Surfeit of Lampreys (20 page)

“That will do, Patricia.”

“Well, anyway—”

“It'll be a very nasty shock for him, m'lady,” said Nanny. “Waking him up in the middle of the night and telling him his uncle's been done away with.”

“I'll explain, Nanny,” said Lady Charles.

“You needn't bother, Mummy,” said Patch. “When I came out Mike was looking in the playbox for that magnifying glass you gave him. We guessed it was a murder and he thought he'd like to do some private detection.”

“Honestly!
” said Frid, and burst out laughing.

“Look here, Nanny,” said Alleyn. “Suppose you take me along to the nursery and stand by. If you think I'm exciting him you can order me out.”

Nanny pulled down the corners of her mouth. “It's for his mother to say, sir,” she said.

“I think I'll just explain and bring him here to see you, Mr. Alleyn.”

Alleyn stood up. The movement had the effect of calling them all to attention. Lady Charles rose and the men with her. She faced Alleyn. There was a brief silence.

Alleyn said: “I think, if you don't mind, I'll go with Nanny. Of course if they think it would be advisable, his parents may be present while I speak to him.” Some shade of inflection in his voice seemed to catch the attention of the parents. Lady Charles said: “Yes, I think I'd rather…” hesitated, and glanced at her husband.

“I'm sure Mr. Alleyn will be very considerate with Mike,” he said and, behind the somewhat stylized courtesy which he was beginning to recognize as a characteristic of Lord Charles, Alleyn thought he heard a note of warning. Perhaps Lady Charles heard it too for she said quickly: “Yes, of course. I expect Mike will be
too
thrilled. Nanny, will you wake him and explain?”

Alleyn went to the door and opened it. “I don't expect we shall be very long,” he said.

Henry laughed unpleasantly. Frid said: “When you've met Mike, Mr. Alleyn, you'll realize that no one on earth could prime him with any story.”

“Don't be an ass, Frid,” said Colin.

“What you may not realize,” said Henry suddenly, “is that Mike is a most accomplished little liar. He'll think he's telling the truth but if an agreeably dramatic invention occurs to him he'll use it.”

“How old is Michael?” Alleyn asked Lady Charles.

“Eleven.”

“Eleven? A splendid age. Do you know that in the police-courts we regard small boys between the ages of ten and fifteen as ideal witnesses? They almost top the list.”

“Really?” said Henry. “And what type of witness do the experts put at the bottom of the list?”

“Oh,” said Alleyn with his politely deprecating air, “young people, you know. Young people of both sexes between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six.”

“Why?” asked the twins and Henry and Frid simultaneously.

“The text-books say that they are generally rather unobservant,” Alleyn murmured. “Too much absorbed in themselves and their own reactions. May we go, Nanny?”

Without a word Nanny led the way into the hall. Alleyn followed her and shut the door but not before he heard Frid say: “And that, my dears, takes us off with a screech of laughter and a couple of loud thumps.”

CHAPTER TEN

M
IKE WAS FAST ASLEEP
and therefore looked his best. The treachery of sleep is seen in the circumstances of its adding years to the middle-aged and taking them away from children. Mike's cheeks were filmy with roses, his lips were parted freshly and his lashes made endearing smudges under his delicate eyelids. His mouse-coloured hair was tousled and still moist from his bath. Near to his face one hand, touchingly defenseless, lay relaxed across the handle of a Woolworth magnifying glass. He looked about seven years old and alarmingly innocent. Nanny, scowling hideously, smoothed the bed-clothes and laid a gnarled finger against Mike's cheek. Mike made a babyish sound and curled down closer in his bed.

“Damn' shame to wake him,” Alleyn said under his breath.

“Needs must, I suppose,” said Nanny, unexpectedly gracious. “Michael.”

“Yes, Nanny?” said Mike and opened his eyes.

“Here's a gentleman to see you.”

“Gosh! Not a doctor!”

“No,” said Nanny grimly, “a detective.”

Mike lay perfectly still and stared at Alleyn. Alleyn sat on the edge of the bed.

“I'm so sorry to rouse you up,” he said civilly, “but you know what these cases are. One must follow the trail while it's fresh.”

Mike swallowed and then, with admirable nonchalance, said: “I know.”

“I wonder if you'd mind going over one or two points with me.”

“O.K.,” breathed Mike. He uttered a luxurious sigh. “Then it
is
murder,” he said.

“Well, it looks a bit like it!”

“Golly!” said Mike. “What a whizzer!” He appeared to think deeply for a moment and then said: “I say, sir, have you got a clue?”

“At the moment,” said Alleyn, “I am completely baffled.”

“Jiminy cricket!”

“I know.”

“Well, it wouldn't be any of us, of course.”

“Of course not,” said Nanny. “It was some good-for-nothing out in the street. One of these Nazzys. The police will soon have them locked up.”

“An outside job,” said Mike deeply.

“That's what we're working on at the moment,” agreed Alleyn. “But there are one or two points.” He looked at Mike's parted lips and brilliant eyes and thought: “I must keep this unreal and how the devil I'm to do it's a problem. No element of danger but plenty of fictitious excitement.” He said, “As a matter of fact it's quite possible that the bird has flown to a hide-out miles and miles away from here. We just want to check one or two points and I think you can help us. You were in the flat this afternoon, weren't you?”

“Yes. I was having a bit of a go with my Hornby train. Giggle helped me. He's absolutely wizard with trains. Being a motor expert helps, of course.”

“Yes, of course. Where do you do it? Not much room in here, is there?”

