False Scent (23 page)

Warrender muttered, “If you call it a quarrel.”

“Was it about Richard Dakers?” Alleyn waited. “I think it was,” he said, “but of course that’s mere speculation and open, if you like, to contradiction.”

Warrender squared his shoulders. “What’s all this leading up to?” he demanded. “An arrest?”

“Surely you’ve heard of the usual warning. Come, sir, you did have a scene with Charles Templeton and I believe it was about Richard Dakers. Did you tell Templeton you were the father?”

“I did not,” he said quickly.

“Did he know you were the father?”

“Not… We agreed from the outset that it was better that he shouldn’t know. That nobody should know. Better on all counts.”

“You haven’t really answered my question, have you? Shall I put it this way? Did Templeton learn for the first time, this afternoon, that Dakers is your son?”

“Why should you suppose anything of the sort?”

“Your normal relationship appears to have been happy, yet at this time, when one would have expected you all to come together in your common trouble, he showed a vehement disinclination to see Dakers — or you.”

Warrender made an unexpected gesture. He flung out his hands and lifted his shoulders. “Very well,” he said.

“And
you
didn’t tell him.” Alleyn walked up to him and looked him full in the face. “She told him,” he said. “Didn’t she? Without consulting you, without any consideration for you or the boy. Because she was in one of those tantrums that have become less and less controllable. She made you spray that unspeakable scent over her in his presence, I suppose to irritate him. You went out and left them together. And she broke the silence of thirty years and told him.”

“You can’t possibly know.”

“When she left the room a minute or two later she shouted at the top of her voice: ‘Which only shows how wrong you were. You can get out whenever you like, my friend, and the sooner the better.’ Florence had gone. You had gone. She was speaking to her husband. Did she tell you?”

“Tell
me
! What the hell…”

“Did she tell you what she’d said to Templeton?”

Warrender turned away to the fireplace, leant his arm on the shelf and hid his face.

“All right!” he stammered. “All right! What does it matter, now. All right.”

“Was it during the party?”

He made some kind of sound, apparently in assent.

“Before or after the row in the conservatory?”

“After.” He didn’t raise his head and his voice sounded as if it didn’t belong to him. “I tried to stop her attacking the girl.”

“And that turned her against you? Yes, I see.”

“I was following them, the girl and her uncle, and she whispered it. ‘Charles knows about Dicky.’ It was quite dreadful to see her look like that. I–I simply walked out — I…” He raised his head and looked at Alleyn. “It was indescribable.”

“And your great fear after that was that she would tell the boy?”

He said nothing.

“As, of course, she did. Her demon was let loose. She took him up to her room and told him. They were, I daresay, the last words she spoke.”

Warrender said, “You assume — you say these things — you…” and was unable to go on. His eyes were wet and bloodshot and his face grey. He looked quite old. “I don’t know what’s come over me,” he said.

Alleyn thought he knew.

“It’s not much cop,” he said, “when a life’s preoccupation turns out to have been misplaced. It seems to me that a man in such a position would rather see the woman dead than watch her turning into a monster.”

“Why do you say these things to me.
Why
!”

“Isn’t it so?”

With a strange parody of his habitual mannerism he raised a shaking hand to his tie and pulled at it.

“I understand,” he said. “You’ve been very clever, I suppose.”

“Not very, I’m afraid.”

Warrender looked up at the beaming portrait of Mary Bellamy. “There’s nothing left,” he said. “Nothing. What do you want me to do?”

“I must speak to Dakers and then to those people in there. I think I must ask you to join us.”

“Very well,” Warrender said.

“Would you like a drink?”

“Thank you. If I may.”

Alleyn looked at Fox who went out and returned with a tumbler and the decanter that Alleyn had seen on the table between Warrender and Charles at his first encounter with them.

“Whisky,” Fox said. “If that’s agreeable. Shall I pour it out, sir?”

Warrender took it neat and in one gulp. “I’m very much obliged to you,” he said and straightened his back. The ghost of a smile distorted his mouth. “One more,” he said, “and I shall be ready for anything, isn’t it?”

Alleyn said, “I am going to have a word with Dakers before I see the others.”

“Are you going to — to tell him?”

“I think it best to do so, yes.”

