Hand in Glove (14 page)

Connie raised no objections to Alleyn’s keeping the letters, and with them both in his pocket he asked if he might see Miss Ralston and Mr. Leiss. She said that they were still asleep in their rooms and added with a slight hint of gratification that they had attended the Baynesholme festivities.

“One of Désirée Bantling’s dotty parties,” she said. “They go on till all hours. Moppett left a note asking not to be roused.”

“It’s now one o’clock,” Alleyn said, “and I’m afraid I shall have to disturb Mr. Leiss.”

He thought she was going to protest, but at that moment the Pekingese set up a petulant demonstration, scratching at the door and raising a crescendo of imperative yaps.

“Clever boy!” Connie said distractedly. “I’m coming!” She went to the door. “I’ll have to see to this,” she said, “in the garden.”

“Of course,” Alleyn agreed. He followed them into the hall and saw them out through the front door. Once in the garden the Pekingese bolted for a newly raked flower-bed.

“Oh, no!” Connie ejaculated. “After lunch,” she shouted as she hastened in pursuit of her pet. “Come back later.”

The Pekingese tore round a corner of the house and she followed it.

Alleyn re-entered the house and went quickly upstairs.

On the landing he encountered Trudi, the maid, who showed him the visitors’ rooms. They were on two sides of a passage.

“Mr. Leiss?” Alleyn asked.

A glint of feminine awareness momentarily transfigured Trudi’s not very expressive face.

“He is sleeping,” she said. “I looked at him. He sleeps like a god.”

“We’ll see what he wakes like,” Alleyn said, tipping her rather handsomely. “Thank you, Trudi.”

He tapped smartly on the door and went in.

The room was masked from its entrance by an old-fashioned scrap screen. Behind this a languid, indefinably Cockney voice said: “Come in.”

Mr. Leiss was awake but Alleyn thought he saw what Trudi meant.

The violet silk pajama jacket was open, the torso bronzed, smooth and rather shiny as well as hirsute. A platinum chain lay on the chest. The glistening hair was slightly disarranged and the large brown eyes were open. When they lighted upon Alleyn they narrowed. There was a slight convulsive movement under the bedclothes. The room smelt dreadfully of some indefinable unguent.

“Mr. Leiss?” Alleyn said. “I’m sorry to disturb you. I am a police officer.”

A very old familiar look started up in Leonard’s face: a look of impertinence, cageyness, conceit and fear. It was there as if it had been jerked up from within and in a moment it was gone.

“I don’t quite follow you,” Leonard said. Something had gone amiss with his voice. He cleared his throat and recovered. “Is anything wrong?” he asked.

He raised himself on his elbow, plumped up his pillows and lay back on them. He reached out languidly for a cigarette case and lighter on his bedside table. The ashtray was already overloaded.

“How can I help you?” he said and lit a cigarette. He inhaled deeply and blew out a thin vapour.

“You can help me,” Alleyn said, “by answering one or two questions about your movements since you arrived at Little Codling yesterday morning.”

Leonard raised his eyebrows and exhaled a drift of vapour. “And just why,” he asked easily, “should I do that small thing?”

“For reasons,” Alleyn said, “that will explain themselves in due course. First of all, there’s the matter of an attempted car purchase. You gave Mr. Pyke Period and Mr. Cartell and Miss Cartell as references. They considered you had no authority to do so. I suggest,” Alleyn went on, “that you don’t offer the usual unconvincing explanations. They really won’t do. Fortunately for the other persons involved, the deal collapsed; and, apart from adding to your record, the incident has only one point of interest: it made Mr. Cartell very angry.” He stopped and looked hard at Leonard. “Didn’t it?” he asked.

“Look,” Leonard drawled, “do me a favour and get the hell out of this, will you?”

“Next,” Alleyn went on, “there’s the business of Mr. Period’s cigarette case.”

It was obvious that Leonard was prepared for this. He went at once into an elaborate pantomime of turning up his eyes, wagging his head and waving his fingers. “No, honestly,” he ejaculated. “It’s
too
much. Not again!”

“Oh?” Alleyn mildly remarked. “Again? Who’s been tackling you about Mr. Period’s cigarette case? Mr. Cartell?”

