“Are you keen on war dances, Mr. Bathgate?” said a voice beyond the smoke.
“Hell’s boots!” panted Nigel, and sat down on the trophy.
Inspector Alleyn bore down on him through the smoke. “Two minds with but a single thought,” he said politely. “I was just going to try a little rescue work myself.”
Nigel was speechless, but he got off the papers.
Alleyn picked them up and looked them over.
“These are old acquaintances,” he said, “but I think we’ll keep them this time. Thank you very much, Mr. Bathgate.”
Chapter X
Black Fur
To the members of the house-party at Frantock the days before the inquest seemed to have avoided the dimensions of time and slipped into eternity.
Alleyn refused Sir Hubert’s offer of a room, and was believed to be staying at the Frantock Arms in the village. He appeared at different times and in different places, always with an air of faint preoccupation, unvaryingly courteous, completely remote. Rosamund Grant was reported by Doctor Young to be suffering from severe nervous shock, and still kept to her room. Mrs. Wilde was querulous and inclined to be hysterical. Arthur Wilde spent most of his time answering her questions and listening to her complaints, and running useless errands for her. Tokareff drove them all demented with his vehement expostulations, and seriously annoyed Angela by suddenly developing a tendency to make comic opera love to her. “He is mad, of course,” she said to Nigel on Wednesday morning in the library. “Imagine it! A flirtation with a charge of murder hanging over all our heads.”
“All Russians seem a bit dotty to me,” rejoined Nigel. “Look at Vassily. Do you think now that he did it?”
“I’m certain he didn’t. The servants say he was in and out of the pantry the whole time, and Roberts, the other man, says he was speaking to Vassily in there two minutes before the gong sounded.”
“Then why did he do a bolt?”
“Nerves, I should think,” said Angela thoughtfully. “Uncle Herbert says all Russians of Vassily’s age and class are terrified of the police.”
“The others all think he did it,” Nigel ventured.
“Yes, and Marjorie says so about forty times a day. Oh, dear, how short-tempered I’m getting!”
“You’re a — a wonder,” finished Nigel nervously.
“Don’t you start!” said Miss North cryptically. She was silent for a moment, and then burst out suddenly: “Oh, poor Charles! poor old Charles — it’s so horrible to be thankful they’ve taken him away. We were always so sorry when he went,” and, for the first time since the tragedy, she burst into a fit of uncontrollable sobbing.
Nigel ached to put his arms round her. He stood above her muttering. “Angela dear. Please, Angela—”
She held out a hand to him gropingly, and he took it and rubbed it between both of his. A voice sounded in the hall outside, and Angela sprang to her feet and ran out of the room.
Following her, Nigel bumped into Alleyn in the hall.
“Wait a second,” said the detective. “I wanted to see you. Come into the library.”
Nigel hesitated, and then followed him.
“What’s the matter with Miss North?” asked Alleyn.
“What’s the matter with all of us?” rejoined Nigel. “It’s enough to drive anyone dippy.”
“It’s a pity about you!” commented Alleyn tartly. “How would you like to be a detective, the lousiest job in creation?”
“I wouldn’t mind changing with you,” said Nigel.
“Wouldn’t you, then! Well, you can have a stab at it since you’re so eager. Every sleuth ought to have a tame half-wit, to make him feel clever. I offer you the job, Mr. Bathgate — no salary, but a percentage of the honour and glory.”
“You’re very good,” said Nigel, who never knew quite where he was with Alleyn. “Am I to conclude I have been degummed from the list of suspects?”
“Oh, yes,” groaned the detective wearily. “You’re cleared. Ethel the Intelligent spoke to you half a second before the lights went out.”
“Who is Ethel the Intelligent?”
“The second housemaid.”
“Oh, yes,” cried Nigel, “I remember; she was actually there when the lights went out. I’d quite forgotten her.”
“Well, you are a bright lad. A pretty girl establishes your alibi for you, and you forget all about her.”
“I suppose Mr. and Mrs. Wilde are safe enough, too?” said Nigel.
“See Florence the Farsighted. You do, do you? Shall we take a stroll to the gate?”
“If you like. A gentleman in a mackintosh will be there pretending to botanize in the iron railings.”
“One of my myrmidons. Never mind, a walk will do you good.”
Nigel consented, and they went out into the thin sunshine.
“Mr. Bathgate,” said Alleyn quietly, “every single member of this household is concealing something from me. You are yourself, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I say. Look here, I’m going to be frank with you. This murder was committed from inside the house. Roberts had the front door locked at six-thirty, a regular trick of his apparently, and anyway it had rained before six o’clock, was fine until eight, and after that there was a hard frost. Your crime books will have told you that under those conditions the gardens of the great are as an open book to us sleuths. His murderer was inside the house.”
“What about Vassily? Why hasn’t he been caught?”
“He has been caught.”
“What!”
“Certainly, and released again. We managed to keep your brothers of the penny press quiet over that.”
“You say he didn’t do it.”
“Do I?”
“Well, don’t you?”
“I say you are all, each one of you, hiding something from me.” Nigel was silent.
“It’s a horrible affair,” continued Alleyn after a pause, “but believe me you can do no good, no manner of good, by keeping me in the dark. Look here, Mr. Bathgate, you are a poor actor. I saw you watching Mrs. Wilde and Miss Grant. There’s something there that hasn’t come out and I fancy you know what it is.”
“I — oh Lord, Alleyn, it’s all so beastly. Anyway, if I do know anything, it doesn’t amount to a row of beans.”
“Forgive me, but you don’t know in the least little bit what it may amount to. Had you met Mrs. Wilde before you came here?”
“No.”
“Miss Grant?”
“Once — at my cousin’s house.”
“Had your cousin ever talked to you about either of them?”
“Apart from casually mentioning them, never.”
“How far had this flirtation with Mrs. Wilde gone?”
“I don’t know — I mean — how do you know—?”
“He held her in his arms on Saturday night.”
Nigel felt and looked extremely uncomfortable.
“If he had her in his room,” said Alleyn brutally.
“It was not in his room,” said Nigel, and could have bitten his tongue out.
“Ah! Then where was it? Come now, I’ve got under your guard. Better tell me.”
“How do you know he held her in his arms?”
“ ‘You have just told me, said the great detective quietly,’ ” quoted Alleyn. “I know because his dinner jacket was significantly stained with her liquid powder. Presumably it was clean when he arrived, and he had not changed on the night he was killed. Therefore, it was on Saturday night. Am I right?”
“I suppose so.”
“It must have been before dinner. When did you handle the Manlicher in the gunroom?”
“Oh, hell!” said Nigel. “I’ll come clean.”
He gave as sparse an account as he could of the duologue between Rankin and Mrs. Wilde. By the time he had finished they had crossed the little footbridge in the wood and were in sight of the gates.