“Yes. I see. Yes.”

“When you are ready, Fox,” Alleyn said and went out.

“He’ll make it as easy as possible, sir,” Fox said comfortably. “You may be sure of that.”

“Easy!” said Warrender, and made a sound that might have been a laugh. “Easy!”

The persons sitting in the drawing-room were assembled there for the last time. In a few weeks Mary Bellamy’s house would be transformed into the West End offices of a new venture in television, and a sedan chair, for heaven knows what reason, would adorn the hall. Bertie Saracen’s decor, taken over in toto, would be the background for the frenzied bandying about of new gimmicks and Charles Templeton’s study a waiting-room for disengaged actors.

At the moment it had an air of stability. Most of its occupants, having exhausted each in his or her own kind their capacity for anxiety, anger or compassion, had settled down into apathy. They exchanged desultory remarks, smoked continuously and occasionally helped themselves, rather self-consciously, to the drinks that Gracefield had provided. P.C. Philpott remained alert in his corner.

It was Dr. Harkness who, without elaboration, announced Charles Templeton’s death and that indeed shook them into a state of flabbergasted astonishment. When Richard came in, deathly pale, with Anelida, they all had to pull themselves together before they found anything at all to say to him. They did, indeed, attempt appropriate remarks, but it was clear to Anelida that their store of consolatory offerings was spent. However heartfelt their sympathy, they were obliged to fall back on their technique in order to express it. Pinky Cavendish broke into this unreal state of affairs by suddenly giving Richard a kiss and saying warmly, “It’s no good, darling. There really is just literally nothing we can say or do, but we wish with all our hearts that there was, and Anelida must be your comfort. There!”

“Pinky,” Richard said unevenly, “you really are no end of a darling. I’m afraid I can’t — I can’t… I’m sorry. I’m just not reacting much to anything.”

“Exactly,” Marchant said. “How well one understands. The proper thing, of course, would be for one to leave you to yourself, which unfortunately this Yard individual at the moment won’t allow.”

“He
did
send to say it wouldn’t be long now,” Bertie pointed out nervously.

“Do you suppose,” Pinky asked, “that means he’s going to arrest somebody?”

“Who can tell! Do you know
what
!” Bertie continued very rapidly and in an unnatural voice. “I don’t mind betting every man jack of us is madly wondering what all the others think about him. Or her. I know I am. I keep saying to myself, ‘Can any of them think I darted upstairs instead of into the loo, and did it!’ I suppose it’s no use asking you all for a frank opinion is it? It would be taking an advantage.”

“
I
don’t think it of you,” Pinky said at once. “I promise you, darling.”

“Pinky! Nor I of you. Never for a moment. And I don’t believe it of Anelida or Richard. Do you?”

“Never for a moment,” she said firmly. “Absolutely not.”

“Well,” Bertie continued, inspired by Pinky’s confidence, “I should like to know if any of you
does
suppose it might be me.” Nobody answered. “I can’t help feeling immensely gratified,” Bertie said. “Thank you. Now. Shall I tell you which of you I think
could — just
—under
frightful
provocation — do something violent all of a sudden?”

“Me, I suppose,” Gantry said. “I’m a hot-tempered man.”

“Yes. Timmy dear, you! But
only
in boiling hot blood with one blind swipe, not really meaning to. And that doesn’t seem to fit the bill at all. One wants a calculating iceberg of a person for this job, doesn’t one?”

There followed a period of hideous discomfort, during which nobody looked at anybody else.

“An idle flight of speculation, I’m afraid, Bertie,” said Marchant. “Would you be very kind and bring me a drink?”

“But of course,” said Bertie, and did so.

Gantry glanced at Richard and said, “Obviously there’s no connection — apart from the shock of Mary’s death having precipitated it — between Charles’s tragedy — and hers.” Nobody spoke and he added half-angrily, “Well,
is
there! Harkness — you were there.”

Dr. Harkness said quickly, “I don’t know what’s in Alleyn’s mind.”

“Where’s that momumental, that superb old ham, the Colonel? Why’s he gone missing all of a sudden?” Gantry demanded. “Sorry, Dicky, he’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?”

