Death in Ecstasy (10 page)
Authors: Ngaio Marsh
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #det_classic, #Mystery & Detective, #London (England), #Police Procedural, #Police, #Cults, #Alleyn; Roderick (Fictitious character), #Detective and mystery stories; New Zealand
“Nonsense.”
“Nevertheless it is an admirable style, though I shall be interested to see how you apply it to journalism and the mechanics of police investigation.”
“That is merely ridiculous,” said Nigel. He returned pointedly to his work and after a moment’s consideration erased a word or two.
“Any prints on the parcel, Bailey?” asked Alleyn.
“Yes, sir. All one brand. The Reverend, I’ll bet. I’ve got a sample of him off that glass.”
“Ah,” said Alleyn.
“Ah-ha,” said Nigel.
“No, not quite ‘Ah-ha’ I fancy,” murmured the inspector.
“Hullo!” exclaimed Fox suddenly.
“What’s up?” asked Alleyn.
“Look here, sir.” Fox came to the table and put down a small slip of paper.
“I found it in the cigarette-box,” he said. “It’s the lady again.”
“Yes,” agreed Alleyn, “it’s the lady. Bless my soul,” he added, “the damn’ place is choc-a-bloc full of dubious correspondence.”
Nigel came across to look. Fox’s new find was a very small page of shiny paper. Monday’s date was printed in one corner and underneath was scribbled the word: “Sunday.” Three edges were gilt, the fourth was torn across at an angle as though it had been wrenched from a book. Cara Quayne had written in pencil: “Must see you. Terrible discovery. After service tonight.”
“Where exactly was it?” asked Alleyn.
“In this.” Fox displayed an elaborated Benares box almost full of Turkish cigarettes. “It was on the sideboard and the paper lay on top of the cigarettes. Like this.” He picked up the paper and put it in the box.
“This is very curious,” said Alleyn. He raised an eyebrow and stared fixedly at the little message. “Get the deceased’s handbag,” he said after a minute. “It’s out there.”
Fox went out and returned with a morocco handbag. Alleyn opened it and turned out the contents, and arranged them on the table. They were: A small case containing powder, a lipstick, a handkerchief, a purse, a pair of gloves, and a small pocketbook bound in red leather with a pencil attached.
“That’s it,” said Alleyn.
He opened the book and laid the note beside it. The paper corresponded exactly. He scribbled a word or two with the pencil.
“That’s it,” he repeated. “The lead is broken. There’s the same double line in each case.” He turned the leaves of the book. Cara Quayne had written extensively in it — shopping lists, appointments, memoranda. The notes came to an end about halfway through. Alleyn read the last one and looked up quickly.
“Got an evening paper, either of you?”
“I have,” said Fox, producing one, neatly folded, from his pocket.
“Does the new show at the Criterion open tomorrow?”
“You needn’t bother to look,” interrupted Nigel. “It does.”
“You have your uses,” grunted the inspector. “That fixes it then. She wrote the note today.”
“How do you know?” demanded Nigel.
“There’s a note on today’s page: ‘Dine and go “Hail Fellow”; Criterion, Raoul, tomorrow.’ I wanted to be sure she stuck to the printed date. The next page, tomorrow’s, is the one she tore out. There’s the date. She must have torn it out today.”
“Things are looking up a bit, aren’t they?” ventured Fox.
“Are they, Fox? Perhaps they are. And yet — it’s a sticky business, this. Light your pipe, my Foxkin, and do a bit of ’teckery. What’s in your mind, you sly old box of tricks?”
Fox lit his pipe, sat down, and gazed solemnly at his superior.
“Come on, now,” said Alleyn.
“Well, sir, it’s a bit early to speak anything like for sure, but say the lady knew what we know about the parcel there. Say she found it out today, when the parson was out — called in to see him perhaps.”
“And found the safe open?”
“Might be. Sounds kind of careless, but might be. Anyway, say she found out somehow and wanted to tell him. Say he came in, read the note, and — well, sir say he thought something would have to be done about it.”
“I don’t think he has read the note Fox.”
“Don’t you, sir?”
“No. We can see if his prints are on it. If he has read it I don’t think he’s a murderer.”