Leonard took his time. “I don’t,” he said at last, “like your tone. I resent it, in fact.” He looked at Alleyn through half-closed eyes and seemed to come to a decision. “Pardon me,” he added, “if I appear abrupt. As a matter of fact, we had a latish party up at Baynesholme. Quite a show. Her ladyship certainly knows how to turn it on.”

Alleyn caught himself wondering what on earth in charity and forbearance could be said for Leonard Leiss. It was an unprofessional attitude and he abandoned it.

“Mr. Cartell spoke to you about the cigarette case,” he said, taking a sizable chance, “when he called here yesterday evening.”

“Who—” Leonard began and pulled himself together. “Look,” he said, “have you been talking to other people?”

“Oh, yes, several.”

“To him?” Leonard demanded. “To Cartell?”

There was a long pause.

“No,” Alleyn said. “Not to him.”

“Then who — Here!” Leonard ejaculated. “There’s something funny about all this. What is it?”

“I’ll answer that one,” Alleyn said, “when you tell me what you did with Mr. Period’s cigarette case. Now don’t,” he went on, raising a finger, “say you don’t know anything about it I’ve seen the dining-room window. It can’t be opened from the outside. It was shut during luncheon. You and Miss Ralston examined the case by the window and left it on the sill. No one else was near the window. When the man came in to clear, the window was open and the case had gone.”

“So he says.”

“So he says, and I believe him.”

“Pardon me if I seem to be teaching you your job,” Leonard said, “but if I was going to pinch this dreary old bit of tat, why would I open the window? Why not put it in my pocket there and then?”

“Because you would then quite obviously be the thief, Mr. Leiss. If you or Miss Ralston left it on the sill and returned by way of the garden path—”

“How the hell—” Leonard began and then changed his mind. “I don’t accept that,” he said. “I resent it, in fact.”

“Did you smoke any of Mr. Period’s cigarettes?”

“Only one, thank you very much. Turkish muck.”

“Did Miss Ralston?”

“Same story. Now, look,” Leonard began with a sort of spurious candour. “There’s such a thing as collusion, isn’t there? We left this morsel of antiquery on the sill. All right. This man — Alfred Whathaveyou — opens the window. The workmen in the lane get the office from him and it’s all as sweet as kiss-your-hand.”

“And would you suggest that we search the men in the lane?”

“Why not? Do no harm, would it?”

“We might even catch them handing the case round after elevenses?”

“That’s right,” Leonard said coolly. “You might at that. Or, they might have cached it on the spot. You can search this room, or me or my car or my girlfriend. Only too pleased. The innocent don’t have anything to hide, do they?” asked Leonard.

“Nor do the guilty, when they’ve dumped the evidence.”

Leonard ran the tip of his tongue over his lips. “Fair enough,” he said. “So what?”

“Mr. Leiss,” Alleyn said, “the cigarette case has been found.”

A second flickered past before Leonard, in a tone of righteous astonishment said: “Found! Well, I ask you! Found! So why come at me? Where?”

“In my opinion, exactly where you dropped it. Down the drain.”

The door was thrust open. On the far side of the screen a feminine voice said: “Sorry, darling, but you’ll have to rouse up.” The door was shut. “We
are
in a spot of bother,” the voice continued as its owner came round the screen. “Old Cartell, dead as a doornail and down the drain!”

When Moppett saw Alleyn she clapped her hands to her mouth and eyed him over the top.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “Auntie Con thought you’d gone.”

She was a dishevelled figure, half saved by her youth and held together in a négligé that was as unfresh as it was elaborate. “Isn’t it frightful?” she said. “Poor Uncle Hal! I can’t believe it!”

Either she was less perturbed than Leonard or several times tougher. He had turned a very ill colour and had jerked cigarette ash across his chest.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he said.

“Didn’t you
know
?” Moppett exclaimed, and then to Alleyn, “Haven’t you
told
him?”

“Miss Ralston,” Alleyn said, “you have saved me the trouble. It is Miss Ralston, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. Sorry,” Moppett went on after a moment, “if I’m interupting something. I’ll sweep myself out, shall I? See you, ducks,” she added in Cockney to Leonard.

