Death in Ecstasy (19 page)

“No, thank you,” he said loudly.

“But, Maurice—”

“No, thank you; no, thank you;
no, thank you
. Damn you, for —’s sake leave me alone, will you.”

He had got out and now slammed the door shut, and without another look at them went quickly up the steps to the flats.

“Let him go,” said Janey.

Nigel said “99, Yeoman’s Row” to the man, and they drove away.

Janey began to laugh.

“Charming guest you’ve had for your party. Has anyone ever been quite so rude to you before? You must have enjoyed it.”

“Don’t!” said Nigel. “I didn’t mind. I’m only so sorry for you both.”

“You are nice about it. I won’t have hysterics; don’t look so nervous. Your Angela’s a lucky wench. Tell her I said so. No, don’t. Don’t talk to me, please.”

They finished the short journey in silence. As he saw her into her door Nigel said:

“I’m coming in the morning. Not early, so don’t get up too soon. And please remember you’d much better tell Alleyn.”

“Ah, but you don’t know,” said Janey.

When Nigel got home it was half-past eleven. He rang Alleyn up.

“Were you in bed?” asked Nigel.

“In bed! I’ve just got back from the Yard.”

“What have you been doing?”

“Routine work.”

“That is merely the name you give to the activities you keep a secret from me.”

“Think so? What have you been up to yourself?”

“Cultivating a pair of fools.”

“That’s your opinion of them, is it?”

“It’ll be yours when I reveal all. She’s a nice fool and he’s inexpressibly unpleasant. Look here, Alleyn, Pringle’s keeping something up his sleeve. Yesterday afternoon—”

“Hi! No names over the telephone. Your landlady may be lying on her stomach outside the door.”

“Shall I come round to your flat?”

“Certainly not. Go to bed and come to the Yard in the morning.”

“You might be grateful. I’ve endured a frightful party and paid for a lot of champagne, all in the cause of justice. Really, Alleyn, it’s been a ghastly evening. Pringle’s soaked to the back teeth in drugs and—”

“
No names over the telephone
. I am grateful. What would we do without our Mr. Bathgate? Can you get to my office by nine?”

“I suppose so. But I want you to come with me to Janey Jenkins’ flat. I think if you tackle her she may tell you about Mau—”

“
Not over the telephone
.”

“But why not? Who do you think is listening? What about your own conversations? Has Miss Wade swarmed up a telegraph pole and topped the wires?”

“Good night.” said Alleyn.

Nigel wrote an article on the beauty and charm of Cara Quayne. The article was to be illustrated with two photographs he had picked up in her flat. Then he cursed Alleyn and went to bed.

The next morning he went down to the Yard at nine and found Alleyn in his room.

“Hullo,” said Alleyn. “Sit down and smoke. I won’t be a minute. I’ve just been talking to New York. Mr. Ogden seems to be as pure as a lily as far as they can tell. We rang them up yesterday and they’ve been pretty nippy. The Ogden-Schultz Gold Refining Company seems to be a smallish but respectable concern. It did well during the gold fever of ’31, but not so well since then. Of Mr. Garnette they know nothing. They are going to have a stab at tracing the revivalist joint that was such a success way down in Michigan in ’14. The wretched creature has probably changed his name half a dozen times since then.”

He pressed his desk-bell and to the constable who answered it he gave an envelope and a telegram form.

“Deferred cable for Australia,” he said, “and urgent to France. Read out the telegram, will you?”

The constable, with many strange sounds, spelt out a long message in French to the Comtesse de Barsac. As far as Nigel could make out, it broke the news of Miss Quayne’s death, said that a letter would follow, and gave an earnest assurance that the entire police force of Great Britain would be infinitely grateful if Madame la Comtesse would refrain from destroying any letters she received from Miss Cara Quayne. The constable went out looking baffled but impressed.

“What’s all that for?” asked Nigel.

Alleyn told him about the letter to Madame de Barsac and also about the new Will.

“I’ve got it here,” said Alleyn. “With the exception of the three hundred pounds a year to Nannie and the house to de Ravigne — everything to the glowing Garnette.”

“And it was done on Sunday?”

“Yes. At three-thirty. She actually has put the time.”

“That’s
very
significant,” pronounced Nigel.

“Very,” agreed Alleyn dryly.

“She had been back from the mysterious visit to the temple about half an hour,” continued Nigel with the utmost importance, “and had evidently made up her mind to alter the Will as a result of whatever had taken place in Garnette’s room.”

“True for you.”

“Had she learned about the commercial basis on which the House of the Sacred Flame was established? Or had she heard something derogatory about Garnette himself and wished to make a gesture that would illustrate her faith in Garnette? Doesn’t the note in the cigarette-box seem to point to that?”