“Why not?” asked Nigel.
“He’d have destroyed it.”
“That’s so,” admitted Fox.
“But,” Alleyn went on, “as I say, I don’t think he’s read it. There are no cigarette-ends of that brand about, are there?”
They hunted around the room. Alleyn went into the bedroom and came back in a few moments.
“None there,” he said, “and dear Mr. Garnette looks very unattractive with his mouth open. But I think we’d better look for prints in there, Bailey. There’s that open door. Did you run anything to earth in the bedroom, Fox?”
“A very small trace of a powder in the washstand cupboard, sir. That’s all.”
“Well, what about cigarette-butts?”
“None here,” announced Fox, who had examined the grate as well as all the ashtrays in the room. “There are several Virginians — Mr. Bathgate’s and Dr. Curtis’s I think they are — no Turkish anywhere.”
“Then he hasn’t opened the box.”
“I must say I can’t help thinking that note’s got a bearing on the case,” said Fox.
“I think you’re right, Fox. Put it in my bag, box and all. Let’s finish off and go home.”
“And tomorrow?” asked Nigel.
“Tomorrow we’ll get Mr. Garnette to open the surprise packet.”
“What about the gentleman in question, sir?”
“What about him?”
“Will he be all right? All alone?”
“Good Heavens, Fox, what extraordinary solicitude! He’ll wake up with a hirsute tongue and a brazen belly. And he will be very, very troubled in his mind. There’s that back door.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ll have to leave a couple of men here. Let’s tidy up. Put all that stuff back in the safe, Fox, will you? I’ll tackle the desk.”
The two detectives replaced everything with extreme accuracy. Alleyn locked the safe and the desk and pocketed the keys. He strolled over to the bookcase, and as Fox packed up the police bag he murmured titles to himself:
The Koran, Spiritual Experiences of a Fakir, From Wotan to Hitler, The Soul of the Lotus Bud, The Meaning and the Message, Jnana Yoga
… “Hullo, here’s something of his own invent. As I live, a little book of poems. Purple suede, Heaven help us, purple suede!
Eros on Calvary and Other Poems
, by Jasper Garnette. Old pig!”
He opened the book and read.
“The grape and thorn together bind my brows;
Delight and torment is my double mead.”
“Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, how inexpressibly beastly!”
He shoved the poems back and then, with a grimace at Nigel, thrust his hand behind the books and, after a little groping, pulled out several dusty volumes, all covered in brown paper.
“Petronius,” he said, “and so on. This is his nasty little secret hoard. Notice the disguise, will you! Hullo, what’s this?”
He turned to the table and held a very battered old book under the lamp.
“Abberley’s
Curiosities of Chemistry
. What a remarkably rum old book! Published by Gasock and Hauptmann, New York, 1865. I’ve met it before somewhere. Where was it?”
He screwed up his face with the effort to remember and, holding the book lightly in his long, fastidious hands, let it fall open.
“I’ve got it,” said Alleyn. “It was in the Bodleian, twenty years ago.”
He opened his eyes and turned to Nigel. That young man was standing with his mouth agape and his eyes bulging.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Alleyn.
Nigel pointed to the book in the inspector’s hands. Fox and Alleyn both looked down.
The book had fallen open at a page headed: “A simple but little-known method of making sodium cyanide.”
Alleyn Takes Stock
“Dear me!” said Alleyn as he laid the book on the table. “This is a quaint coincidence.” He paused a moment and then murmured: “I wonder if coincidence is quite the right word.”
“H’m,” said Fox, deeply.
“I’d call it the Hand of — of Fate, or Providence, or Nemesis or something,” said Nigel.
“I dare say you would — on the front page. Not this time, however.” But Nigel was reading excitedly.
“Do listen, Alleyn. It says you can make sodium cyanide from wool and washing soda.”
“Really? It sounds a most unpalatable mixture.”
“You have to heat them terrifically in a retort or something. It says: ‘It is, perhaps, a fortunate circumstance that this simple recipe is not generally known. The tyro is advised to avoid the experiment as it is attended by a certain amount of danger, so deadly is the poison thus produced.’ ”
“Yes. Don’t blow down my neck and don’t touch the book, there’s a good chap. Bailey will have to get to work on it. Not nearly so much dust on this as on the other hidden books, you notice, Fox, and the brown paper cover is newer. The others are stained. Blast! I don’t like it at all.”
