Singing in the Shrouds (21 page)

“Mrs. Cuddy,” Alleyn said, “I must ask you for the moment to be quiet.”

Mr. Cuddy, automatically and for the last time on the voyage, said, “Steady, Ethel.”

“Indeed,” Alleyn went on, “I must ask you all to be quiet and to listen carefully. You will understand that a state of emergency exists and that I have the authority to deal with it. The steward, Dennis, has been killed in the manner you have all discussed so often. He was clad in the Spanish dress Mrs. Dillington-Blick bought in Las Palmas and the inference is that he was killed in mistake for her. He was lying in the chair in the unlit verandah. The upper part of his face was veiled and it was much too dark to see the mole at the corner of his mouth. In the hearing of all of the men in this room Mrs. Dillington-Blick had said she was going to the verandah. She did go there. I met her there and went with her to the lower deck and from thence to her cabin door. She was wearing a black lace dress, not unlike the Spanish one. I returned here and almost immediately Mr. Cuddy arrived announcing that he had discovered her and that she was dead. Apparently he had been deceived by the dress. Dr. Makepiece examined the body and says death had occurred no more than a few minutes before he did so. For reasons which I shall give you when we have time for them, there can be no question of his having been murdered by some member of the ship’s complement. His death is the fourth in the series that you have so often discussed and one of the passengers is, in my opinion, undoubtedly responsible for all of them. For the moment you’ll have to accept that.”

He. waited. Aubyn Dale raised his head and suddenly demanded, “Where’s Merryman?”

There were exclamations from the Cuddys.

“That’s right!” Mr. Cuddy said. “Where is he! All this humbugging the rest of us about. Insinuations here and questions there! And Mr. Know-all Merryman mustn’t be troubled, I suppose!”

“Personally,” Mrs. Cuddy added, “I wouldn’t trust him. I’ve always said there was something. Haven’t I, dear?”

“Mr. Merryman,” Alleyn said, “is asleep in bed. He’s been very unwell and I decided to leave him there until we actually needed him as, of course, we shall. I have not forgotten him.”

“He was well enough to go to the pictures,” Mrs. Cuddy pointed out. “I think the whole thing looks very funny. Very funny indeed.”

Brigid suddenly found herself exclaiming indignantly, “Why do you say it looks ‘funny’? Mr. Merryman has already pointed out what a maddeningly incorrect expression it is and he
is
ill and he only came to the pictures because he’s naughty and obstinate and I think he’s a poppet and certainly not a murderer and I’m sorry to interrupt but I do.”

Alleyn said, almost as Father Jourdain might have said, “All right, my child. All right,” and Tim put his arm round Brigid.

“It will be obvious to you all,” Alleyn went on exactly as if there had been no interruption, “that I must find out why the steward was there and why he was dressed in this manner. It is here that you, Mrs. Dillington-Blick, can help us.”

“Ruby!” Dale whispered, but she was not looking at him.

“It was only a joke,” she said. “We did it for a joke. How could we possibly know—?”

“We? You mean you and Mr. Dale, don’t you?”

“And Dennis. Yes. It’s no good, Aubyn. I can’t not say.”

“Did you give Dennis the dress?”

“Yes.”

“After Las Palmas?”

“Yes. He’d been awfully obliging and he said — you know what an odd little creature he was — he admired it awfully and I, I told you, I took against it after the doll business. So I gave it to him. He said he wanted to dress up for a joke at some sort of birthday party the stewards were having.”

“On Friday night?”

“Yes. He wanted me not to say anything. That was why, when you asked me about the dress, I didn’t tell you. I wondered if you knew. Did you?”

Alleyn was careful not to look at Captain Bannerman. “It doesn’t arise at the moment,” he said.

The captain made an indeterminate rumbling noise that culminated in utterance.

