Singing in the Shrouds (22 page)

Mr. McAngus, holding to the edge of the table as if for support, did not take his eyes off Alleyn. He had compressed his mouth so ruthlessly that drops of saliva oozed out of the coners. He inclined his head slightly.

“Very well then—”

“No! No, no!” Mr. McAngus suddenly shouted. “I refuse! What I have done, I have done under compulsion. I cannot discuss it. Never!”

“In that case,” Alleyn said, “we have reached an impasse. Dr. Makepiece, will you be so kind as to ask Mr. Merryman if he will join us?”

Mr. Merryman could be heard coming down the passage. His sharp voice was raised to its familiar pitch of indignation.

“I should have been informed of this,” he was saying, “at once. Immediately. I demand an explanation.
Who
did you say the man is?”

An indistinguishable murmur from Tim.

“Indeed?
Indeed
! Then he has no doubt enjoyed the salutary experience popularly assigned to eavesdroppers. This is an opportunity,” the voice continued as its owner drew nearer, “that I have long wished for. If I had been consulted at the outset, the typical, the all-too-familiar pattern of official ineptitude might have — nay, would have been anticipated. But, of course, that was too much to hope for. I—”

The door was opened by Tim, who came in, pulled an eloquent grimace at Alleyn and stood aside.

Mr. Merryman made a not ineffective entrance. He was girded into his dressing-gown. His cockscomb was erect and his eyes glittered with the light of battle. He surveyed the party round the table with a Napoleonic eye.

Captain Bannerman half rose and said, “Come in, Mr. Merryman. Hope you’re feeling well enough to join us. Take a chair.” He indicated the only vacant chair, which faced the glass doors leading to the deck. Mr. Merryman made a slight acknowledgment but no move. He was glaring at Alleyn. “I daresay,” the captain went on, “that it’s in order, under the circumtances, for me to make an introduction. This gentleman is in charge of the meeting. Superintendent A’leen.”

“The name,” Mr. Merryman said at once, “is Alleyn.
Alleyn,
my good sir. Al-
lane
is permissible. A’leen, never. It is, presumably, too much to expect that you should have so much as heard of the founder of Dulwich College, an Elizabethan actor who was unsurpassed in his day, Edward Alleyn. Or, less acceptably in my poor opinion, Allane. Good evening, sir,” Mr. Merryman concluded, nodding angrily at Alleyn.

“Over to you,” the captain muttered woodenly, “Mr. Allan.”

“
No
!” Mr. Merryman objected on a rising inflexion.

“It’s of no consequence,” Alleyn hastily intervened. “Will you sit down, Mr. Merryman?”

“Why not?” Mr. Merryman said and did so.

“I believe,” Alleyn went on, “that Dr. Makepiece has told you what has happened.”

“I have been informed in the baldest manner conceivable that a felony has been committed. I assume that I am about to be introduced to the insupportable
longueurs
of a police investigation

“I’m afraid so,” Alleyn said cheerfully.

“Then perhaps you will be good enough to advise me of the nature of the crime and the circumstances under which it was committed and discovered. Unless, of course,” Mr. Merryman added, throwing back his head and glaring at Alleyn from under his spectacles, “you regard me as a suspect, in which case you will no doubt attempt some elephantine piece of finesse.
Do
you, in fact, regard me as a suspect?”

“Yes,” Alleyn said coolly. “Together with sundry others. I do. Why not?”

“Upon my word!” he said after a pause. “It does not astonish me. And pray what am I supposed to have done? And to whom? And where? Enlighten me, I beg you.”

“You are supposed at this juncture to answer questions, and not to ask them. You will be good enough not to be troublesome, Mr. Merryman. No,” Alleyn said as Mr. Merryman opened his mouth, “I really can’t do with any more tantrums. This case is in the hands of the police. I am a policeman. Whatever you may think of the procedure, you’ve no choice but to put up with it. And we’ll all get along a great deal faster if you can contrive to do so gracefully. Behave yourself, Mr. Merryman.”