“Am I supposed to answer these questions or are they merely rhetorical?”

“What do you think yourself? About the new Will?”

“
If
we are right in supposing the interview with the unknown at two-forty-five on Sunday afternoon has got a definite bearing on the case and
if
the unknown was the murderer, then I think the alteration in the Will is the direct outcome of the interview.
If
this is so, then I believe the case narrows down to one individual. But all this is still in the air. Miss Quayne may have found Cyril swigging invalid port and written the note to let Garnette know about it. She may have altered the will simply because she wished to shower everything on Garnette. The whole of Sunday afternoon may be irrelevant. ’Morning, Fox.”

“Good morning, sir,” said Inspector Fox, who had come in during this speech. “What’s this about Sunday afternoon being irrelevant? Good morning, Mr. Bathgate.”

“Well, Fox, it’s possible, you know. We are still in the detestable realms of conjecture. I hope to heaven Mme de Barsac has not burned that letter. I wired to her last night and got no answer. I’ve just sent off another telegram. I could get on to the Sûreté, but I don’t want to do it that way. We badly needed that letter.”

“You’ve got a certain amount from the blotting-paper, haven’t you?” asked Fox.

“Bits and pieces. Luckily for us Miss Quayne used medium-sized sheets of notepaper and a thick nib. The result is lots of wet ink and good impressions on the blotting-paper. Here they are. No translation necessary for you, you old tower of Babel.”

“May I see?” said Nigel.

“Yes. But they’re not for publication.”

Fox took out his spectacles and he and Nigel read the sentences from the blotting-paper.

“What’s ‘secousse’?” asked Fox.

“A shock, a surprise.”

“Does she mean she’s had an electric shock, sir?”

“It’s a figure of speech, Fox. She means she was much put out. The phraseology suggests a rather exuberant hysterical style. I do not advise you to adopt it.”

“What do you make of it, Mr. Bathgate?” asked Fox.

“It’s very exciting,” said Nigel. “The first bit is clear enough. Raoul — that’s de Ravigne — is completely indifferent — pitiless. She had a shock. Then she was horrified at her own — what’s the word?”

“This hypothesis revolted me,” suggested Alleyn.

“Yes. Then somebody took fright when he saw her. And somebody will — I suppose this was ‘payera’—will answer for his crimes. And somebody was made a trustee. That’s the last bit. That’s Garnette,” continued Nigel in high feather. “He’s a trustee in the first Will. By gum, it looks as if she was talking about Garnette all along.”

“Except when she wrote of de Ravigne?” said Alleyn mildly.

“Oh, of course,” said Nigel. “Good Lord! Do you suppose she confided in de Ravigne?”

“I refuse to speculate. But I don’t like your very free rendering of the last sentence. And now what’s all this about Miss Janey Jenkins?”

Nigel lanched into an account of his evening’s experiences. The two detectives listened in silence.

“You did very well,” said Allen when Nigel came to a stop. “Thank you, Bathgate. Now let me be quite sure of what you overheard from the perfumed depths of your clothes cupboard. Pringle asked Miss Jenkins to stick to their story about Sunday afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“And she asked if it had anything to do with his cigarettes?”

“Yes. That’s it.”

“Right! You arranged to visit her this morning?”

“Yes. Before the inquest.”

“Would you mind if I took your place?”

“Not if you’ll swear you’ll tell me what happens.”

“What’s the time?”

“Half-past nine,” said Fox.

“I’ll be off. See you at the inquest.”

Alleyn took a taxi to Yeoman’s Row. Janey’s studio was at the far end. It was a sort of liaison office between Bohemia and slumland. Five very grubby little boys and a baby were seated on the steps.

“Hullo,” said Alleyn. “What’s the game?”

“Ain’t no game. Just talkun,” said the grubbiest and smallest of the little boys.

“I know,” said Alleyn. “Who’s going to ring this bell for me?”

There was a violent assault upon the bell.

“I done it, Mister,” said the largest of the little boys.

The baby rolled off the second step and set up an appalling yell.

“Stan-lee!” screamed a voice from an upper window, “what are you doing to your little bruwer?”

“ ’Snot me; it’s ’im,” said Stanley, pointing to Alleyn.

“I’m frightfully sorry,” said Alleyn. “Here. Wait a moment. Is he hurt?”

“ ’E won’t leave ’is ’oller not without you picks ’im up,” said Stanley.

Alleyn picked the baby up. The baby instantly seized his nose, screamed with ecstasy, and beat with the other hand upon Alleyn’s face.

It was on this tableau that Janey opened her door.

