Death in Ecstasy (11 page)

When Nigel woke on the morning after his visit to the House of the Sacred Flame, it was with a vague sense of disquietude as though he had been visited by nightmare. As the memory of the night’s adventure came back to him it still seemed unreal. He could scarcely believe that only a few hours ago, he had knelt under a torch among images of Nordic gods, that he had seen a woman, who seemed to be possessed of an evil spirit, drink and die horribly. He closed his eyes and the faces of the Initiates appeared again. There was Miss Wade with prim lips, Pringle talking, talking, Ogden perspiring gently, M. de Ravigne who seemed to bow his head with grotesque courtesy, Janey Jenkins, and Mrs. Candour who opened her mouth wider and wider—

He jerked himself back from sleep, got out of bed, and went to his window. The rain still poured down on the roofs. Wet umbrellas bobbed up and down Chester Terrace. A milkman’s cart with a dejected and irritated pony was drawn up at the corner of Knocklatchers Row. Nigel looked down Knocklatchers Row. Perhaps he would not have been very surprised if there had been no Sign of the Sacred Flame, but there it was, swinging backwards and forwards in the wind, and underneath it he could just see the narrow entry.

He bathed, breakfasted, opened his paper and found no reference to the tragedy. So much the better. He rang up his office, got out his notes, sat down to the typewriter and worked solidly for an hour. Then he rang up Scotland Yard. Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn was in his room and would speak to Mr. Bathgate.

“Hullo!” said Nigel with extreme cordiality.

“What do
you
want?” asked Alleyn guardedly.

“How are you?”

“In excellent health, thank you. What do you want?”

“It’s just that matter of my copy—”

“I knew it.”

“I want to put it in as soon as possible.”

“I’m seeing the A.C. in half an hour, and then I’m going out.”

“I’ll be with you in ten minutes.”

“Come, birdie, come,” said Alleyn.

Nigel gathered up his copy and hurried out.

He found Alleyn in his office, writing busily. The inspector grinned at Nigel.

“You persistent devil,” he said, “sit down. I won’t be five minutes.”

Nigel coyly laid the copy before him and subsided into a corner. Alleyn presently turned to the copy, read it, blue-pencilled a word or two, and then handed it back.

“You are learning to behave quite prettily,” he said. “I suppose you’ll take that straight along to Fleet Street.”

“I’d better,” agreed Nigel. “It’s front-page stuff. They’ll pull the old rag to bits for me this time. What are you up to this morning, Inspector?”

“I’m going to Shepherd Market when I’ve seen the boss-man.”

“Cara Quayne’s house? I’ll meet you there.”

“Will you indeed?”

“Don’t you want me?”

“I’ll be very glad to see you. Don’t let any of your brother bloodsuckers in.”

“I can assure you there is no danger of that. I’ll sweep past like a May Queen.”

“You’d better have my card. Give it back to me — I remember your previous performances, you see.” He flipped a card across to Nigel. “I feel like a form master who goes in for favourites.”

“Oh, sir, thanks most horribly, sir. It’s frightfully decent of you, sir,” bleated Nigel.

“For the honour of the Big Dorm., Bathgate.”

“You bet, sir.”

“Personally,” said Alleyn, “I consider schoolboys were less objectionable when they
did
talk like that.”

“When cads were cads and a’ that?”

“Yes. They talk like little men of the world nowadays. They actually take refuge in irony, a commodity that should be reserved for the middle-aged. However, I maunder. Meet me at the Chateau Quayne in half an hour.”

“In half an hour.”

Nigel hurried to his office where he made an impressive entry with his copy and had the intense satisfaction of seeing sub-editors tear their hair while the front page was wrecked and rewritten. A photgrapher was shot off to Knocklatches Row and another to Shepherd Market. Nigel accompanied the latter expert, and in a few minutes rang the bell at Cara Quayne’s front door.

It was opened by a gigantic constable whom he had met before, P. C. Allison.

“I’m afraid you can’t come in, sir,” began this official very firmly.

“Do you know, you are entirely mistaken?” said Nigel. “I have the entrée. Look.”

He produced Alleyn’s card.

“Quite correct, Mr. Bathgate,” said P.C. Allison. “Now you move off there, sir,” he added to a frantic young man who had darted up the steps after Nigel and now endeavoured to follow him in.

“I’m representing—” began the young man.

“Abandon hope,” said Nigel over his shoulder. The constable shut the door.

Nigel found Alleyn in Cara Quayne’s drawing-room. It was a charming room, temperately, not violently, modern. The walls were a stippled green, the curtains striped in green and cerise, the chairs deep and comfortable and covered in dyed kid. An original Van Gogh hung over the fireplace, vividly and almost disconcertingly alive. A fire crackled in the grate. Alleyn sat at a pleasantly shaped writing-desk. His back was turned towards Nigel, but his face was reflected in a mirror that hung above the desk. He was absorbed in his work and apparently had not heard Nigel come in. Nigel stood in the doorway and looked at him.

“He isn’t in the least like a detective,” thought Nigel. “He looks like an athletic don with a hint of the army somewhere. No, that’s not right: it’s too commonplace. He’s faunish. And yet he’s got all the right things for ’teckery. Dark, thin, long. Deep-set eyes—”

“Are you lost in the pangs of composition, Bathgate?” asked Alleyn suddenly.