“Yes, it does!” he roared. “Fair’s fair and little though I may fancy the idea, I’m not a man to shirk my responsibilities.” He jerked his head at Alleyn. “The superintendent,” he said, “came to me and told me somebody had been seen fooling about the forrard well-deck in that damned dress. He said he hadn’t seen it himself and whoever did see it reckoned it was Mrs. Dillington-Blick. And why not, I thought? Her dress, and why wouldn’t she be wearing it? He asked me to make enquiries and stop a repetition. I didn’t see my way to interfering and I wouldn’t give my consent to him doing it on his own. All my time as master, I’ve observed a certain attitude towards my passengers. I didn’t see fit to change it. I was wrong. I didn’t believe I’d shipped a murderer. Wrong again. Dead wrong. I don’t want it overlooked or made light of. I was wrong.”

Alleyn said, “That’s a very generous statement,” and thought it best to carry on. “I had not seen the figure in the Spanish dress,” he said. “I had been told it was Mrs. Dillington-Blick and there was no reason that anybody would accept to suppose it wasn’t. I merely had a notion, unsupported by evidence, that the behaviour as reported was uncharacteristic.”

Brigid said, “It was I who told about it. Mr. Alleyn asked me if I was sure it was Mrs. Dillington-Blick and I said I was.”

Mrs. Dillington-Blick said, “Dennis told me what he’d done. He said he’d always wanted to be a dancer.” She looked at Alleyn. “When you asked me if I would wear the dress to dance by the light of the moon, I thought you’d seen him and mistaken him for me. I didn’t tell you. I pretended it
was
me, because—” her face crumpled and she began to cry—“because we were planning the joke.”

“Well,” Alleyn said, “there it was. And now I shall tell you what I think happened. I think, Mr. Dale, that with your fondness for practical jokes, you suggested that it would be amusing to get the steward to dress up tonight and go to the verandah and that you arranged with Mrs. Dillington-Blick to let it be understood that she herself was going to be there. Is that right?”

Aubyn Dale had sobered up considerably. Something of his old air of conventional decency had reappeared. He exhibited all the troubled concern of a good chap who is overwhelmed with self-reproach.

“Of course,” he said, “I’ll never forgive myself for this. It’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life. But how could I know? How
could
I know! We — I mean, I–I take the whole responsibility—” he threw a glance, perhaps slightly reproachful, at Mrs. Dillington-Blick— “I just thought it would be rather amusing to do it. The idea was that this poor little devil should—” he hesitated and stole a look at Mr. McAngus and Mr. Cuddy— “well, should go to the verandah, as you say, and if anybody turned up he was just to sort of string them along a bit. I mean, putting it like that in cold blood after what’s happened, it may sound rather poor but—”

He stopped and waved his hands.

Miss Abbott broke her self-imposed silence. She said, “It sounds common, cheap, and detestable.”

“I resent that, Miss Abbott.”

“You can resent it till you’re purple in the face but the fact remains. To plot with the steward! To make a vulgar practical joke out of what may have been the wretched little creature’s tragedy — his own private, inexorable weakness — his devil!”

“My child!” Father Jourdain said. “You must stop.” But she pointed wildly and clumsily at Cuddy. “To trick that man! To use his idiotic, hopeless infatuation! And the other—”

“No, no. Please!” Mr. McAngus cried out. “It doesn’t matter. Please!”

Miss Abbott looked at him with what might have been a kind of compassion and turned on Mrs. Dillington-Blick. “And you,” she said, “with your beauty and fascination, with everything that unhappy women long for, to lend yourself to such a thing! To give him your lovely dress, to allow him to so much as touch it! What were you thinking of!” She ground her heavy hands together. “Beauty is sacred!” she said. “It is sacred in its own right; you have committed sacrilege.”

“Katherine, you must come away. As your priest, I insist. You will do yourself irreparable harm. Come with me.”

For the first time she seemed to hear him. The familiar look of mulish withdrawal returned and she got up.

“Alleyn?” Father Jourdain asked.

“Yes, of course.”

“Come along,” he said, and Miss Abbott let him take her away.

