Surfeit of Lampreys (26 page)

“Lady Wutherwood,” he began, “do you think it is possible that somebody impersonated one of the twin brothers?”

She gave him an extraordinary look and, with a movement that startled them all by its abruptness and shocking irrelevancy, wrapped her arms across her breast and hugged herself. Then with a sidelong glance, horridly knowing, she nodded again very slightly.

“Was there any recognizable mark?” asked Alleyn.

Her right hand crept up to her neck and round to the back of it. She moved her head slightly and, catching sight of the nurse, hurriedly withdrew her hand and laid one of her fingers across her lips. And through Alleyn's thoughts ran the memory of three lines:

You seem to understand me

By each at once her choppy finger laying

Upon her skinny lips.

“Only,” thought Alleyn, “Lady Wutherwood's finger is not choppy nor are her lips skinny. Damnation, what the devil is all this?” And aloud he said: “He stood with his back towards you in the lift?”

“Yes.”

“And you noticed the mark on the back of his neck?

“I saw it.”

“Just there?” asked Alleyn pointing to the startled Fox.

“Just there. It was a sign. Ssh! He does that sometimes.”

“The Little Master?” asked Alleyn.

“Ssh! Yes. Yes.”

“Do you think it happened before you were there? The attack on your husband, I mean.”

“He sat huddled in the corner, not speaking. I knew he was angry. He called for me in an angry voice. He had no right to treat me as he did. He should have been more careful. I warned him of his peril.”

“Did you speak to him when you entered the lift?”

“Why should I speak to him?” This was unanswerable. Alleyn pressed his questions, however, and gathered that Lady Wutherwood had scarcely glanced at her husband, who was sitting in the corner of the lift with his hat over his eyes. With an unexpected turn for mimicry she slumped down in her own chair and sunk her chin on her chest. “Like that,” she said, looking slyly at them from under her brows. “He sat like that. I thought he was asleep.” Alleyn asked her when she first noticed that something was amiss. She said that when the lift was half-way down she turned to rouse him. She spoke to him and finally, thinking he was asleep, put her hand on his shoulder. He fell forward. When she had reached this point in her narrative she began to speak with great rapidity. Her words clattered together and voice became shrill. Dr. Kantripp gave the nurse a warning signal and they moved nearer to Lady Wutherwood.

“And there he was,” she gabbled, “with a ring in his eye and a red ribbon on his face. He was yawning. His mouth was wide,
wide
open. To see him like that! Wasn't it wonderful, Tinkerton? Tinkerton, when I saw him, I knew it was all true and I opened my mouth like Gabriel and I screamed and screamed—”

“She's off,” said Dr. Curtis gloomily, and rose to his feet. Lady Wutherwood's voice soared in the indecent crescendo of hysteria. Fox began methodically to shut the windows. Dr. Kantripp issued crisp orders to Tinkerton, who showed signs of following the example of her mistress and was thrust out of the room by the nurse. The nurse suddenly became a dominant figure, bending in an authoritative manner over her patient. Alleyn went to the sideboard, dipped a handkerchief in a jug of water, and looked on with distaste while Dr. Kantripp slapped it across and across the screaming face. The screams were broken by gasps and the disgusting sound of gnashing teeth. Kantripp who had his fingers on her wrist said loudly: “You'll have to bring me that jug of water, nurse, if you please.”

Alleyn fetched the water. Curtis said: “Unfortunate for the carpet,” and pulled a grimace. The nurse said in a firm, brightly genteel voice: “Now, Lady Wutherwood, I'm afraid we must pour this
all
over you.
Isn't
that a shame?” Lady Wutherwood scarcely seemed to be aware of this impending disaster, yet her paroxysms began to abate and in a few minutes she was led away by Dr. Kantripp and the nurse.

“Open the window again, Br'er Fox, if you please,” said Alleyn. “Let's get some air into the room. That was a singularly distasteful scene.”

“I suppose you know what you were both talking about,” said Dr. Curtis, “but I'm damned if I did.”

“What's your opinion of her, Curtis? No sign of epilepsy, was there?”

“None that I could see. Plain hysteria. That doesn't say there's nothing wrong mentally, of course.”

“No. What about it? Think she's ga-ga?”

“Ah,” said Dr. Curtis, “you're wondering if she's the answer to the detective's prayer for a nice homicidal lunatic.”

“Well,” said Alleyn, “what about it? Is she?”

Dr. Curtis pulled down his upper lip. “Well, my dear chap, you know how tricky it is. She seemed to speak very wildly, of course, although I must say you appeared to take an intelligent hand in the conversation.”

“What was she getting at, Mr. Alleyn?” asked Fox. “All that stuff about having a powerful protector and it
seemed
to be one of the twins. You don't seriously suggest anybody impersonated one of those young fellows?”

“I don't, Fox, but she does.”

“Then she
must
be dotty. What was the big idea, anyway?”

“It's so damned preposterous that I hardly dare to think I'm on the right track. However, I'll tell you what I imagine was the burden of her song.”

Dr. Kantripp returned. “The nurse and the maid are getting her to bed,” he said. “The maid will come along as soon as she can.”

“Right. Sit down, Dr. Kantripp, and tell us what you know of this lady's history.”

“Very little,” said Dr. Kantripp instantly. “I never saw her until to-night. As far as I can gather from Lady Charles and the others, there's a history of eccentricity. You'd better ask them about that.”