Bailey reappeared and was given the book.
“I don’t think the results will be very illuminating,” said Alleyn. “Try the open page as well as the cover. What
is
it these books smell of?”
He sniffed at them.
“It’s those stains, I seem to imagine. It’s very faint. Perhaps I
do
imagine. What about you, Bailey?”
Alleyn examined the
Curiosities
closely.
“It smells faintly. There’s no stain on the cover.” He slipped the blade of his pocketknife beneath the brown paper and peered under it: “And there is no stain on the red cover of the book. There you are, Bailey.”
“But, Alleyn,” interrupted Nigel, “surely it’s of the first importance. If the pathologist finds cyanide — sodium cyanide — and Garnette has this book and—”
“I know, I know. Extraordinary careless of him to leave it there, don’t you think? Stupid, what?”
“Do you mean you think it is coincidence?”
“Bless my soul, Bathgate, how on earth am I to know? Your simple faith is most soothing, but I can assure you it’s misplaced.”
“Well, but what do you
think
? Tell me what you
think
.”
“I ‘think naught a trifle, though it small appear.’ ”
“That has the advantage of sounding well and meaning nothing.”
“Not altogether. Look here. We know Miss Quayne was probably murdered by cyanide poisoning. We believe that it must have been done by one of eight persons.”
Nigel counted beneath his breath.
“Only seven, six Initiates and Garnette.”
“Mr. Wheatley, sir,” Fox reminded him. “The young fellow that handed round, you know.”
“Oh — true. Well?”
“Well,” Alleyn went on composedly, “we have reason to suppose the stuff was dropped into the cup in a cigarette-paper. The paper was later found on the place where the cup fell. So much for the actual event. We have learned that Miss Quayne had deposited bearer-bonds, to the tune of five thousand, in the safe. We have found a parcel that appeared to be the original wrapping of these bonds. If so the bonds have been taken and newspaper substituted. We have found a message in Cara Quayne’s writing, addressed yesterday, presumably to Garnette. This message says she must see him at once as she had made a terrible discovery. I think the odds are he has not read the message. Whether it referred to the bonds or not we have no idea. We have found an antique work on chemistry hidden among Garnette’s books. It falls open at a recipe for homemade cyanide. So much for our tangible data.”
“What about motive?” suggested Nigel.
“Motive. You mean Garnette’s motive, don’t you? I gather you are no longer wedded to Mr. Ogden as the villain of the piece.”
“I wasn’t really serious about Ogden, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he and Garnette were rogues together in the States.”
“What’s your view, Fox?” asked Alleyn.
“Well, sir, I must say I don’t think so. Father Garnette was very frank under the influence and he said he met Mr. Ogden crossing the Atlantic. That tallies with Mr. Ogden’s statement.”
“Exactly, Fox.”
“And I must say, sir, Mr. Ogden isn’t my notion of a Chicago racketeer.”
“Nor mine either. Perhaps we are too conservative, Brer Fox. But because two men come from the United States of America and one’s a rogue, it doesn’t mean they are old associates.”
“If you put it like that,” said Nigel, “it does sound a bit far-fetched.”
“Of course they
are
associates now,” ruminated Fox, “but Mr. Ogden seems more like a victim than a crook.”
“Well, then — Garnette,” urged Nigel.
“If,” said Alleyn, “Mr. Garnette stole the bonds and killed Miss Quayne with a jorum of sodium cyanide, he set about it in a most peculiar manner. He chose a moment when he and seven other persons would be equally suspected. He must have known that a search would be made of these rooms, yet he left his recipe book in a place where it was sufficiently concealed to look furtive, and not well enough hidden to escape discovery. He destroyed, so far as we know, none of her letters. He left, inside a cigarette-box, her note, suggesting that she had discovered something very upsetting.”
“But you said he never found it,” objected Nigel.
“If that’s so why did he think it necessary to kill her?”
“She may have rung up or something.”
“She may, certainly, but wouldn’t she have mentioned the note?”