“That woman’s upset me,” Mrs. Dillington-Blick said, angrily sobbing. “I don’t feel at all well. I feel awful.”

“Ruby, darling!”

“No! No, Aubyn, don’t paw me. We shouldn’t have done it. You shouldn’t have started it. I feel ghastly.”

Captain Bannennan squared his shoulders and approached her. “Nor you!” she said, and, perhaps for the first time in her adult life, she appealed to someone of her own sex. “Brigid!” she said. “Tell me I needn’t feel like this. It’s not fair. I’m hating it.”

Brigid went to her. “I can tell you, you needn’t,” she said, “but we all know you do and that’s much better than not minding at all. At least—” she appealed to Alleyn— “isn’t it?”

“Of course it is.”

Mr. McAngus, tying himself up in a sort of agonized knot of sympathy, said, “You mustn’t think about it. You mustn’t reproach yourself. You are goodness itself. Oh, don’t!”

Mrs. Cuddy sniffed piercingly.

“It’s this awful heat,” Mrs. Dillington-Blick moaned. “One can’t
think
.” She had, in fact, gone very white. “I–I feel faint.”

Alleyn opened the double doors. “I was going to suggest,” he said, “that we let a little air in.” Brigid put her arm round Mrs. Dillington-Blick and Tim went over to her. “Can you manage?” he asked. “Come outside.”

They helped her through the doors. Alleyn moved Mr. Merryman’s chair so that its back was turned to the lounge and Mrs. Dillington-Blick sank out of sight. “Will you stay here?” Alleyn asked. “When you feel more like it I should be glad of another word with you. I’ll ask Dr. Makepiece to come and see how you are. Perhaps, Miss Carmichael, you’d stay with Mrs. Dillington-Blick. Would you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“All right?” Tim asked her.

“Perfectly.”

Alleyn had a further word with Tim and then the two men went back into the room.

Alleyn said, “I’m afraid I must press on. I shall need all the men, but if you, Mrs. Cuddy, would rather go to your cabin, you may.”

“I prefer to stay with Mr. Cuddy, thank you.”

Mr. Cuddy moistened his lips and said, “Look, Eth, you toddle off. It’s not suitable for ladies.”

“I wouldn’t fancy being there by myself.”

“You’ll be O.K., dear.”

“What about you, though?”

He didn’t look at her. “I’ll be O.K.,” he said.

She was staring at him, expressionless as always. It was odd to see that her eyes were masked in tears.

“Oh, Fred,” Mrs. Cuddy said, “why did you do it?”

The four men in the lounge behaved exactly as if Mrs. Cuddy had uttered an indecency. They looked anywhere but at the Cuddys, they said nothing, and then after a moment eyed Alleyn surreptitiously, as if they expected him to take drastic action.

His voice broke across the little void of silence.

“Why did he do what, Mrs. Cuddy?”

“Eth,” Mr. Cuddy said, “for God’s sake choose your words. They’ll be thinking things, Eth. Be careful.”

She didn’t take her eyes off him, and though she seemed to disregard completely what he had said to her, Alleyn thought that she was scarcely aware of anybody else in the room. Mr. Cuddy returned her gaze with a look of terror.

“You know how I feel about it,” she said, “and yet you go on. Making an exhibition of yourself. I blame her, mind, more than I do you; she’s a wicked woman, Fred. She’s poking fun at you. I’ve seen her laughing behind your back with the others. I don’t care,” Mrs. Cuddy went on, raising her voice and indicating the inarticulate back of Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s deck chair, “if she hears what I say. What’s happened is her fault; she’s as good as responsible for it. And you had to go and chase after her and get yourself mixed up with a corpse. I hope it’ll be a lesson to you.” A kind of spasm twitched at her mouth and her eyes overflowed. She ended as she had begun. “Oh, Fred,” Mrs. Cuddy said again, “why did you do it!”

“I’m sorry, dear. It was just a bit of fun.”