The Chief Inspector hurriedly deposited the child on the pavement, gave Stanley a shilling for the party, took off his hat, and said:

“May I come in, Miss Jenkins?”

“Inspector Alleyn?” said Janey. “Yes. Of course.”

As she shut the door Stanley was heard to say “Coo! It’s a cop,” and the baby instantly began to roar again.

Without speaking Janey led the way upstairs to the studio. A solitary chair was drawn up to the gas fire. The room was scrupulously tidy and rather desolate.

“Won’t you sit down?” said Janey without enthusiasm.

“I’ll get another chair,” offered Alleyn and did so.

“I suppose Mr. Bathgate sent you here?” asked Janey.

“Yes. In effect he did.”

“I was a fool.”

“Why?”

“To make friends with — your friend.”

“On the contrary,” said Alleyn, “you were very wise. If I may say so without impertinence you would do well to make friends with me.”

Janey laughed unpleasantly.

“Dilly, dilly, dilly,” she said.

“No. Not ‘dilly, dilly, dilly.’ You didn’t murder Miss Quayne, did you?”

“You can hardly expect me to answer ‘yes.’ ”

“I expect an answer, however.”

“Then,” said Janey, “I did not murder Cara Quayne.”

“Did Mr. Pringle murder Miss Quayne?”

“No.”

“You see,” said Alleyn with a smile, “we get on like a house on fire. Where was Mr. Pringle at three o’clock on Sunday afternoon?”

She drew in her breath with a little gasp.

“I’ve told you.”

“But I’m asking you again. Where was he?”

“Here.”

“That,” said Alleyn harshly, “is your story and you are sticking to it? I wish you wouldn’t.”

“What do you mean!”

“It’s not true, you know. He may have lunched with you but he did not stay here all the afternoon. He went to the temple.”

“You knew—”

“Now you give me an opportunity for the detective’s favourite cliché. ‘I didn’t know, but you have just told me?’”

“You’re hateful!” she burst out suddenly. “Hateful! Hateful!”

“Don’t cry!” said Alleyn more gently. “It’s only a cliché and I would have found out anyway.”

“To come prying into my house! To find the weak place and go for it! To pretend to make friends and then trap me into breaking faith with — with someone who can’t take care of himself.”

“Yes,” he said, “it’s my job to do those sorts of things.”

“You call it a smart bit of work, I suppose.”

“The other word for it is ‘routine.’ ”

“I’ve broken faith,” said Janey. “I’ll never be able to help him again. We’re done for now.”

“Nonsense!” said Alleyn crisply. “Don’t dramatise yourself.”

Something in his manner brought her up sharply. For a second or two she looked at him and then she said very earnestly:

“Do you suspect Maurice?”

“I shall be forced to if you both insist on lying lavishly and badly. Come now. Do you know why he went to the temple on Sunday afternoon?”

“Yes,” said Janey, “I think I know. He hasn’t told me.”

“Is it something to do with the habit he has contracted?”

“He told you himself about that, didn’t he?”

“He did. We have analysed Mr. Garnette’s cigarettes and found heroin. I believe, however, that Mr. Pringle has gone further than an indulgence in drugged cigarettes. Am I right?”

“Yes,” whispered Janey.

“Mr. Garnette is responsible for all this, I suppose.”

“Yes.” She hesitated, oddly, and then with a lift of her chin repeated: “Yes.”

“Now,” Alleyn continued, “please will you tell me when Mr. Pringle left here on Sunday afternoon?”

She still looked very earnestly at him. Suddenly she knelt on the rug and held her hands to the heater, her head turned towards him. The movement was singularly expressive. It was as though she had come to a definite decision and had relaxed.

“I will tell you,” she said. “He went away from here at about half-past two. I’m not sure of the exact time. He was very restless and — and difficult. He had smoked three of those cigarettes and had got no more with him. We had a scene.”

“May I know what it was about?”

“I’ll tell you. Mr. Alleyn, I’m sorry I was so rude just now. I must have caught my poor Maurice’s manners, I think. I do trust you. Perhaps that’s not the right word because you haven’t said you think him innocent. But I know he’s innocent and I trust you to find out.”

“You are very brave,” said Alleyn.

“The scene was about — me. When he’s had much of that stuff he wants to make love. Not as if it’s me, but simply because I’m there. I’m not posing as an ingenue of eighteen — and they’re not so ‘ingenue’ nowadays either. I’m not frightened of passion and I can look after myself, but there’s something about him then that horrifies me. It’s like a nightmare. Sometimes he seems to focus his — his senses on one tiny little thing — my wrist or just one spot on my arm. It’s morbid and rather terrifying.”