Mr. Merryman put on an expression of mild astonishment. He appeared to take thought. He folded his arms, flung himself back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “Very well,” he said. “Let us plumb the depths. Continue.”

Alleyn did so. Without giving any indication whatever of the nature or locale of the crime, an omission which at once appeared to throw Mr. Merryman into an extremity of annoyance, he merely asked for an account in detail of anything Mr. Merryman might have seen from his vantage point in the deck-chair, facing the hatch.

“
May
I ask,” Mr. Merryman said, still looking superciliously at the ceiling, “
why
you adopt this insufferable attitude?
Why
you elect to withold the nature of your little problem? Do I detect a note of professional jealousy?”

“Let us assume that you do,” said Alleyn with perfect good nature.

“Ah! You are afraid—”

“I am afraid that if you were told what has happened you would try to run the show, and I don’t choose to let you. What did you see from your deck-chair, Mr. Merryman?”

A faint, an ineffably complaisant smile played about Mr. Merryman’s lips. He closed his eyes.

“What did I see?” he ruminated, and as if they had joined the tips of their fingers and thumbs round the table, his listeners were involved in a current of heightened tension. Alleyn saw Aubyn Dale wet his lips. Cuddy yawned nervously and McAngus again hid his hands in his armpits. Captain Bannerman was glassy-eyed. Father Jourdain’s head was inclined as if to hear a confession. Only Tim Makepiece kept his eyes on Alleyn rather than on Mr. Merryman.

“What did I see?” Mr. Merryman repeated. He hummed a meditative air and looked slyly round the table and said loudly, “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

“Nothing?”

“For a very good reason. I was sound asleep.”

He broke into a triumphant cackle of laughter. Alleyn nodded to Tim, who again went out.

McAngus, rather shockingly, joined in Mr. Merryman’s laughter. “The key witness!” he choked out, hugging himself. “The one who was to prove us all right or wrong. Fast asleep! What a farce!”

“It doesn’t affect you,” Dale pointed out. “He wouldn’t have seen you anyway. You’ve still got to account for yourself.”

“That’s right. That’s dead right,” Mr. Cuddy cried out.

“Mr. Merryman,” Alleyn said, “when did you wake up and go to your room?”

“I have no idea.”

“Which way did you go?”

“The direct way. To the entrance on the starboard side

“Who was in the lounge at that time?”

“I didn’t look.”

“Did you meet anyone?”

“No.”

“May I just remind you of your position out there?”

Alleyn went to the double doors. He jerked the spring blinds and they flew up with a sharp rattle.

The lights were out on deck. In the glass doors only the reflexion of the room and of the occupants appeared — faint, hollow-eyed, and cadaverous as phantoms, their own faces stared back at them.

From a region of darkness there emerged, through these images, another. It moved towards the doors, gaining substance. Mrs. Dillington-Blick was outside. Her hands were pressed against the glass. She looked in.

Mr. Merryman screamed like a ferret in a trap.

His chair overturned. He was round the table before anyone could stop him. His hands scrabbled at the glass pane.

“No. No! Go away. Go away! Don’t speak. If you speak I’ll do it again. I’ll kill you if you speak.”

Alleyn held him. It was quite clear to everybody that Mr. Merryman’s hands, starving against the glass like fish in an aquarium, were ravenous for Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s throat.

C
ape Farewell
steamed into Table Bay at dawn and hove to awaiting the arrival of her pilot cutter and the police launch from Cape Town. Like all ships coming in to port she had begun to withdraw into herself, conserving her personality against the assaults that would be made upon it. She had been prepared. Her derricks were uncovered, her decks broken by orderly litter. Her servants, at their appointed stations, were ready to support her.

Alleyn looked across neatly scalloped waters at the butt-end of a continent and thought how unlikely it was that he would ever take such another voyage. At Captain Bannerman’s invitation, he was on the bridge. Down on the dismantled boat-deck eight of the nine passengers were already assembled. They wore their shore-going clothes because
Cape Farewell
was to be at anchor for two days. Their deck-chairs had been stowed away, the hatch was uncovered and there was no-where for them to sit. Sea-gulls, always a little too true to type, squawked and dived, squabbled and swooped about the bilgewater of which
Cape Farewell
blandly relieved herself.