“Fun!” Her voice broke. She went up to him and made a curious gesture, a travesty of playfulness, shaking her fist at him. “You old fool!” she said and without a word to anyone else bolted out of the room.

Mr. Cuddy made a slight move as if to follow her but found himself confronted by Alleyn. He stood in the middle of the room, half smiling, scanning the faces of the other men.

“You don’t want to misunderstand Mrs. Cuddy,” he ventured. “I’m not a violent man. I’m quiet.”

Captain Bannerman cleared his throat. “It looks to me,” he said, “as if you’ll have to prove that.” He glanced at the open doors to the deck, at the back of Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s chair and at Brigid, who sat on the edge of the hatch with her chin in her hands.

“This is a man’s job,” he said to Alleyn. “For God’s sake, keep the women out of it,” and with some emphasis shut the doors.

Alleyn had been speaking to Tim. He said, “Very well. For the moment.”

The captain pulled chairs up to the biggest table in the room, motioning Alleyn to sit at one end and himself taking the other. “I like to see things done shipshape,” he muttered and his longing for a boardroom could be sensed. Aubyn Dale and Mr. McAngus at once took chairs. Tim, after a moment’s hesitation, followed suit. Mr. Cuddy hung off, winding the cord of his dressing-gown round his spatulate fingers. Mr. McAngus, with trembling fingers, lit one of his medicated cigarettes.

Father Jourdain came back and, in response to a gesture from the captain, also sat at the table.

“That’s more like it,” sighed Captain Bannerman and made a clumsy ducking movement at Alleyn.

“Carry on, if you please, Mr. A’leen,” he said.

But Aubyn Dale, who for some time had been casting fretful glances at the bar, cut in. “Look, I need a drink. Is there anything against my ringing for the steward?”

“Which steward?” Captain Bannerman asked, and Dale said, “God, I forgot.”

“We’ll do our drinking,” the captain pronounced, “later. Mr. Cuddy, I’ll thank you to take a seat.”

Mr. Cuddy said, “That’s all right, Captain. Don’t rush us. I’d still like to know why we don’t send for Merryman,” and he pulled out his chair, sat back in it with an affectation of ease, and stared, nervously impertinent, at Alleyn.

Aubyn Dale said, “I must say, seeing this gets more like a board meeting every second, I don’t see why Merryman should have leave of absence. Unless—” He paused and the others stirred, suddenly alert and eager. “Unless—”

Alleyn walked to the head of the table and surveyed its occupants. “If this were a normal investigation,” he said, “I would see each of you separately while the others were kept under observation. In these circumstances I can’t do that; I am taking each of your statements now in the presence of you all. That being done I shall send for Mr. Merryman.”

“Why the hell should he be the kingpin?” Dale demanded and then took the plunge. “Unless, by God, he did it!”

“Mr. Merryman,” Alleyn rejoined, “sat in the deck-chair now occupied by Mrs. Dillington-Blick. He was still there when the men left this room. He commanded a view of the deck, each side of it. He could see both approaches to the verandah. He is, therefore, the key witness. His temperament is not complaisant. If he were here he’d try to run the whole show. I therefore prefer to let you account for yourselves now and bring him in a little later.”

“That’s all very well,” Mr. Cuddy said. “But suppose he did it. Suppose he’s the Flower Murderer. How about that?”

“In that case, being ignorant of what you have all told me, he may offer a statement that one of you can disprove.”

“So it’ll be our word,” Dale said, “against his?”

“With this reservation. That he was in a position to see you all, and none of you, it seems, was able to see him or each other. He can speak about you all, I hope. Each of you can only speak for himself.”

Mr. McAngus said, “I don’t know why you all want him; he makes
me
feel uncomfortable and silly.”

“Ah, for God’s sake!” Dale ejaculated. “Can’t we get on with it!”

Alleyn, still standing, put his hands on the back of his chair and said, “By all means. This is the position as far as we’ve gone. I suggest that you consider it.”

They were at once silent and uneasily attentive.

