Surfeit of Lampreys (16 page)

“Yes,” said Alleyn.

“Yes, I'm so sorry to make a nuisance of myself, but I thought I'd just ask if it was likely to be a very long time before you began to pitch into us. I'm Henry Lamprey.”

“How do you do,” said Alleyn politely. “We'll be as quick as we can. Not long now.”

“Oh, good. It's just that my mother is rather exhausted, poor thing, and I think she ought to go to bed. That is, of course, if my Aunt Violet can be moved off the bed or even out of the room which I must say seems to be doubtful…What is the right technique, do you know, with widows of murdered men who are also one's near relations?”

“Is Lady Charles with Lady Wutherwood at the moment?” asked Alleyn. Henry came out on the landing and shut the door. He stood in the shadow of the lift.

“Yes,” he said. “My mother is in there and so is Tinkerton who is my Aunt Violet's maid. It appears that my Aunt Violet is in a sort of coma or trance and really doesn't notice who goes or comes. But you won't want to be bothered with all that. I was only going to suggest that if you could see my mother first and then Aunt Violet it would give us a chance to bundle Mama off to bed.”

“I'll see what can be done about it. I'm afraid in this sort of business—”

“Oh, I know,” agreed Henry. “The rest of us are all quite prepared for the dawn to rise on our lies and evasions.”

“I hope not,” said Alleyn.

“Actually we are a truthful family, only the things that happen to us are so peculiar that nobody ever believes in them. Still, I expect you've got a sort of winnowing ear for people's testimonies and will know in a flash if we try any hanky-panky.”

“I expect so,” agreed Alleyn gravely. From the shadow of the lift Henry seemed to look solemnly at him.

“Yes,” he said. “I'm afraid I expect so too. My father suggested that you ought to be offered a drink and some sandwiches but the rest of us knew you wouldn't break bread with suspected persons. Or is that only in books? Anyway, sir, if you would like us to send something out here or if you would like to join us for a drink, we do hope you will.”

“That's very kind of you,” said Alleyn, “but we don't on duty.”

“Or if there's anything at all that we can do.”

“I don't think there's anything at the moment. Oh, as you're here, I may as well ask you. Who is the owner of those gloves?”

“What gloves?” Henry's voice sounded blank.

“A pair of heavy driving gloves with stiff gauntlets.”

“Lined with rather disgusting fur?”

“Fur-lined, yes.”

“Sound like mine,” said Henry. “Where are they?”

“I'll return them to you. My colleague took them into the flat.”

“Where did you find them?”

“In the lift,” said Alleyn.

“But I wasn't in the lift.”

“No?”

“No. I expect…” Henry stopped short.

“Yes?”

“Nothing. I can't imagine how they got there. You needn't return them, sir. I don't really think I want them any more.”

“I don't think you would,” agreed Alleyn, “if you saw them.”

Henry's face shone like ivory on that dimly lit landing. His eyes were like black coals under the cold whiteness of his forehead.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“They are stained.”

“Stained? With what?”

“It looks like blood.”

Henry turned on his heel and went blindly into the flat. Fox returned with Bailey.

“I want to go all over the inside of the lift, Bailey,” said Alleyn. “Try the stops and the doorknobs—everything. Get Thompson to take a close-up shot of the seat and wall.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And, Fox, we'll go over your notes and then I think I'd better see the family.”

The twins stood side-by-side on the hearthrug. The lamplight glinted on their blonde heads. They wore grey flannel suits and dark green pull-overs that their mother had knitted for them. Their hands were in their pockets; their heads were tilted slightly to one side. Their faces were screwed into an expression of apologetic attentiveness. From her stool by the fire Roberta watched them and felt a cold pang of alarm. For behind the twins Roberta saw not the coal fire of a London grate but the sweetly aromatic logs that burnt in the drawing-room at Deepacres in New Zealand. And with the sharpest emphasis of memory she heard each twin confess that he had taken out the forbidden big car, and had driven it through a water-race into a bank. She saw herself sitting mum, knowing all the time that it was Stephen who had taken the car while Colin was indoors. She heard herself asking Colin privately why he had made this Quixotic gesture and she again heard his answer. “It's a kind of arrangement we have!” “Always?” she had asked him, and Colin, rumpling up his fair hair, had answered, “Oh, no. Only when there's a really major row.” “A twinny sort of arrangement.” Roberta had said, and Colin had agreed. “Yes, that's the idea. As between twins.” So insistent was this memory that the past was clearer for a moment than the present and she was unaware of the voices in the drawing-room. Her mind seemed to change gear and she found herself thinking of the Lampreys as strangers. “I don't know what they are like,” thought Roberta in her cold panic. “I have no knowledge of their reality. I have fitted their words and actions into my own idea of them but my idea may be quite wrong.” And she began to wonder confusedly if anybody had a complete secret reality or if each layer of thought merely represented the level of someone else's idea of the thinker. “This won't do,” thought Roberta. “Stop!” Her mind changed gear again and Lord Charles's voice came back, familiar, gentle, a voice she knew and loved.

“Now listen to me,” Lord Charles was saying. “There is going to be no more of this. One of you went down in the lift with Violet and with him. Which was it?”

“I d-did,” said Stephen.

“Shut up,” said Colin. “I did.”

“Do you realize,” said Henry, “that one of you is making things look just about as murky as may be for the other?”

