Death in Ecstasy (22 page)

“I’m feeling bloody if it’s of any interest,” said Maurice. “Sit down, won’t you?”

“Thank you.” Alleyn sat down and proceeded to look calmly and fixedly at Maurice.

“Well, what’s the matter?” demanded Maurice. “I suppose you haven’t come here to memorise my face, have you?”

“Partly,” said Alleyn coolly.

“What the devil do you mean? See here, Inspector Alleyn, if that’s your name, I’m about fed up with your methods. You’re one of the new gentlemen-police, aren’t you?”

“No,” said Alleyn.

“Well, what the hell are you?”

“Just police.”

“I’d be obliged,” said Maurice loftily, “if you’d get your business done as quickly as possible. I’m busy.”

“So am I, rather,” said Alleyn. “I should be delighted to get it over. May I be brief, Mr. Pringle?”

“As brief as you like.”

“Right. Who supplies you with heroin?”

“None of your cursed business. You’ve no right to ask questions of that sort. I’ll damn’ well report you.”

“Very good,” said Alleyn.

Maurice flung himself down in his chair, bit his nails and glowered.

“I wish to God I hadn’t told you,” he said.,

“Your behaviour and your looks sold me long before you did,” rejoined Alleyn.

Maurice suddenly flung his hands up to his face.

“If my manner is discourteous I must apologise,” Alleyn went on, “but this is a serious matter. You have deliberately lied to me. Please let me go on. You informed me that you spent Sunday afternoon with Miss Jenkins in Yeoman’s Row. That was a lie. You were seen in Knocklatchers Row on Sunday afternoon. You went into the House of the Sacred Flame. Am I right?”

“I won’t answer.”

“If you persist in this course I shall arrest you.”

“On what charge?”

“On the charge of receiving prohibited drugs.”

“You can’t prove it.”

“Will you risk that?”

“Yes.”

“Do you hold to your statement that you did not go to the House of the Sacred Flame on Sunday afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“Are you protecting yourself — or someone else?”

Silence.

“Mr. Pringle,” said Alleyn gently, “if you are placed under arrest what will you do about your heroin then?”

“Damn your eyes!” said Maurice.

“I am now going to search your flat. Here is my warrant. Unless, of course, you prefer to show me how much dope you have on the premises?”

Maurice stared at him in silence. Suddenly his face twisted like a miserable child’s.

“Why can’t you leave me alone? I only want to be left alone! I’m not interfering with anyone else. It doesn’t matter to anyone else what I do.”

“Not to Miss Jenkins?” asked Alleyn.

“Oh, God, they haven’t sent you here to preach, have they?”

“Look here,” said Alleyn, “you won’t believe me, but I don’t particularly want to search your flat or to arrest you. I came here hoping that you’d give me a certain amount of help. You went to Knocklatchers Row on Sunday afternoon. I think you went into Garnette’s rooms. There you must either have overheard a discussion between Miss Quayne and another individual, or had a discussion with her yourself. For some reason you kept all this a secret. From our point of view that looks remarkably fishy. We must know what happened in Garnette’s rooms between two-thirty and three on Sunday afternoon. If you persist in your refusal I shall arrest you on a minor charge, and I warn you that you’ll be in a very unpleasant position.”

“What do you want to know?”

“To whom did Miss Quayne say: ‘I shall tell Father Garnette what you have done?’ ”

“You know she said that?”

“Yes. Was it to you?”

“No.”

“Was it to M. de Ravigne?”

“I won’t tell you. It wasn’t to me.”

“Had you gone there to get heroin?”

“I won’t tell you.”

Alleyn walked over to the window and looked down into the street.

“Does Mr. Garnette supply you with heroin?” he asked.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Maurice suddenly. “Garnette didn’t kill Cara Quayne.”

“How do you know that, Mr. Pringle?”

“Never you mind. I do know.”

“I am afraid that sort of statement would not be welcomed by learned counsel on either side.”

“It’s all you’ll get from me.”

“—and if you happened to be in the dock, the information would be superfluous.”

“I didn’t kill her. You can’t arrest me for that. I tell you before God I didn’t kill her.”

“You may be an accessory before the fact. I’m not bluffing. Mr. Pringle. For the last time will you tell me who supplies you with heroin?”

“No.”

“Oh, come in, you two,” said Alleyn disgustedly.

Bailey and Watkins came in, their hats in their hands. Alleyn was rather particular on points of etiquette.

“Just look around, will you,” he said.