Mike shrugged his shoulders. “Hopeless,” he said. “We used the passage. And then, just when he'd got the coupling mended and everything, Giggle had to go.”

“So I suppose you simply carried on without him?”

“As a matter of fac', I didn't. Ackshully, Robin was going to play with me. You see I had to give Uncle G. the parcel.” Mike looked out of the corners of his eyes at Nanny. “I say,” he said, “it's pretty funny to think of, isn't it? I mean, where
is
dead?”

“Heaven,” said Nanny firmly. “Your Uncle Gabriel's as happy as the day's long. Well content, he is, you may depend upon it.”

“Well, Henry said this afternoon that Uncle G. could go to hell for all he cared.”

“Nonsense. You didn't hear Henry properly.”

“Where was the parcel?” asked Alleyn.

“In Mummy's room. Just by the screen inside the door. I couldn't find it when Robin said Mummy wanted me to give it to Uncle G.”

“When was that?” asked Alleyn, taking out his cigarette case.

“Oh, before. After they'd done their charade. The others were horribly waxy because Uncle G. didn't look at the charade. Stephen said he was an old—”

“That'll do, Michael.”

“Well, Nanny, he did. I heard him when I was looking for the parcel.”

“Did you give the parcel up as a bad job?” asked Alleyn.

Mike shrugged again. It was a gesture that turned him momentarily into a miniature of his mother. “Sort of,” he admitted. “I went back to Giggle and the Hornby and then I saw the parcel. We were by the door.”

“Was anyone in the bedroom?”

“Mummy and Aunt V. and Aunt Kit had come in. They were gassing away behind the screen.”

“So what did you do?”

“Oh, I just scooped it up and took it to Uncle G. in the drawing-room. Uncle G. looked as waxy as hell.”

“Michael!”

“Well, sorry, Nanny, but he did. He didn't say anything. Not thank you or anything like that. He just goggled at me and Daddy told me to put it down and bunk. So I bunked. Patch said they had the manners of hogs and I think they had too. Not Daddy, of course.”

“Don't speak like that, Michael,” said Nanny “It's silly and rude. Mr. Alleyn doesn't want to hear—”

“I
say
.” Mike sat up abruptly. “
You're not Handsome Alleyn, are you?
”

Alleyn's face turned a brilliant red. “You've been reading the lower type of newspapers, young Lamprey.”

“I say, you are! Gosh! I read all about the Gospell murder in the
True Detective
! A person in my form at school knew a person whose father is a friend of—Gosh, of yours. He bucked about it for weeks. He won't buck much longer, ha-ha. I say, sir, I'm sorry I mentioned that name. You know—H.A.”

“That's all right.”

“I suppose you think it's a pretty feeble sort of nickname to have. At school,” said Mike lowering his voice, “some people call me Potty. Potty Lamprey.”

“One lives down these things.”

“I know. Ackshully, I suppose you wouldn't remember a person called N. Bathgate. He's a reporter.”

“Nigel Bathgate? I know him very well indeed.”

Mike achieved an admirable expression of detachment. “So,” he said off-handedly, “as a matter of fac' do we. He told me he called you Hand—you know—as a sort of joke. In the paper. To make you waxy.”

“He did.”

Mike giggled and gave Alleyn a sidelong glance.

“I suppose there's not much hope nowadays,” he said, “for anybody to get into detection. I suppose you have to be rather super at everything.”

“Are you thinking of it?”

“As a matter of fac' I am, rather. But I suppose I'm too much of a fool to be any use.”

“It's largely a matter of training. What sort of memory have you got?”

“He's the most forgetful boy
I
ever had the training of,” said Nanny. Mike gave Alleyn a man-to-mannish look.

“Let's see how you shape,” Alleyn suggested. “Have a stab at telling me as closely as you can remember just exactly what happened, let's say from the time you picked up the parcel and onwards. Go along inch by inch and tell me exactly what you saw and heard and smelt for the next fifteen minutes. That's the sort of stuff you have to do at this game.” He opened his notebook. “We'll say you're an expert witness and I'm taking your statement. Off you go. You picked up the parcel? With which hand?”

“With my left hand because I had a Hornby signal in my right.”

“Good. Go on.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

“Well, I stepped over the rails. Giggle was fitting two curved bits together. I said I wouldn't be a jiffy and he said ‘All Right, Master Mike.' And I walked down the passage past the curtain of Robin's room. Robin's room is generally a sort of hall in 26 but Mummy had the curtains put there to make a room and a passage. Is this the right way, sir?”

“Yes.”

“The curtains were shut. They're a kind of blue woolly stuff. The door at the end of the passage was shut. I opened it and went onto the landing.”

“Did you shut the door?”

“I don't think so,” said Mike simply. “I hardly ever do. No, I didn't, because I heard Giggle winding up the engine of the Hornby and I looked back at him.”

“Good. Then?”

“Well, I crossed the landing.”

“Was the lift up?”

“Yes, it was. You can see the light through the glass in the tops of the doors. There wasn't anybody on the landing or outside the lift. Not standing up, anyway. So I went into the hall of No. 25 and I don't suppose I shut the door. I'm afraid I'll be a bit feeble if you say I've got to describe the hall because there were all the things the others had had for their charade. They'd just sort of bished them into the cupboard and they were bulging out and there were coats lying on the table and…” Mike stopped and screwed up his eyes.

“What is it?”

“Well, sir, I'm just sort of trying to
see
.”

“That's right,” said Alleyn quietly. “You know your brain is really rather like a camera. It takes a photograph of everything you see, only very often you never develop the photograph. Try to develop the photograph your brain took of the hall.”