“Perhaps,” said Nigel doubtfully.
“I quite agree it’s not cast-iron,” Alleyn continued. “I am breaking my own rule and going in heavily for conjecture. So far, I am convinced, we have only scratched the surface of an extremely unsavoury case.”
“What about the others?” said Fox. “They are a very strange lot — very strange indeed. There may be motives among them, Chief.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Such as jealousy,” began Nigel eagerly. “Jealousy, you know, and passion, and religious mania.”
“
Now
you’re talking exactly like the Dormouse. Really, Bathgate, you are a perfect piece of pastiche this evening.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Let us take the others in turn.”
“Very well,” said Alleyn resignedly. “It’s hideously late but let us. A. Mrs. Candour.”
“There you are!” cried Nigel. “A warped nature if ever there was one. Did you notice how she behaved when you said you supposed Miss Quayne was very beautiful? She fairly writhed. She’s even jealous of that little squirt Wheatley. There are those two bits of paper Fox got from the grate. Obviously a letter beginning: ‘This is to warn you—’ and then later on M — S and C A and what might be the top of an N. Mrs. Candour again. And did you notice her face when she said: ‘Cara doesn’t look so pretty now?’ It was absolutely obscene.”
“It was,” said Alleyn quietly. “You do see things, Bathgate.”
“I suppose you are making mock of me as usual.”
“My dear fellow,” said Alleyn quickly, “indeed I am not. Please forgive me if I am odiously facetious sometimes. It’s a bad habit I’ve got. I assure you that if I really thought you slow in the uptake I should never dream of ragging you. You’re kind enough to let me show off and I take advantage of it. Do forgive me.”
He looked so distressed and spoke with such charming formality that Nigel was both embarrassed and delighted.
“Chief Detective-Inspector,” he said, “I am your Watson, and your worm. You may both sit and trample on me. I shall continue to offer you the fruits of my inexperience.”
“Very nicely put, Mr. Bathgate,” said Fox.
Alleyn and Nigel stared at him, but he was perfectly serious.
“Well,” said Alleyn hurriedly, “to return to the Candour. She gave, as you say, a very nasty little exhibition. Would she have done so if she’d killed Miss Quayne? It’s possible. She certainly tried to ladle out sympathy later on. She was the first to take the cup. That’s a naught that may be a rifle. So much for her. B. M. de Ravigne.”
“Ah, now, the French gentleman,” said Fox. “He was in love with the deceased and owned up quite frank to it. Well now, it would have come out anyway, so there’s not a great deal in his frankness, you may say. There seem to have been some nice goings-on between deceased and the minister. Mr. Pringle evidently was an eyewitness. Now monsieur never hinted at anything of the sort.”
“And therefore thought the more,” murmured Alleyn. “Yes, Fox, he was very cool, wasn’t he?”
“Remarkable,” said Fox, “until I handled deceased’s photograph and then he blazed up like a rocket. What about this
crime passionel
the French jokers are always dragging in? They let ’em off for that sort of thing over there. Did you notice what Miss Wade said about the handkerchief?”
“I did.”
“He’s a very cool hand is monsieur,” repeated Fox.
“We’ll have to trace their friendship back to Paris, I dare say,” said Alleyn wearily. “Oh, Lord! C. Miss Wade. I’m taking them in the order in which they knelt. She comes next.”
“Nothing there,” said Nigel. “She’s just a little pagan church-hen with a difference. Rather a nice old girl, I thought.”
“She spoke very silly to the chief,” pronounced Fox with unexpected heat. “ ‘Have you been through the Police College, officer?’ These old ladies! You could write a book on them. She’s the sort that makes point-duty what it is.”
“I adored the way she said she had her eyes shut all through the cup ceremony, and then told you what each of them did,” said Nigel. “Didn’t you, Alleyn?”
“Yes,” said Alleyn. “It was extremely helpful and rather interesting.”
“D. will be Mr. Pringle,” observed Fox. “And here we go again. To my way of thinking he’s the most likely type. Neurotic, excitable young gentleman and dopes, as you found out, sir.”