The look-round consisted of a very painstaking search of the flat. It lasted for an hour, but in the first ten minutes they found a little white packet that Alleyn commandeered. No written matter of any importance was discovered. A hypodermic syringe was their second find. Alleyn himself took six cigarettes and added them to the collection. Throughout the search Maurice remained seated by the electric radiator. He smoked continually,and maintained a sulky silence. Alleyn looked at him occasionally with something like pity in his eyes.

When it was all over he sent the two Yard men out into the landing, walked over to where Maurice sat by the heater, and stood there looking down at him.

“I’m going to tell you what I think is at the back of your obstinacy,” he said. “I wish I could say I thought you were doing the stupid but noble protection game. I don’t believe you are. Very few people go in for that sort of heroism. I think self, self-indulgence if you like, is at the back of your stupid and very churlish behaviour. I’m going to make a guess, a reprehensible thing for any criminal investigator to do. I guess that on Sunday afternoon you went to Garnette’s flat to get the packet of heroin we found in your boot-box. I think that Garnette is a receiver and disperser of such drugs, and that you knew he had this packet in his bedroom. I think you went in at the back door, through into the bedroom. While you were there someone came into the sitting-room from the hall. You were not sure who this person was, so you kept quiet, not moving for fear they should hear you and look in at the connecting door. While you stood still, listening, this unknown person came quite close to the door. You heard a faint metallic click and you knew the key had been turned in the lock of the safe. Then there was an interruption. Someone else had come into the sitting room. It was Cara Quayne. There followed a dialogue between Cara Quayne and the other person. I shall emulate the thrilling example of learned Counsel and call this other person X. Cara Quayne began to make things very awkward for X. She wanted to know about her bonds. I think perhaps she wanted to add to them on the occasion of her initiation as Chosen Vessel. It was all very difficult because the bonds were not there. X tried a line of pacifying reasonable talk, but she wasn’t having any. She was very excited and most upset. X had a certain amount of difficulty in keeping her quiet. At last she said loudly: ‘I shall tell Father Garnette what you have done,’ and a second later you heard the rattle of curtain rings and the slam of the outer door. She had gone. Now your actions after this are not perfectly clear to me. What I think, however, is this: You behaved in rather a curious manner. You did not go in to the sitting room, strike an attitude in the doorway, and say: ‘X, all is discovered,’ or: ‘X, X, can I believe my ears?’ No. You tiptoed out of the bedroom and through the back door which you did not lock and which remained unlocked all through the evening. Then you scuttled back here and proceeded to make a beast of yourself with the contents of the little white packet. Now why did you do this? Either because X was a person who had a very strong hold of some sort over you, or else because X was someone to whom you were deeply attached. There is of course, a third — damn it, why can’t one say a third alternative? — a third explanation. You may have drugged yourself into such a pitiable condition that you hadn’t the nerve to tackle a white louse, much less X.”

“God!” said Maurice Pringle. “I’ll tackle you if there’s much more of this.”

“There’s very little more. You asked me to be brief. You had to take Miss Jenkins into your confidence over this because you wanted her to tell us you’d been in her flat all the afternoon. Now if you refuse to tell me who X is you’re going to force me to do something very nasty about Miss Jenkins. She’s a secondary accessory
after
the fact. With you, of course. You’re going to force me to arrest you on the dope game. If you persist in your silence after your arrest you will be the direct cause of fixing the suspicion of homicide on the man who you say is innocent. There will be no more heroin. I should imagine your condition is pathological. You should go into a home and be scientifically treated. How you’ll stand up to being under lock and key in a police station is best known to yourself. Well, there you are. Is it to be a wholesale sacrifice of yourself, Miss Jenkins and — possibly — an innocent person? Or are you going to clear away the sacrificial smoke at present obscuring the features of Mr. Or Madam X?”

Alleyn stopped abruptly, made a curious self-deprecatory grimace, and lit a cigarette. In the silence that followed, Maurice stared at him piteously. His fingers trembled on the arms of the chair. He seemed scarcely to think- Suddenly his face twisted and with the shamefaced abandon of a small boy he turned and buried his eyes in the cushions.

After a moment Alleyn stretched out a thin hand and touched him.

“It’s best,” he said. “I’m not altogether inhuman, and believe me, in every way, it’s best.”

He could not hear the answer.

“Do you agree?” asked Alleyn gently.

Without raising his head Maurice spoke again.

“—want to think — tomorrow — give me time.”

Alleyn thought for a moment.