“Yes, of course,” agreed Alleyn with his air of polite apology, “but I thought that first of all I would just ask you. I suppose they didn't happen to mention whether the lady was interested in black magic.”

“Now, how the devil,” asked Dr. Kantripp, “did you get hold of that?”

“I was just going to explain. You heard her saying something about Marguerite Luondman of Gebweiler and Anna Ruffs of Douzy?”

“I've got them down in these notes,” said Fox, “though I didn't know how to spell them.”

“Well, unless my extremely unreliable memory is letting me down, those two were a brace of medieval witches.”

“Oh, lor',” said Fox disgustedly.

“Go on,” said Curtis.

“Taking them in conjunction with her suggestions that she had a powerful protector, that her husband had been punished, that she had warned him of his peril, that she recognized her lift conductor by a mark on his neck, that this was a sign from her Little Master, together with all the rest of her mumbo jumbo, I came to the preposterous conclusion that Lady Wutherwood thinks her husband was destroyed by a demon.”

“Oh no, really!” cried Dr. Curtis. “It's a little too much.”

“Have you ever come across a book called
Compendium Maleficorum
?”

“I have not. Why?”

“I don't mind betting Lady Wutherwood's got a copy.”

“You think she's been mucking about with some sort of occultism and gone so far that she actually has hallucinations or illusions.”

“Is it so very unusual among women of her age, restless by temperament, to become hag-ridden by the bogus-occult?”

“You come across some funny things,” said Fox, “in these fortune-telling cases. I suppose you might say this is only going a step further.”

“That's it, Br'er Fox. If it's genuine.”

“You surely don't believe—” began Dr. Kantripp.

“Of course not. I mean, if Lady Wutherwood's apparent condition is genuine, she's just another gullible woman with a taste for the occult. But is her condition genuine?” Alleyn looked at Dr. Kantripp. “What do you say?”

“I should like to see more of her and hear more of her history before venturing on an opinion,” said Dr. Kantripp uneasily.

“And also,” murmured Alleyn, “you would like, I fancy, to consult with the family.”

“My dear Alleyn!”

“I'm not trying to be offensive. Please don't think that. But as well as being the Lampreys' family doctor you are, aren't you, personally rather attached to them?”

“I think everybody who gets involved with the Lampreys ends by falling for them,” said Dr. Kantripp. “They've got something. Charm, I suppose. You'll fall for it yourself if you see much of them.”

“Shall I?” asked Alleyn vaguely. “That conjures up a lamentable picture, doesn't it? The investigating officer who fell to doting on his suspects. Now, look here. You are two eminent medical gents. I should be extremely grateful for your opinion on the lady who has just made such a very dramatic exit. Without prejudice and all that which way would you bet? Was the lady shamming or was she not? Come now, it won't be used against you. Give me a snap judgment, do.”

“Well,” said Dr. Curtis, “on sight I—it's completely unorthodox to say so, of course—but on sight and signs I incline to think she was not shamming. There was no change in her eye. The characteristic look persisted. And when you turned away there were no sharp glances to see how you were taking it. If she was shamming it was a well-sustained effort.”

“I thought so,” said Alleyn. “There was no ‘See how mad I am' stuff. And there was, didn't you think, that uncanny thread of logic that one finds in the mentally unsound? But of course she may be as eccentric as a rabbit on skates and not come within the meaning of the act. ‘It is quite impossible,' as Mr. Taylor says, ‘to define the term “insanity” with any precision.”

“In this case,” said Kantripp, “you needn't try. It doesn't arise.”

“If,” said Fox in his stolid way, “she'd killed her husband?”

“Yes,” agreed Alleyn, “if she had done that?”

Dr. Kantripp put his hands in his trousers pockets, took them out again, and walked restlessly round the room.

“If she had done that,” Alleyn repeated, “the question of her sanity or degree of insanity would be of the very first importance.”

“Yes, yes, that's obvious. As a matter of fact I understand that she has paid visits to some sort of nursing-home. You can find out where and what it is, no doubt. Frid seemed to suggest there had been a bit of mental trouble at some time but—see here, Alleyn, do you suspect her of murder? Have you any reason to suppose there's a motive?”

“No more reason, perhaps, than I have for suspecting motive with the Lampreys.”

“But, damn it all,” Dr. Kantripp burst out, “you can't possibly think any one of those delightful lunatics is capable— To my mind it's absolutely grotesque to imagine for one moment—I mean, look at them.”

“Look at the field, if it comes to that,” said Alleyn. “The Lampreys, Lady Katherine Lobe, Lady Wutherwood—”

“And the servants.”

“And the servants. The nurse, the butler, the cook, and the housemaids belonging to this flat; and the chauffeur and lady's maid belonging to the Wutherwoods. Oh, and a bailiff's man at present in possession here.”

“Good Lord!”

“Yes. I expect when Messrs. Lane & Eagle learn in the morning's paper that Lord Charles has come in for the peerage, they will slacken the pressure. But in the meantime there is Mr. Grimball, the bum-baliff, to be added to the list of possibles. A fanciful speculation might suggest that Mr. Grimball fell for the Lamprey charm and, moved by remorse and distaste for his job, altruistically decided to murder Lord Wutherwood; or, if you like, that Mr. Grimball dispatched Lord Wutherwood as an indirect but certain method of collecting the debt.”