“Good. Let’s have it.”
“I followed her.”
“Who? Miss Pride?”
“That’s right. Now, look at it this way: I wake. Boiled owl. Want a drink of water. Very well. I get up. Raining cassandogs. All v’y fine. Look outer th’window. Cassandogs. And there she is with her bloody great brolly, falling herself in, down below. Left wheel and into the path. What’s a man going to do? Coupler aspirins and into some togs. Trench coat. Hat. Boots. See what I mean? You can’t trust her an inch…Where was I?”
“Following Miss Pride along the path to the enclosure.”
“Certainly. She’d gained on me. All right. Strategy of indirect approach. Keep under cover. Which I did. Just like you said, old boy. Perfectly correct. Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes.” He leered at Alleyn.
“Do you mean that you confronted her?”
“Me! No, thank you!”
“You mean you kept under cover until she’d gone past you on her way back to the hotel?”
“What I said. Or did I?”
“Then you went to the enclosure?”
“Nasherally.”
“You read the notice and threw it aside?”
“ ’Course.”
“And then? What did you do?”
“Came back.”
“Did you see Wally Trehern?”
The Major stared. “I did not.”
“Did you meet anyone?”
A vein started out on Barrimore’s forehead. Suddenly, he looked venomous.
“Not a soul,” he said loudly.
“Did you see anyone?”
“No!”
“You met Miss Cost. You must have done so. She was on the path a few minutes after Miss Pride got back. You either met her at the enclosure itself, or on the path. Which was it?”
“I didn’t see her. I didn’t meet her.”
“Will you sign a statement to that effect?”
“I’ll be damned if I do.” Whether through shock or by an astonishing effort of will, he had apparently got himself under control. “I’ll see you in hell first,” he said.
“And that’s your last word?”
“Not quite.” He got up and confronted Alleyn, staring into his face. “If there’s any more of this,” he said, “I’ll ring up the Yard and tell your O.C. you’re a prejudiced and therefore an untrustworthy officer. I’ll have you court-martialled, by God! Or whatever they do in your show.”
“I really think you’d better not,” Alleyn said mildly.
“No? I’ll tell them what’s no more than the case: you’re suppressing evidence against an old woman who seems to be a very particular friend. No accounting for taste.”
“’Major Barrimore,” Alleyn said, “you will not persuade me to knock your tongue down your throat, but you’d do yourself less harm if you bit it off.”
“I know what I’m talking about. You can’t get away from it. Ever since she came here she’s had her knife into poor old Cost. Accusing her of writing letters. Chucking stones. Telephone messages. Planting ornaments.”
“Yes,” Alleyn said. “Miss Pride was wrong there, wasn’t she? Miss Cost didn’t put the Green Lady in Miss Pride’s room. You did.”
Barrimore’s jaw dropped.
“Well,” Alleyn said. “Do you deny it? I shouldn’t, if I were you. It’s smothered in your fingerprints and so’s the paper round its neck.”
“You’re lying. You’re bluffing.”
“If you prefer to think so. There’s been a conspiracy between you against Miss Pride, hasn’t there? You and Miss Cost, with the Treherns in the background? You were trying to scare her off. Miss Cost started it with threatening messages pieced together from the local paper. You liked the idea and carried on with the word Death cut out of your Racing Supplement and stuck round the neck of the image. You didn’t have to ask Miss Cost for one. They’re for sale in your pub.”
“Get the hell out of here. Get out.”
Alleyn picked up his suitcase. “That’s all for the present. I shall ask you to repeat this conversation before a witness. In the meantime, I suggest that you keep off the whisky and think about the amount of damage you’ve done to yourself. If you change your mind about any of your statements I’m prepared to listen to you. You will see to it, if you please, that Miss Pride is treated with perfect civility during the few hours she is most unfortunately obliged to remain here as your guest.”
He had got as far as the door when the Major said: “Hold on. Wait a bit.”
“Well?”
“Daresay I went too far. Not myself. Fellah shouldn’t lose his temper, should he? What?”
“On the contrary,” said Alleyn, “the exhibition was remarkably instructive.” And went out.
And after all that, he thought, I suppose I should grandly cancel my room and throw myself on Coombe’s hospitality again. I won’t, though. It’s too damned easy and it’s probably exactly what Barrimore hopes I’ll do.
He collected his key at the office and went up to his room. It was now a quarter past three. Miss Emily would still be having her siesta. In an hour and forty-five minutes Detective Inspector Fox, Detective Sergeant Bailey and Detective Sergeant Thompson would arrive. Curtis, the pathologist, would be driving to Dunlowman under his own steam. Coombe had arranged for Dr. Mayne to meet him there. The nearest mortuary was at Dunlowman. Alleyn would be damned glad to see them all.
He unpacked his suitcase and began to write his notes on hotel paper. It was the first time he’d ever embarked on a case without his regulation kit, and he felt uncomfortable and amateurish. He began to wonder if, after all, he should hand it over to Fox or somebody else. Triumph for the gallant Major! he thought.
For a minute or two he indulged in what he knew to be fantasy. Was it, in the smallest degree, remotely possible that Miss Emily, inflamed by Miss Cost’s activities, could have seen her approaching, bolted into the enclosure, hidden behind the boulder and, under a sudden access of exasperation, hurled a rock at Miss Cost’s umbrella? It was not. But supposing for a moment that it was? What would Miss Emily then have done? Watched Miss Cost as she drowned in the pool; as her hair streamed out over the fall; as her dress inflated and deflated in the eddying stream? Taken another bit of rock and scraped out her own footprints, and walked back to the Boy-and-Lobster? And, where, all that time, was the Major? What became of his admission that he tore down the notice and threw it away? Suppose there was an arrest and a trial and defending counsel used Miss Emily as a counterblast? Could her innocence be established? Only, as things stood, by the careful presentation of the Major’s evidence; and the Major thought, or pretended to think, she was guilty. And, in any case, the Major was a chronic alcoholic.
He got up and moved restlessly about the room. A silly, innocuous print of anemones in a mug had been hung above the bed. He could have wrenched it down and chucked it, with as much fury as had presumably inspired the Major, into the wastepaper basket.
There must have been an encounter between Barrimore and Miss Cost. He had seen Miss Emily pass and repass, had come out of concealment and gone to the enclosure. By that time Miss Cost was approaching. Why, when he saw her, should he again take cover, and where? No: they must have met. What, then, did they say to each other in the pouring rain? Did she tell him she was going to retrieve the necklace? Or did he, having seen her approaching, let himself into the enclosure and hide behind the boulder? But why? And where, all this time, was Wally? Dr. Mayne and Miss Emily had both seen him, soon after half past seven. He had shouted at Miss Emily and then ducked out of sight. The whole damned case seemed to be littered with people that continually dodged in and out of concealment. What about Trehern? Out and about in the landscape with the rest of them? Inciting his son to throw rocks at a supposed Miss Emily? Dr. Mayne had not noticed him, but that proved nothing.