“Very well,” he said at last, “I’ll give you till tomorrow. But don’t commit suicide. It would be so very unprincipled, and we should have to arrest Miss Jenkins for perjury or something, and hang Mr. Garnette. Perhaps I’d better leave someone here. You are a nuisance, aren’t you? Good evening.”

On a stormy evening of December last year, five days after the murder of Cara Quayne, Nigel Bathgate stood at the window of his flat in Chester Terrace and looked across the street into Knocklatchers Row. It was blowing a gale and the rain made diagonal streamers of tinsel against the wet black of the houses. The sign of the Sacred Flame swung crazily out and back. A faint light shone from the concealed entry and ran in a gleaming streak down the margin of a policeman’s cape. The policeman had just arrived, relieving a man who had been on duty there all the afternoon. As Nigel looked down through the rain Miss Wade’s umbrella appeared from the direction of Westbourne Street. He knew it was Miss Wade’s umbrella because of its colour, a dejected sap-green, and because Miss Wade’s goloshes and parts of herself were revealed as she struggled against the wind. The goloshes turned in at Knocklatchers Row just as a taxi came up from the opposite direction. It stopped at the House of the Sacred Flame. Mr. Ogden got out, paid his fare, threw away his cigar and, nodding to the policeman, disappeared down the entry. Then Maurice Pringle came down Chester Terrace, the collar of his mackintosh turned up and the brim of his hat pulled down over his eyes. Another taxi followed Mr. Ogden’s. It overtook and passed Maurice Pringle and a man who came from the same direction as Maurice. There was an interval, and then Lionel and Claude appeared under one umbrella. Then two more taxis and at last a closed car that whisked round the corner and drew up stylishly under the Sign of the Sacred Flame. Two men got out of this car. The first was large and solid, the second tall with a good figure, and a certain air of being well-dressed.

When Nigel saw this last figure he turned from the window, picked up his hat and umbrella, and went out into the rain.

In Chester Terrace the wind blew as violently as it had done on the night of the murder. The whole scene was a repetition so exact that Nigel had a curious sensation of suspended time, as though everything that had happened since Sunday evening was happening still. Even as he lowered his umbrella to meet the veering wind, Cara Quayne raised the cup to her lips, Garnette drank brandy and rectified spirit in the room behind the altar, his face veiled by the smoke of Maurice Pringle’s cigarette. De Ravigne stood with the book in his hand, and Ogden stared at him with his mouth open. Mrs. Candour, Miss Wade and the two acolytes nodded like mandarins in the background, and the doorkeeper repeated incessantly: “I’m afraid you’re too late. May I draw your attention to our regulations?”

“It would be fun to write it all up on those lines,” thought Nigel, “but not precisely what the Press-lord ordered.”

This reflection brought him to the entry and the end of his fancies.

The torch in the wire frame was unlit. A large constable stood in the doorkeeper’s place and beside him were Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn and Detective-Inspector Fox.

“They’re all in, sir,” said the constable.

“Ah,” answered Alleyn. “We’ll give them a minute to get comfortably settled and then we shall gatecrash.”

“Good evening,” said Nigel.

“Hullo. Here’s Public Benefactor No. 1. Well, Bathgate, your information was correct and we’re all much obliged. How did you find out?”

“Through Janey Jenkins. I rang up to see if she was all right after our ghastly night out with Pringle, and she told me they were meeting at Garnette’s flat this afternoon. It’s Ogden’s idea. He thought they ought to get together like regular fellows and figure things out.”

“Americans are a gregarious race,” said Alleyn. “Did you get the eavesdropper fixed up, Fox?”

“We did, sir. The Reverend went for a constitutional this afternoon and we fixed it all up nice and quiet while he was away. It’s a small room and everything ought to come through very clear.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Nigel composedly.

“A cunning devise, Bathgate, a cunning device. We shall sit among pagan gods and listen, like a Sforza in a Renaissance palace, to tales of murder. It will probably be inexpressibly tedious, but we may pick up a bit here and there.”

“You mean, I suppose, that you have installed a dictaphone.”

“Not quite that. We have installed a microphone with wires leading to a small loud-speaker. What a pity Leonardo is not alive to-day. I believe he is the only man of his time who would not be disconcerted by modern contraptions.”

“He wouldn’t like the women,” said Nigel.

“He wouldn’t recognise them as such. I think we might go in, Fox, don’t you?”