“If you imagine,” said Lord Charles, “that the police are to be checked by a childish trick of this sort, you are…” He paused and with a deflated air added hurriedly: “you simply couldn't be more mistaken.”

“What about fingerprints?” said Frid.

“I didn't touch anything,” said Colin.

“I kept my hands in my p-pocket,” said Stephen.

“Whichever it was, must have worked the lift,” Frid pointed out.

“The lift's been used twice since then,” said Stephen.

“Twice, at least,” said Colin. “There won't be any fingerprints worth talking about.”

“At any moment now,” Henry said, “Alleyn will come in and begin to ask questions. As soon as he sees what you are up to he'll talk to you separately. If you think you've one sickly misbegotten hope of taking him in, you're bigger bloody fools than anybody outside a bug-house.”

“Mummy'll be back in a minute,” said Frid. “Don't let's have this going on when she comes in.”

Lord Charles said: “Stephen, did you commit this crime?”

“No, Father, I didn't.”

“Colin?”

“No, Father, honestly.”

“On your most solemn word of honour, both of you.”

“No, Father,” repeated the twins. And Stephen added: “We're not sorry he's dead, of course, but it's a filthy way to k-kill anybody.”

“Lousy,” agreed Colin cheerfully.

“I know very well that it seems grossly stupid and fantastic to ask you,” said Lord Charles. “Of course you are quite incapable of it. What I—I implore you to believe is that it is the last word in dangerous lunacy for an innocent man to lie to the police.”

“That's what I keep telling Colin,” said Stephen.

“Then why don't you take your own advice?” asked Colin. “Don't be a fool. I went down in the lift, Father, and Stephen stayed in the drawing-room.”

“Which is a complete and sweltering lie,” added Stephen.

“So there you are,” said Frid. “Come off it, twins. It's jolly clever, we all admit it's jolly clever, but this is a serious affair. You can't pit your puny wits against the master brain of Handsome Alleyn. You know, chaps, if it wasn't for the fact that Uncle G. was murdered, it'd be rather a big moment for me having Handsome Alleyn in the flat. I've nursed an illicit passion for that man ever since the Gospell murder. Is he really the answer to the maiden's prayer, Henry?”

“Do stop being crisp and modish, Frid,” begged Henry irritably. “You know that, like all the rest of us, you're nearly dead with terror.”

“No, I'm not, honestly. I may wake up in the night bathed in a cold sweat but at the moment I'm sort of stimulated. Only I wish one of the twins would stop being mad.”

“I wish to God you'd all stop being mad,” said Lord Charles with sudden violence. “I feel as if I were looking at you and listening to you for the first time. Someone in this flat killed my brother.”

There was an awkward silence broken by Frid.

“But, Daddy,” said Frid, “you didn't like Uncle G. Now did you?”

“Be quiet, Frid,” ordered Henry. “You don't think any of the family did it, do you, Father?”

“
Good God, of course I don't!”

“Well, who does everybody think did it?” asked Frid brightly.

“Tinkerton,” said Colin.

“Or Giggle,” said Stephen.

“You only say Tinkerton or Giggle because you don't know them as well as Baskett and the maids,” Henry pointed out.

“And Nanny,” added Frid.

“If I'd been Uncle G.'s or Aunt V.'s servant,” said Colin, “I'd have murdered both of them long ago. I must say I'm rather glad it's going to be Alleyn. If we've got to be grilled it may as well be by a gent. But then I'm a snob, of course.”

“I th-think it'll be rather uncomfortable,” said Stephen. “I'd rather it was the old-fashioned sort that says: ‘ 'Ere, 'ere, 'ere, wot's all this?' ”

“Which shows how ignorant you are,” said Frid. “No detective speaks like that. But I
do
think, Daddy, that Henry ought to ring up Nigel Bathgate. You know how he raves about Mr. Alleyn. He's his Watson and glories in it.”

“Why should I ring him up?” Henry demanded. “Ring him up yourself.”

“Well, I will presently. I think it's only kind.”

“What's Alleyn like?” asked Colin.

“Oh, very nice,” said Henry. “Sort of old-world without any Blimpishness. Rather frighteningly polite and quiet.”

“Hell!” said Stephen.

The drawing-room door opened and Patch came in wearing pyjamas and a dressing-gown. Her hair had been lugged off her forehead by Nanny with such ferocious emphasis that her eyebrows were slightly raised. Two hard plaits hung between her shoulders. Her round face shone and she smelt of bath-powder. To Roberta she was a mere enlargement of herself at twelve and still very much of the nursery.

“Mike's asleep,” said Patch, “and I've never been wider awake in my life. Please, Daddy, don't send me back. My teeth keep chattering.”

“Oh, Patch, darling!” said Lord Charles helplessly. “I'm so sorry. Come up to the fire.”

“You can't face the police like that, Patch,” said Frid, “You're too fat for
négligé
appearances.”

“I don't care. I'm going to sit by darling Roberta and get warm. Daddy, are the police here now?”

“Yes.”

“Where's Mummy?”

“With Aunt Violet.”

“Was Uncle G. murdered? Nanny's being so maddening. She won't talk about it.”

“Yes, he was,” said Frid impatiently. “It's no good trying to fob Patch off with a vague story, Daddy. Uncle G.'s been dotted one, Patch, and he's dead.”