“Er — oh — well, as a matter of fact I was,” said Nigel. “How are you getting on?”

“Slowly, slowly. Unfortunately Miss Quayne has very efficient servants. I’m just going to see them. Care to do your shorthand stuff? Save calling in the sergeant.”

“Certainly,” said Nigel.

“If you sit in that armchair they won’t notice you are writing.”

“Right you are.”

He sat down and took out his pad.

“I’ll see the staff now, Allison,” Alleyn called out.

“Very good, sir.”

The first of the staff to appear was an elderly woman dressed in a black material that Nigel thought of as bombazine, but was probably nothing of the kind. She had iron-grey hair, a pale face, heavy eyebrows, and a prim mouth. She had evidently been weeping, but was now quite composed. Alleyn stood up and pushed forward a chair.

“You are Miss Edith Hebborn?” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“I am Inspector Alleyn. We are obliged, as you know, to inquire into Miss Quayne’s death. Won’t you sit down?”

She seemed to hesitate and then sat rigidly on the edge of the chair.

“I am afraid this has been a great shock to you,” said Alleyn.

“It has.”

“I hope you will understand that I have to ask you certain questions about Miss Quayne.”

He paused for a moment but she did not answer.

“How long have you been with Miss Quayne?” asked Alleyn.

“Thirty-five years.”

“Thirty-five years! That must be nearly all her life.”

“She was three months old when I took her. I was her Nannie.”

She had a curious harsh voice. That uncomfortable word “Nannie” sounded most incongruous.

“I see,” said Alleyn. “Then it is a sorrow as well as a shock. You became her maid after she grew up?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Will you tell me a little about her — her childhood and where she lived? Her people?”

She waited for a moment. Nigel wondered if she would refuse to give anything but flat responses to questions, but at last she spoke:

“She was an only child, born after her father died.”

“He was Colonel Quayne of Elderbourne Manor, Seven-oaks?”

“Yes. He was in India with the mistress. Killed playing polo. Mrs. Quayne came to England when Miss Cara was a month old. They had a black woman for nurse, an Eh-yah or some such thing. She felt the cold and went back to her own country. I never fancied her. The mistress only lived a year after they came home.”

“A tragic entrance into the world,” said Alleyn.

“Yes, sir.”

“Where did you and the baby go?”

“To France,” said Nannie and implied “of all places.”

“Why was that?”

“There were no relations in England. They had all gone abroad. There were no near relatives at all. A second cousin of the Colonel’s in New Zealand or some such place. They had never met. The nearest was an aunt of the mistress. A French lady. The mistress was half French, sir, though you’d never have known it.”

Something in Alleyn’s manner seemed to have thawed her a little. She went on:

“We settled in a little house near this aunt — Madame Verne, was the name — who had a Shatter, one of those big places, near Antibes. The Shatter Verne it was. We were there for eight years. Then Miss Cara went to a convent school, a Papist place. Madame Verne wished it and so did the other guardian, a gentleman who since died. I moved to the Shatter, and Miss Cara came home for the holidays.”

“That went on for how long?”

“Till she was seventeen. Then Madame died. The Shatter was sold.”

“There was always- There was no difficulty about ways and means?”

“Miss Cara was an heiress, sir. The Colonel, Mr. Quayne; and then Madame; they all left something considerable. We were very comfortable as far as that went.”

“You stayed on in France?”

“In Paris. Miss Cara liked it. She had formed friendships there.”

“Was M. de Ravigne one of these friends?”

“He was,” said Miss Hebborn shortly.

“Did you not think this a suitable friendship?”

“I
did
. Until recently.”

“Why did you change your opinion?”

“At first I had no fault to find with Mr. Ravigne. He was an old friend of Madame’s and often stayed at the Shatter. He seemed a very pleasant gentleman, steady, quiet in his ways, not a lot of high-falutin’ nonsense like so many of that nation. A foreigner, of course, but at times you would scarcely have noticed it.”

“Miss Wade’s very words,” murmured Alleyn.

“Her!” said Miss Hebborn. “H’m! Well, sir, it was after we came to London that Mr. Ravigne changed. For the worse. He called soon after we were settled in and said London appealed to his — some expression—”

“His temperament?”

“Yes, sir. Of course it was Miss Cara that did the appealing. He was always very devoted, but she never fancied him. Never. Then he commenced to talk a lot of stuff and nonsense about this new-fangled religion he’s got hold of. A lot of wicked clap-trap.”

The pale face flushed angrily. She made a curious gesture with her roughened hand, passing it across her mouth and nose as if to wipe away a cobweb.

“You mean the House of the Sacred Flame and its services?”

“Sacred Flame indeed! Bad, wicked, heathen humbug. And that Mr. Garnette with his smooth ways and silly dangerous talk. I’ve never forgiven Mr. Ravigne and he knows it. It changed Miss Cara. Changed her whole nature. She was always one of the high-strung, nervous sort. Over-excitable as a child and over-excitable as a woman. I recollect the time we went through when she was fourteen. Wanted to turn Papist. I showed her the rights of that. I’d always brought her up strict Anglican. I’m Chapel myself. Primitive Methodist. But it was the parent’s wish and I saw it was carried out.”