“Three of you,” Alleyn said, “have given me statements about your movements during the crucial time — the time, a matter of perhaps eight minutes, between the moment when Mrs. Dillington-Blick left this room and the moment when Mr. Cuddy came back with an account of his discovery of the body. During those eight minutes the steward Dennis was strangled, I believe in mistake for Mrs. Dillington-Blick. None of the three statements corroborates either of the other two. We have a picture of three individuals all moving about, out there in the semi-dark, without catching sight of each other. For myself, I was the first to go. I met Mrs. Dillington-Blick by the verandah to which she went — I’m sorry to put it like this but there’s no time for polite evasions — as a decoy. No doubt she assured herself that Dennis was there and she was about to take cover when I appeared. To get rid of me she asked me to help her down the port side companion-ladder to the lower deck. I did so and then saw her to her cabin and returned here. Mr. Cuddy, in the meantime, had changed, gone below and then to the pool by way of the starboard side on the lower deck. Miss Abbott, who left after he did, walked round this deck and stood for some minutes on the starboard side. She remembers that she saw somebody in the pool.

“Mr. McAngus says he left by these double doors, stood for a time by the passengers’ quarters on the port side and then went to his cabin and to bed. Nobody appeared to have noticed him.

“Mr. Dale, I imagine, will now admit that his first statement, to the effect that he went straight to his cabin, was untrue. On the contrary, he was on deck. He hid behind a locker on the starboard side near the verandah corner hoping to overhear some cruelly ludicrous scene of mistaken identity. He afterwards went into the verandah, presumably discovered the body, returned to his cabin and drank himself into the state from which he has at least partially recovered

“I resent the tone—” Dale began.

“You’ll have to lump the tone, I’m afraid. I now want to know what, if anything, you heard from your hiding place and exactly what you did and saw when you went into the verandah. Do you propose to tell me?”

“Captain Bannerman—”

“No good coming at me,” said the captain. “You’re in a tight spot, Mr. Dale, and truth had better be your master.”

Dale smacked the palm of his hand down on the table. “
All right
! Turn on me. The whole gang of you and much good may it do you. You badger and threaten and get a man tied up in knots until he doesn’t know what he’s saying. I’m as anxious as anyone for this bloody murderer to be caught. If I could tell you anything that’d bring him to book I would. All right. I did what you say, I sat behind the locker. I heard Miss Abbott go past. Tramp, tramp. She walks like a man. I couldn’t see her, but I knew it was Miss Abbott because she was humming a churchy tune. I’ve heard her before. And then, it was quiet. And then, after a bit, somebody else went by. Going towards the verandah. Tip-toe. Furtive. I heard him turn the corner and I heard somebody — Dennis, I suppose — it was rather high-pitched — make a little sound. And then—” He wiped his hand across his mouth. “Then there were other sounds. The chair legs scraped. Somebody cried out. Only once and it was cut short. Then there was another sort of bumping and scraping. Then nothing. I don’t know for how long. Then the tip-toe footsteps passed again. A bit faster but not running and somebody singing, as Cuddy said. ‘Pack Up Your Troubles.’ In a head-voice. Falsetto. Only a phrase of it and then nothing.”

“In tune?” Alleyn asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Was the voice in tune?”

Dale said, “Well, really! Oh, yes. Yes. Perfectly in tune,” and gave a half laugh.

“Thank you. Go on. What did you do next?”

“I was going to come out but I heard another voice.”

He screwed round in his chair and jerked his head at Cuddy. “You,” he said. “It was your voice. Unmistakably. You said, ‘All alone?’ ” He aped a mellifluous, arch enquiry. “I heard you go in. Wet feet on the deck. And then, after a pause, you made a sort of retching noise and you ran out, and I suppose you bolted down the deck.”

“I’ve explained everything,” Mr. Cuddy said. “I’ve told them. I’ve concealed nothing.”

“Very well,” Alleyn said. “Keep quiet. And then, Mr. Dale?”