“He’s… Yes,” Richard said after a long pause. “He is. I think he’s with Alleyn.”

“Not,” Marchant coolly remarked, “under arrest, one trusts.”

“I believe not,” Richard said. He turned his back on Marchant and sat beside Anelida on the sofa.

“Oh lud!” Bertie sighed, “how
wearing
has been this long, long day and how frightened in a vague sort of way I continue to feel. Never mind.
Toujours l’audace
.”

The handle of the door into the hall was heard to turn. Everybody looked up. Florence walked round the leather screen. “If you’ll just wait, Miss,” the constable said and retired. Philpott cleared his throat.

Richard said, “Come in, Floy. Come and sit down.”

She glanced stonily at him, walked into the farthest corner of the room and sat on the smallest chair. Pinky looked as if she’d like to say something friendly to her, but the impulse came to nothing and a heavy silence again fell upon the company.

It was broken by the same sound and a heavier tread. Bertie half-rose from his seat, gave a little cry of frustration and sank back again as Colonel Warrender made his entry, very erect and looking at no one in particular.

“We were just talking about you,” said Bertie fretfully.

Richard stood up. “Come and join us,” he said, and pushed a chair towards the sofa.

“Thank you, old boy,” Warrender said awkwardly, and did so.

Anelida leant towards him and after a moment’s hesitation put her hand on his knee. “I intend,” she said under her breath, “to bully Richard into marrying me. Will you be on my side and give us your blessing?”

He drew his brows together and stared at her. He made an unsuccessful attempt to speak, hit her hand painfully hard with his own and ejaculated, “Clumsy ass. Hurt you, isn’t it? Ah — Bless you.”

“O.K.,” said Anelida and looked at Richard. “Now, you see, darling, you’re sunk.”

There was a sound of masculine voices in the hall, Pinky said. “Oh
dear
!” and Gantry, “Ah, for God’s sake!” Marchant finished his drink quickly and P.C. Philpott rose to his feet. So, after a mulish second or two, did Florence.

This time it was Alleyn who came round the leather screen.

There was only one place in the room from which he could take them all in at one glance and that was the hearthrug. Accordingly, he went to it and stood there like the central figure in some ill-assembled conversation piece.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “to have kept you hanging about. It was unavoidable and it won’t be for much longer. Until a short time ago you were still, all of you, persons of importance. From the police point of view, I mean, of course. It was through you that we hoped to assemble the fragments and fit them into their pattern. The pattern is now complete and our uncomfortable association draws to its end. Tomorrow there will be an inquest and you will be required, most of you, to appear at it. The coroner’s jury will hear your evidence and mine and one can only guess at what they will make of it. But you have all become too far involved for me to use any sort of evasion. Already some of you are suspecting others who are innocent. In my opinion this is one of those cases where the truth, at any cost, is less damaging in the long run, to vague, festering conjecture. For you all must know,” Alleyn went on, “you
must
know even if you won’t acknowledge it…”—his glance rested fleetingly on Richard—“that this has been a case of homicide.”

He waited. Gantry said, “I don’t accept that,” but without much conviction.

“You will, I think, when I tell you that the Home Office analyst has found a trace of Slaypest in the bulb of the scent-spray.”

“Oh,” Gantry said faintly, as if Alleyn had made some quite unimportant remark. “I see. That’s different.”

“It’s conclusive. It clears up all the extraneous matter. The professional rows, the threats that you were all so reluctant to admit, the evasions and half-lies. The personal bickerings and antagonisms. They were all tidied away by this single fact.”

Marchant, whose hands were joined in front of his face, lifted his gaze for a moment to Alleyn. “You are not making yourself particularly clear,” he said.

“I hope to do so. This one piece of evidence explains a number of indisputable facts. Here they are. The scent-spray was harmless when Colonel Warrender used it on Mrs. Templeton. At some time before she went up to her room with Mr. Dakers, enough Slaypest was transferred to the scent-spray to kill her. At some time after she was killed the scent-spray was emptied and washed out and the remaining scent from the original bottle was poured into it. I think there were two, possibly three, persons in the house at that time who could have committed these actions. They are all familiar with the room and its appointments and surroundings. The presence of any one of them in her room would, under normal circumstances, have been unremarkable.”