Two black accents appeared distantly on the surface of the Bay.

“There we are,” Captain Bannerman said, handing Alleyn his binoculars.

Alleyn said, “If you don’t mind I’m going to ask for the passengers to be sent to their sitting-room.”

“Do you expect any trouble?”

“None.”

“He won’t—” Captain Bannerman began and hesitated. “You don’t reckon he’ll cut up rough?”

“He is longing,” Alleyn said, “to be taken away.”

“Bloody monster,” the captain muttered uneasily. He took a turn round the bridge, and came back to Alleyn.

“There’s something I ought to say to you,” he said. “It doesn’t come easy and for that reason, I suppose, I haven’t managed to get it out. But it’s got to be said. I’m responsible for that boy’s death. I know. I should have let you act like you wanted.”

“I might just as easily have been wrong.”

“Ah! But you weren’t, and there’s the trouble.” The captain fixed his gaze on the approaching black accents. “Whisky,” he said, “affects different men in different ways. Some it makes affable, some it makes glum. Me, it makes pigheaded. When I’m on the whisky I can’t stomach any man’s notions but my own. How do you reckon we’d better handle this job?”

“Could we get it over before the pilot comes on board? My colleague from the Yard has flown here and will be with the Cape police. They’ll take charge for the time being.”

“I’ll have a signal sent.”

“Thank you, sir,” Alleyn said and went below.

A seaman was on guard outside the little hospital. When he saw Alleyn he unlocked the door and Alleyn went in.

Sitting on the unmade-up bed with its sharp mattress and smartly folded blankets, Mr. Merryman had adopted an attitude quite unlike the one to which his fellow passengers had become accustomed. His spine curved forward and his head depended from it as if his whole structure had wilted. Only the hands, firmly padded and sinewed, clasped between the knees, retained their eloquence. When Alleyn came in, Mr. Merryman looked up at him over the tops of his spectacles but said nothing.

“The police launch,” Alleyn said, “is sighted. I’ve come to tell you that I have packed your cases and will have the things you need sent with you. I shall not be coming in the launch but will see you later today. You will be given every opportunity to take legal advice in Cape Town or to cable instructions to your solicitors. You will return to England as soon as transport is available, probably by air. If you have changed your mind and wish to make a statement—”

Alleyn stopped. The lips had moved. After a moment, the voice, remotely tinged with arrogance, said, “…not in the habit of rescinding decisions — tedium of repetition. No.”

“Very well.”

He turned to go and was arrested by the voice.

“—a few observations. Now. No witnesses and without prejudice. Now.”

Alleyn said, “I must warn you, the absence of witnesses doesn’t mean that what you may tell me will not be given in evidence. It may be given in evidence. You understand that,” he added, as Mr. Merryman raised his head and stared blankly at him, “don’t you?” He took out his notebook and opened it. “You see, I shall write down anything that you say.”

Mr. Merryman said with a vigour that a moment ago would have seemed impossible, “Esmeralda. Ruby. Beryl. Bijou. Coralie. Marguerite.”

He was still feverishly repeating these names when Inspector Fox from the Yard, with members of the Cape Town police force, came to take him off.

For a little while Alleyn watched the police launch dip and buck across the bay. Soon the group of figures aboard her lost definition and she herself became no more than a receding dot. The pilot cutter was already alongside. He turned away and for the last time opened the familiar doors into the sitting-room.

They were all there, looking strange in their shore-going clothes.

Alleyn said, “In about ten minutes we shall be alongside. I’m afraid I shall have to ask you all to come to the nearest police-station to make your depositions. Later on you will no doubt be summoned to give evidence, and if that means an earlier return, arrangements will be made for transport. I’m sorry but that’s how it is. In the meantime I feel that I owe you an explanation, and perhaps something of an apology.” He paused for a moment.

Brigid said, “It seems to me the boot’s on the other foot.”

“And to me,” said Tim.