They went quickly into the hall. Alleyn led the way to a recess on the right where Monsieur de Ravigne’s statuette stood above a small altar. The whole recess only held six rows of chairs and was like a miniature shrine. The entrance was framed with heavy curtains which Fox drew after them. They were thus completely hidden from the main body of the hall. Fox switched on his torch and pointed it at the far corner by the altar. Nigel saw a glint of metal. They moved forward. Fox stooped down. A tiny metallic sound broke the silence. It was like a minute telephone under a heap of cushions. At a sign from Alleyn they squatted on the ground. Nigel’s knees gave two stentorian cracks and Alleyn hissed at him. A Lilliputian Mr. Ogden remarked:

“O.K. by me. Well folks, there’s no cops listening in. The plain-clothes guy that’s been sticking around the back door came unglued this morning, and the dick at the front’s only there for show. I guess we’d better square up and make it a regular meeting. There’s no sense in sitting around and handing out hot air. The first thing to do is to appoint a chairman.”

“Oh, God!” said Pringle’s voice.

“But surely, Mr. Ogden,” said Father Garnette, “there is no neeessitah—”

“I agree with Mr. Ogden.” That was de Ravigne. “It is better to make this affair formal. Let us appoint a chairman. I propose Mr. Ogden should fill this office.”

“Aw say, I wasn’t putting out feelers—”

“I second that. Hem!” Miss Wade.

“Well, thanks a lot. I certainly appreciate—”

“Good Lord,” said Alleyn, “he’s going to make a speech!” And sure enough, make a speech Mr. Ogden did. He used every conceivable American business phrase, but what he said might be summed up as follows: They were all under suspicion of murder, and they all wished to clear themselves. No doubt each of them had his or her own theory. He thought it would be to their mutual benefit to share these theories. After the disaster of Sunday it was unlikely that their ceremonies should or could be continued. The House of the Sacred Flame was a business concern and therefore should be wound up in a businesslike manner. At this juncture there was a confused but energetic protest from Father Garnette, Mrs. Candour and Miss Wade. The word “spiritual” was used repeatedly.

“Sure, I’m alive to the spiritual dope,” interrupted Mr. Ogden. “I thought it was sure-fire honest-to-God uplift. Otherwise I’d never have backed it. It looked good-oh to me.”

Alleyn gave a curious little exclamation.

“But,” the voice went on, “Now I think different. And right here is where I hand out the inside stuff. Listen.”

He then gave them an account of the financial basis on which the House of the Sacred Flame was built. It agreed in every detail with the statement he had made to Alleyn. Mr. Ogden backed the organisation, paid for the building in which they now sat, and held the bulk of the shares. M. de Ravigne was a much smaller shareholder, Father Garnette received twenty per cent of the profits and a salary.

When Mr. Ogden finished speaking there was a silence so long that Nigel wondered if the microphone had broken down. Suddenly someone began to laugh. It was Maurice Pringle. He sounded as though he would never stop. At last he began to splutter out words.

“All this time — thank-offerings — self-denials— Oh, God! It’s too screechingly funny!”

A babel of voices broke out.

“Quite appalling—”

“Business arrangement—”

“All so sordid and worldly, I never thought—”

“I don’t pretend to understand business. My only care is for my flock—”

“If Father says it is—”

“Oh, shut up!”

“Lionel, do be quiet. I must say—”

“Cut it out,” shouted Mr. Ogden.

Silence.

“This is no way to act,” continued Mr. Ogden firmly, “I said this was to be a regular well-conducted meeting, and by heck, I’m going to have it that way. There’s the copies of our agreement. Pass them round. Read them. They’re the goods. They’ve been okayed by a lawyer and they’re law. Laugh that off!”

A rustle, a clearing of throats, and then a murmur.

“Now,” said Ogden, “get this. The profits of this outfit belong legally to me, Garnette and Monsieur de Ravigne. In that order. Any money coming in is ours. In that order. We kept up the temple and handed out the goods. Cara Quayne’s donation of five thousand pounds in bearer bonds was our property—”

“No, it wasn’t,” interrupted Maurice. “Cara gave that money to a building fund, and it should have been used for nothing else.”

“It wouldn’t have been used any other way, Pringle, if I’d had the say-so. But it was ours to administer. Yeah, that’s so. Well, someone here present got a swell idea about that packet of stuff and lifted it. After that, it was just too bad about Cara.”

“You think,” de Ravigne spoke for the first time, “that whoever stole this money also murdered my poor Cara. I incline to agree with you.”