“Don’t go, if you please,” said Alleyn. “You may be able to help us. Can you tell me where you and Mr. Leiss lost Mr. Period’s cigarette case?”

“No, she can’t,” Leonard intervened. “Because we didn’t. We never had it. We don’t know anything about it.”

Moppett opened her eyes very wide and her mouth slightly. She turned in fairly convincing bewilderment from Leonard to Alleyn.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “P.P.’s cigarette case? Do you mean the old one he showed us when we lunched with him?”

“Yes,” Alleyn agreed. “That’s the one I mean.”

“Lenny, darling, what did happen to it, do you remember? I know! We left it on the window sill. Didn’t we? In the dining-room?”

“O.K., O.K., like I’ve been telling the Chief Godal-mighty High Commissioner,” Leonard said and behind his alarm, his fluctuating style and his near-Americanisms, there flashed up an unrepentant barrow-boy. “So now it’s been found. So what?”

“It’s been found,” Alleyn said, “in the open drain a few inches from Mr. Cartell’s body.”

Leonard seemed to retreat into himself. It was as if he shortened and compressed his defenses.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. He shot a glance at Moppett. “That’s a very nasty suggestion, isn’t it? I don’t get the picture.”

“The picture will emerge in due course. A minute or two ago,” Alleyn said, “you told me I was welcome to search this room. Do you hold to that?”

Leonard went through the pantomime of inspecting his fingernails but gave it up on finding his hands were unsteady.

“Naturally,” he murmured. “Like I said. Nothing to hide.”

“Good. Please don’t go, Miss Ralston,” Alleyn continued as Moppett showed some sign of doing so. “I shan’t be long.”

He had moved over to the wardrobe and opened the door when he felt a touch on his arm. He turned and there was Moppett, smelling of scent, hair and bed, gazing into his face, unmistakably palpitating.

“I won’t go, of course,” she said opening her eyes very wide, “if you don’t want me to, but you
can
see, can’t you, that I’m not actually dressed for the prevailing climate? It’s a trifle chilly, this morning, isn’t it?”

“I’m sure Mr. Leiss will lend you his dressing-gown.”

It was a brocade and velvet affair and lay across the foot of the bed. She put it on.

“Give us a fag, ducks,” she said to Leonard.

“Help yourself.”

She reached for his case. “It’s not one of those…?” she began and then stopped short. “Fanks, ducks,” she said and lit a cigarette, lounging across the bed.

The room grew redolent of Virginian tobacco.

The wardrobe doors were lined with looking-glass. In them Alleyn caught a momentary glimpse of Moppett leaning urgently towards Leonard and of Leonard baring his teeth at her. He mouthed something and closed his hand over her wrist. The cigarette quivered between her fingers. Leonard turned his head as Alleyn moved the door and their images swung out of sight.

Alleyn’s fingers slid into the pockets of Leonard’s checked suit, dinner suit and camel’s-hair overcoat. They discovered three greasy combs, a pair of wash-leather gloves, a membership card from a Soho club called La Hacienda, a handkerchief, loose change, a pocketbook and finally, in the evening trousers and the overcoat, the object of their search: strands of cigarette tobacco. He withdrew a thread and sniffed at it. Turkish. The hinges of Mr. Period’s case, he had noticed, were a bit loose.

He came out from behind the wardrobe door with the garments in question over his arm. Moppett, who now had her feet up, exclaimed with a fair show of gaitey: “Look, Face, he’s going to valet you.”

Alleyn said: “I’d like to borrow these things for the moment. I’ll give you a receipt, of course.”

“Like hell you will,” Leonard ejaculated.

“If you object, I can apply for a search warrant”

“Darling, don’t be bloody-minded,” Moppett said. “After all, what
does
it matter?”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Leonard mumbled through bleached lips. “That’s what I object to. People break in without a word of warning and start talking about bodies and — and—”

“And false pretenses. And attempted fraud. And theft,” Alleyn put in. “As you say, it’s the principal of the thing. May I borrow these garments?”

“O.K., O.K., O.K.”

“Thank you.”

Alleyn laid the overcoat and dinner suit across a chair and then went methodically through a suitcase and the drawers of a tallboy: there, wrapped in a sock, he came upon a flick-knife. He turned, with it in his hand, and found Leonard staring at him.