“I’m not so sure,” Mrs. Cuddy remarked. “We’ve been treated in a very peculiar manner.”

Alleyn said, “When I boarded this ship at Portsmouth I did so on the strength of as slight a piece of information as ever sent an investigating officer to sea. It consisted of the fragment of an embarkation notice for this ship and it was clutched in the hand of the girl who was killed on the wharf the night you sailed. It was at least arguable that this paper had been blown ashore or dropped or had come by some irrelevant means into the girl’s hand. I didn’t think so, your statements didn’t suggest it, but it was quite possible. My superior officers ordered me to conceal my identity, to make what enquiries I could, entirely under cover, to take no action that did not meet with the captain’s approval, and to prevent any further catastrophe. This last, of course, I have failed to do. If you consider them, these conditions may help to explain the events that followed. If the Flower Murderer was aboard, the obvious procedure was to discover which of you had an acceptable alibi for any of the times when these crimes were committed. I took the occasion of the fifteenth of January, when Beryl Cohen was murdered. With Captain Bannerman’s assistance I staged the alibi conversation.”

“Good Lord!” Miss Abbott exclaimed. She turned dark red and added, “Go on. Sorry.”

“The results were sent by radio to London and my colleagues there were able to confirm the alibis of Father Jourdain and Dr. Makepiece. Mr. Cuddy’s and Mr. McAngus’s were unconfirmed, but in the course of the conversation it transpired that Mr. McAngus had been operated upon for a perforated appendix on the nineteenth of January, which made him incapable of committing the crime of the twenty-fifth, when Marguerite Slatters was murdered. If, of course, he was speaking the truth. Mr. Cuddy, unless he was foxing, appeared to be unable to sing in tune, and one of the few things we did know about our man was his ability to sing.”

Mrs. Cuddy, who was holding her husband’s hand, said, “Well, really, Mr. Cuddy would be the last to pretend he was a performer! Wouldn’t you, dear?”

“That’s right, dear.”

“Mr. Dale,” Alleyn went on, “had no alibi for the fifteenth, but it turned out that on the twenty-fifth he was in New York. That disposed of him as a suspect.”

“Then why the hell,” Dale demanded, “couldn’t you tell me what was up?”

“I’m afraid it was because I formed the opinion that you were not to be relied upon. You’re a heavy drinker and you have been suffering from nervous strain. It would, I felt, be unsafe to trust to your discretion.”

“I must say!” Dale began angrily but Alleyn went on.

“It has never been supposed that a woman was responsible for these crimes, but”—he smiled at Miss Abbott— “one of the ladies, at least, had an alibi. She was in Paris on the twenty-fifth, at the same conference, incidentally, as Father Jourdain, who was thus doubly cleared. Until I could hear that the remaining alibis were proved, I couldn’t take any of the passengers except Father Jourdain and Dr. Makepiece into my confidence. I should like to say, now, that they have given me every possible help and I’m grateful as can be to both of them.”

Father Jourdain, who was very pale and withdrawn, raised his hand and let it fall again. Tim said they both felt they had failed at the crucial time. “We were sceptical,” he said, “about Mr. Alleyn’s interpretation of Biddy’s glimpse of the figure in the Spanish dress. We thought it must have been Mrs. Dillington-Blick. We thought that with all the women accounted for, there was nothing to worry about.”

“I saw it,” Brigid said, “and I told Mr. Alleyn I was sure it was Mrs. Dillington-Blick. That was my blunder.”

“I even heard the singing,” Father Jourdain said. “How could I have been so tragically stupid!”

“I gave Dennis the dress and pretended I didn’t,” Mrs. Dillington-Blick lamented.

Aubyn Dale looked with something like horror at Mr. Cuddy. “And you and I, Cuddy,” he pointed out, “listened to a murder and did nothing about it.”

Mr. Cuddy, for once, was not smiling. He turned to his wife and said, “Eth, I’m sorry. I’m cured, Eth. It won’t occur again.”

Everybody tried to look as if they didn’t know what he was talking about, especially Mrs. Dillington-Blick.