“Sure. And these Ritzy cops think so too. Something happened in this room around two-thirty on Sunday. Cara came here then. Alleyn may talk queeny, but he’s doped that out. Yeah, he seems like he was too refined to get busy, but he’s got busy. Too right he has. Well, I guess I know what his idea is. He reckons Cara came here Sunday to add to those bonds and caught the double-crosser red-handed. I don’t know just how you folks respond to this idea, but it looks good to me. Find the man or woman who was in this room at two-thirty on Sunday and you’ve got the killer.”

“Certainly,” said de Ravigne smoothly.

“But, I don’t see—” began Father Garnette.

“Just a moment, Garnette,” interrupted Mr. Ogden. “I’m coming to you. Who was in Cara’s confidence? Who lifted my book on poisons. Oh, yeah, it was my book.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” asked Janey.

“Because I thought you all knew. I reckon M. de Ravigne remembered looking at that book the night of my party and was too white to say so. It was swell, and I’m surely grateful.”

“It was nothing,” said de Ravigne.

“But I reckoned I hadn’t a thing to conceal and I came clean about the book to Alleyn. But who lifted that book and put a brown paper wrapper on it? Who put it way back behind that shelf where it wouldn’t be seen? Who got the book that way it opened itself up like it was tired, at the straight dope on sodium cyanide?”

“It does not always open in this manner,” said de Ravigne.

“Practically, it does,” interrupted either Lionel or Claude. “When I tried it—”

“Wait a moment. Wait a moment. Lemme get on with my whosits. Who had control of the keys after Cara’s bonds were parked in the safe? Who lifted the bonds? Who kidded Cara into leaving them enough to re-christen himself Rockefeller?”

“What do you say?” cried Garnette suddenly. “She left the money to the temple not to me.”

“How the blazing hell do you know?”

“She told me, poor soul, she told me.”

“That’s right.” Mrs. Candour’s voice sounded shrilly. “She told me herself weeks ago — well, about three weeks ago — when she first knew she was chosen. And she left her house and everything in it to Raoul de Ravigne. Ask him! He knows. Ask him! There are pictures worth hundreds. Ask him!”

“I do not wish to discuss it,” said de Ravigne. “If she did this, and it is true she spoke of it, I am most grateful. But I will not discuss it.”

“Because you know—”

“Quit it, Dagmar. Where do you get that stuff?”

“What stuff?” cried Mrs. Candour in alarm. “What stuff? Do you mean—?”

“He only means: ‘What are you talking about,’ ” said Pringle hurriedly.

“I thought you meant
the
stuff. That detective, Alleyn; I’m sure he suspects. Sammy, can they—?”

“Shut up,” said Maurice violently.

“Stick to the point,” begged Mr. Ogden. “I’m interested in Garnette.”

“I, too,” said de Ravigne. “It seems to me that you make the argument very clear against this priest, M. Ogden.”

“A murderer! Father Garnette, this is infamous.” That was Miss Wade.

“It’s a fact. Listen, you, Garnette—”

“Stop!”

Maurice Pringle’s voice rose above the others. Nigel could picture him on his feet, confronting them.

“Sit down, Pringle,” said Mr. Ogden angrily.

“I won’t. I’m going to—”

“That’s my cue,” whispered Alleyn. “Come on.”

Nigel followed him out of the little shrine and up the aisle. The voices of the Initiates sounded confusedly from behind the altar. Alleyn led the way up the hall to Father Garnette’s door. He motioned to Nigel. They stood one on each side of the door. Very stealthily Alleyn turned the handle and pulled it ajar. The curtain inside was bunched a little towards the centre and by squinting slantways they were able to see into the room beyond. Nigel glued his eye to the crevice beneath the thing. He was reminded, ridiculously, of Brighton pier. He found himself looking across the top of Miss Wade’s purple toque straight into Maurice Pringle’s eyes.

Maurice stood on the far side of the table. His face was ashen. A lock of hair had fallen across his forehead. He looked impossibly melodramatic. He seemed to have come to the end of a speech, interrupted perhaps by the hubbub that had broken out among the other Initiates. Miss Wade’s hat bobbed and bobbed. A dark object momentarily hid this picture. Someone was standing just on the other side of the door. It was on this person Maurice had fixed his gaze. Whoever it was moved again and the picture reappeared in a flash. Mr. Ogden’s voice sounded close to Nigel’s ear.

“The kid’s crazy. Sit down, Pringle.”

“Go on, Maurice,” said Janey clearly from somewhere.

“Courage, my dear lad,” boomed Father Garnette with something of his old unctuousness.