profoundly disturbed.'

‘Not even,' Alleyn ventured, ‘by the prospect of Miss O. as a mother-in-law and principal beneficiary in the Will?'

‘Those may have been the reasons advanced to explain their antagonism. They may represent an attempt to rationalize a basic and essentially sexual repulsion.'

‘Oh, dear!'

‘But, as I said before,' she added, with a candid laugh, ‘one shouldn't pronounce on mere observation. Deep analysis might lead to a much more complex state of affairs.'

‘You know,' Alleyn said, taking out his pipe and nursing it in his palm, ‘you and I, Miss Able, represent two aspects of investigation. Your professional training teaches you that behaviour is a sort of code or cryptogram disguising the pathological truth from the uninformed, but revealing it to the expert. Mine teaches me to regard behaviour as something infinitely variable
after
the fact and often at complete loggerheads
with
the fact. A policeman watches behaviour, of course, but his deductions would seem completely superficial to you.' He opened his hand. ‘I see a man turning a dead pipe about in his hand and I think that, perhaps unconsciously, he's longing to smoke it. May he?'

‘Do,' said Miss Able. ‘It's a good illustration. I see a man caressing his pipe and I recognize a very familiar piece of fetishism.'

‘Well, don't tell me what it is,' Alleyn said hurriedly.

Miss Able gave a short professional laugh.

‘Now, look here,' he said, ‘how do you account for these anonymous letters we're all so tired of? What sort of being perpetrated them and why?'

‘They probably represent an attempt to make an effect and are done by someone whose normal creative impulses have taken the wrong turning. The desire to be mysterious and omnipotent may be an additional factor. In Patricia's case for instance—'

‘Patricia? Oh, I see. That's Panty, of course.'

‘We don't use her nickname over here. We don't think it a good idea. We think nicknames can have a very definite effect, particularly when they are of a rather humiliating character.'

‘I see. Well, then, in Patricia's case?'

‘She formed the habit of perpetrating rather silly jokes on people. This was an attempt to command attention. She used to let her performances remain anonymous. Now she usually brags about them. That, of course, is a good sign.'

‘It's an indication, at least, that she's not the author of the more recent practical jokes on her grandfather.'

‘I agree.'

‘Or the author of the anonymous letters.'

‘That, I should have thought,' said Miss Able patiently, ‘was perfectly obvious.'

‘Who do you think is responsible for the letters?'

‘I've told you, I can't make snap decisions or guesses.'

‘Couldn't you just unbend far enough to have one little potshot?' he said persuasively. Miss Able opened her mouth, shut it again, looked at him with somewhat diminished composure and finally blushed. ‘Come!' he thought, ‘she hasn't analysed herself into an iceberg, at least.' And he said aloud: ‘Without prejudice, now, who among the grown-ups would you back as the letter-writer?' He leant forward, smiling at her, and thought: ‘Troy would grin if she saw this exhibition.' As Miss Able still hesitated, he repeated: ‘Come on; who would you back?'