“I waited. Then I thought I’d just go round and ask what had happened. I must have had some sort of idea there was something wrong; I realize that now. It was — it was so deadly quiet.”

“Yes?”

“So I did. I went in. I said something, I don’t remember what, and there was no answer. So I–I got out my cigarette lighter and flashed it on — Oh, God,
God
!”

“Well?”

“I couldn’t see much at first. It seemed funny he didn’t say anything. I put the flame nearer and then I saw. It was hell. Like that doll. Broken. And the flowers. The deck was wet and slippery. I thought, ‘I’ve done this; it’s my fault. I arranged it and she’ll say I did. Let somebody else discover it!’ Something like that. I’d had one or two drinks over the night and I suppose that’s why I panicked. I ran out and round the deck, past the locker. I heard Cuddy’s voice and I saw him by the doors here. I ducked down behind the hatch and heard him tell you. Then I heard you walk past on the other side and I knew that you’d gone to look. I thought, ‘It’s too late for me to tell them. I’m here. I’ll be involved.’ So I made for the forward end of the deck.”

“Father Jourdain,” Alleyn said, “I think you must at that time have been by the entrance to this room looking after Mr. Cuddy, who had fainted. Did you see Mr. Dale?”

“No. But, as you say, I was stooping over Mr. Cuddy. I think my back was turned to the hatch.”

“Yes,” Dale said. “Yes, it was. I watched you. I don’t remember much else except — my God, yes!”

“What have you remembered?”

Dale had been staring at his hand clasped before him on the table. He now raised his head. Mr. McAngus sat opposite him. They seemed to be moved by some common resentment.

“Go on,” Alleyn said.

“It was when I’d gone round the passengers’ block to the port side. I wanted a drink damn badly, and I wanted to be by myself. I’d got as far as the entrance into the passage and waited for a bit to make sure nobody was about. Ruby — Mrs. Dillington-Blick — was in her cabin. I could hear her slapping her face. I wondered if I’d tell her and then — then I smelt it.”

“Smelt what?”

Dale pointed at Mr. McAngus. “That. One of those filthy things he smokes. It was quite close.”

Mr. McAngus said, “I have already stated that I waited for a little on deck before I went to my cabin. I have said so.”

“Yes. But
where? Where
were you? I couldn’t see you and yet you must have been quite close. I actually saw the smoke.”

“Well, Mr. McAngus?” Alleyn asked.

“I — don’t exactly remember where I stood. Why should I?” He ground out his cigarette. A little malodorous spiral rose from the butt.

Dale said excitedly, “But the deck’s open and there was the light from her porthole. Why couldn’t I see him!”

“The door giving on the passage opens back on the outside bulkhead,” Alleyn said. “Close to Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s porthole. Were you standing behind that door, Mr. McAngus?”

“Hiding behind it, more like,” Mr. Cuddy eagerly exclaimed.

“Well, Mr. McAngus?”

The long indeterminate face under the dyed hair was unevenly pallid. “I admit nothing,” said Mr. McAngus. “Nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you think he might have been there, Mr. Dale?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. You see, I thought he must be in the passage and I waited and then I thought: “I’ve
had
this!’ And I looked and there was nobody there. So I went straight in. My door’s just on the left. I had a Scotch neat and I daresay it was a snorter. Then I had another. I was all anyhow. My nerves are shot to pieces. I’ve had a breakdown. I’m supposed,” Dale said in a trembling voice, “to be on a rest cure. This has set me all back to hell.”

“Mr. McAngus, did you hear Mr. Cuddy when he came and told us of his discovery? He was hysterical and made a great noise. Did you hear him?”

Mr. McAngus said, “I heard something. It didn’t matter.”

“Didn’t matter?”

“I knew where she was.”

“Mrs. Dillington-Blick?”

“I cannot answer you, sir.”

“You have yourself told us that you left this room by the deck doors, walked round the centrecastle block and then waited for some time on the port side. Do you stick to that statement?”