“I agree,” said Alleyn. “He is a likely type. He’s in a bad way. He’s had a violent emotional jolt and he’s suffering from the after-effects of unbridled hero-worship. Silly young dolt. I hope it’s not Pringle.”
“Obviously,” ventured Nigel, “he would look on Miss Quayne as Garnette’s evil genius.”
“Yes,” murmured Alleyn. “I don’t pretend to speak with any sort of authority, but I should expect a person in Pringle’s condition to turn against the object of his worship rather than against the — what shall I call her? — the temptress. I should expect him in the shock of his discovery to direct his violence against Garnette there and then, not against Miss Quayne some three weeks later. I may be quite wrong about that,” he added after a minute or two. “However — there is Pringle. He’s neurotic, he’s dopey, and he’s had a severe emotional shock. He hero-worshipped Garnette and made a hideous discovery. He’s probably been living in an ugly little hell of his own for the last three weeks. By the way, we haven’t sampled Mr. Garnette’s cigarettes, have we? Another little job for the analyst.”
“Now Miss Jenkins,” said Fox. “She’s E.”
“She struck me as being a pleasant creature,” said Nigel. “Rather amusing I should think. Not a ‘lovely’ of course, but moderately easy to look at. Intelligent.”
“Very intelligent,” agreed Alleyn.
“How she got herself mixed up in this show beats me,” confessed Fox. “A nice young lady like that.”
“She practically said herself,” Nigel interrupted. “She’s attached to that ass Pringle. Women are—”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted Alleyn hastily. “We needn’t go into all that, I think. As far as we’ve got there’s no motive apparent in Miss Jenkin’s case. We are back at Ogden.”
“F. Mr. Ogden,” said Fox solemnly. “It seems to me, sir, the only call we’ve got for suspecting Mr. Ogden more than anybody else is that he’s an American, and it seems as if Father Garnette’s another. It don’t amount to much.”
“It don’t,” said Alleyn. “Personally I fancy the Atlantic meeting was their first one. I agree with you, Fox.”
“As regards Father Garnette’s later utterances,” said Nigel, “we had a clear case of
in vino veritas
.”
“Someone was bound to say
in vino veritas
sooner or later,” said Alleyn, “but you are quite right, Bathgate.”
“That’s the lot, then,” said Nigel.
“No. Again you’ve forgotten Opifex.”
“Opifex? What do you mean?”
“Another classical touch. Don’t you remember the rhyme in the Latin textbooks:
“Common are to either sex
Artifex and Opifex.”
“Quite good names for Lionel and Claude.”
“Really, Inspector!” protested Nigel, grinning broadly.
“Artifex was busy with the censer and seems unlikely. Opifex had, of course, less opportunity than the others. I understand he did not handle the cup?”
“I don’t
think
he did,” said Nigel. “Of course he was bending over the Initiates while they passed it round.”
“Meaning Mr. Wheatley?” asked Fox.
“Yes. Mr. Claude Wheatley.”
“Hardly got the guts to kill anybody, would you think, sir?”
“I’d say not,” agreed Nigel heartily.
“They call poison a woman’s weapon, don’t they?” asked Alleyn vaguely. “A dangerous generalisation. Well, let’s go home. There’s one more point I want to clear up. Any prints of interest, Bailey?”
Detective-Sergeant Bailey had returned from the bedroom and had been at work on the parcel and the book. He had not uttered a word for some time. He now said with an air of disgruntled boredom: “Nothing on the book. Reverend Garnette’s on the parcel, I think, but I’ll take a photograph. There’s some prints in the bedroom beside the Reverend’s. I think they are Mr. Pringle’s. I got a good one of his from that rail out there. Noticed him leaning on it.”
“Did you find out how the torch is worked?”
“Yes. Naphtha. Bottle in the vestry.”
“Can you ginger it up for a moment, Bailey?”
“Very good, sir.”
“Have you got any cigarette-papers on you?”
Bailey, looking completely disinterested, produced a packet and went out. Alleyn got a silver cup from the sideboard, half filled it with some of Father Garnette’s Invalid Port, emptied some salt into a cigarette-paper, stuck the margins together, and screwed up the end. Meanwhile, Fox locked the safe and sealed it with tape and wax. Alleyn pocketed the keys.