“O.K., dear,” said Mrs. Cuddy, and actually smiled.

Mr. McAngus leaned forward and said very earnestly, “I can, of course, see that I have not behaved at all helpfully. Indeed, now I come to think of it, I almost ask myself if I haven’t been suffering from some complaint.” He looked wistfully at Mrs. Dillington-Blick. “A touch of the sun perhaps,” he murmured and made a little bob at her. “It is,” he added after a moment’s added reflection, “very fussing to consider how one’s actions go on and on having the most distressing results. For instance, when I ventured to buy the doll I never intended—”

A steamer hooted and there, outside, was a funnel sliding past and beyond it a confusion of shipping and the wharves themselves.

“I never intended,” Mr. McAngus repeated, but he had lost the attention of his audience and did not complete his sentence.

Miss Abbott said in her harsh way, “It’s no good any of us bemoaning our intentions. I daresay we’ve all behaved stupidly one way or another. I know I have. I started this trip in a stupid temper. I’ve made stupid scenes. If it’s done nothing else it’s shown me what a fool I was. Control!” announced Miss Abbott. “And common sense! Complete lack of both leads to murder, it seems.”

“And of charity,” Father Jourdain added rather wearily.

“That’s right. And of charity,” Miss Abbott agreed snappishly. “And of proportion and I daresay of a hundred other things we’d be the better for observing.”

“How right you are!” Brigid said so sombrely that Tim felt obliged to put his arm round her.

Alleyn moved over to the glass doors and looked out. “We’re alongside,” he said. “I don’t think there’s anything more to say. I hope, when you go ashore, you still manage to find some sort of — what? compensation? — for all that has happened.”

Mrs. Dillington-Blick approached him. She offered him her hand, and when he took it leaned towards him and murmured, “I’ve had a blow to my vanity.”

“Surely not.”

“Were all your pretty ways purely professional?”

Alleyn suppressed a mad desire to reply, “As surely as yours were not,” and merely said, “Alas, I have no pretty ways. You’re much too kind.” He shook her hand crisply and released it to find that Brigid and Tim were waiting for him.

Brigid said, “I just wanted to tell you that I’ve discovered you haven’t got it all your own way.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re not the only one to find the real thing on a sea voyage.”

“Really?”

“Really.
Dead
sure.”

“I’m so glad,” Alleyn said and shook hands with them.

After that the Cuddys and Mr. McAngus came and made their odd little valedictions. Mr. Cuddy said that he supposed it took all sorts to make a world and Mrs. Cuddy said she’d always known there was something. Mr. McAngus, scarlet and inextricably confused, made several false starts. He then advanced his long anxious face to within a few inches of Alleyn’s and said in a rapid undertone, “You were perfectly right, of course. But I didn’t look in. No, No! I just stood with my back to the wall behind the door. It was something to be near her. Misleading, of course. That I
do
see. Good-bye.”

Aubyn Dale let Mr. McAngus drift away and then pulled in his waist and with his frankest air came up to Alleyn and extended his hand.

“No hard thoughts, I hope, old boy?”

“Never a one.”

“Good man. Jolly good.” He shook Alleyn’s hand with manly emphasis. “All the same,” he said, “dumb though it may be of me, I still
cannot
see why, at the end, you couldn’t warn us men. Before you fetched him in.”

“A., because you were all lying like flatfish. As long as you thought he was the innocent observer who could prove you lied, I had a chance of forcing the truth from you. And B., because one or more of you would undoubtedly have given the show away if you’d known he was guilty. He’s extremely observant.”

Dale said, “Well, I never pretended to be a diplomatic type,” and made it sound noble. Then, unexpectedly, he reddened. “You’re right about the drinks,” he said. “I’m a fool. I’m going to lay off. If I can. See you later.” He went out. Miss Abbott marched up to Alleyn.

She said, “I suppose what I’d like to say couldn’t be of less importance. However, you’ll just have to put up with it. Did you guess what was wrong with me, the night of the alibi conversation?”

“I fancied I did,” he said.