“Well,” said Alleyn after a pause, “that’s a very curious story, Mrs. Pouting.” He looked from one to the other of the two servants, who still kept up their air of contained deference. “What’s your interpretation of it?” he asked.
Mrs. Pouting did not reply, but she slightly cast up her eyes and her silence was ineffably expressive. Alleyn turned to Caper.
“Mrs. Pouting and I differ a little, sir,” said Caper, exactly as if they had enjoyed an amiable discussion on the rival merits of thick and thin soup. “Mrs. Pouting, I understand, considers that Dr. Hart and Mrs. Lisse are adventurers who were working together to entrap Mr. Nicholas Compline, but that Dr. Hart had become jealous and that they had fallen out. Mrs. Pouting considers that Mrs. Lisse took advantage of Dr. Hart’s two attempts on Mr. Nicholas to kill Mr. William and make it look as if Dr. Hart had done it, mistaking him for his brother. With a mercenary motive, sir.”
“Extremely Machiavellian!” said Alleyn. “What do you think?”
“Well, sir, I don’t know what to think but somehow I can’t fancy the lady actually struck the blow, sir.”
“That,” said Mrs. Pouting vigorously, “is because you’re a man, Mr. Caper. I hope I know vice when I see it,” she added.
“I’m sure you do, Mrs. Pouting,” said Alleyn absently. “Why not?”
Mrs. Pouting clasped her hands together and, by that simple gesture, turned herself into an anxious human creature. “Whether it’s both of them together or her alone,” she said, “they’re dangerous, sir. I know they’re dangerous. If they’d heard me telling you what I have told you…! But it’s not for myself, sir, but for Mr. Royal that I’m worried. He’s made no secret of what he thinks. He says openly that Dr. Hart— though why ‘Doctor,’ when he’s no more than a meddler with Heaven’s handiwork, I’m sure I don’t know — that Dr. Hart struck down Mr. William and that he’ll see him hanged for it, and there they both are, free to deal another blow.”
“Not quite,” said Alleyn. “Dr. Hart, at his own suggestion, is once more locked in his room. I said I’d see Mr. Compline next, Caper, but I’ve changed my mind. Will you find out if Madame Hart is disengaged?”
“Madame Hart!” they both said together.
“Ah, I forgot. You haven’t heard that they are man and wife.”
“His wife!” whispered Mrs. Pouting. “That proves I’m right. She wanted to be rid of him. She wanted to catch the heir to Penfelton. That’s why poor Mr. William was killed. And if the man is hanged for it, mark my words, Mr. Caper, she’ll marry Mr. Nicholas.”
And with this pronouncement, delivered with sibylline emphasis, Mrs. Pouting withdrew, sweeping Caper away in her train.
Alleyn noted down the conversation, pulled a grimace at the result and fell to thinking of former cases when the fantastic solution had turned out to be the correct one. “It’s the lef’t-and-right theory.” he thought. “A wishes to be rid of B and C. A murders B in such a fashion that C is arrested and hanged. Mrs. Pouting casts Madame for the role of A. A murderess on the grand scale. What do murderesses on the grand scale look like?”
The next moment he was on his feet. Madame Lisse had made her entrance.
Nobody had told Alleyn that she was a remarkably beautiful woman and for a brief moment he experienced the strange feeling of awed astonishment that extreme physical beauty may bring to the beholder. His first conscious thought was that she was lovely enough to stir up a limitless amount of trouble.
“You sent for me,” said Madame Lisse.
“I asked if I might see you,” said Alleyn. “Won’t you sit down?”
She sat down. The movement was like a lesson in deportment, deliberately executed and ending in stillness, her back held erect, her wrists crossed on her lap. “I wonder,” thought Alleyn, “if William ever wanted to paint her.” With every appearance of tranquillity, she waited for him to begin. He took out his note book and flattened it on his knee.
“First,” he said, “I think I should have your name in full.”
“Elise Lisse.”
“I mean,” said Alleyn, “your legal name, Madame. That should be Elise Hart, I understand.” And he thought: “Golly! That’s shaken her!” For a moment she looked furious. He saw the charming curve of her mouth harden and then compose itself. After a pause she said, very sedately: “My legal name. Yes, of course. I do not care to use it and it did not occur to me to give it. I am separated from my husband.”
“Ah, yes,‘ said Alleyn. ”Legally separated?”
“No,” she said placidly. “Not legally.”
“I hope you will forgive me if I ask you questions that may seem irrelevant and impertinent. You are under no obligation to answer them: I must make that quite clear and perhaps I should add that any questions which you refuse to answer will be noted.”
This uncompromising slice of the official manner seemed to have very little effect on Madame Lisse. She said: “Of course,” and leant a little towards him. He got a whiff of her scent and recognized it as an expensive one.
“You are separated from your husband, but one supposes, since you go to the same house-parties, that it is an amicable arrangement.”
There was a considerable pause before she answered: “Not precisely. I didn’t care for accepting the same invitation but did so before I knew he had been invited.”
“Were his feelings in the matter much the same as yours?”
“I can’t tell you,” said Madame Lisse. “I think not.”
“You mean that you have not discussed the matter with him?”
“I don’t enter into discussions with him if I can avoid doing so. I have tried as far as possible to avoid encounters.”
Alleyn watched her for a moment and then said: “Did you drive here, Madame Lisse?”
“Yes.”
“In your own car?”
“No. My — my husband drove me. Mr. Royal unfortunately made the suggestion, which I couldn’t very well refuse.”
“Could you not? I should have thought you might have found a way out.”
She surprised him by leaning still farther forward and putting her hand on the arm of his chair. It was a swift intimate gesture that brought her close to him.
“I see I must explain,” said Madame Lisse.
“Please do,” said Alleyn.
“I am a very unhappy woman, Mr. — I do not know your name.”
Alleyn told her his name and she managed to convey, with great delicacy, a suggestion of deference. “Mr. Alleyn. I didn’t know — I am so sorry. Of course I have read of your wonderful cases. I’m sure you will understand. It will be easy to explain to you, a relief, a great relief to me.” Her finger-tips brushed his sleeve. “There are more ways than one,” Alleyn thought, “of saying, ‘Dilly, dilly, dilly, come and be killed.’ ” But he did not answer Madame Lisse and in a moment she was launched. “I have been so terribly unhappy. You see, although I had decided I could no longer live with my husband, it wasn’t possible for either of us to leave Great Chipping. Of course it is a very large town, isn’t it? I hoped we would be able to avoid encounters but he has made it very difficult for me. You will understand what I mean. He is still devoted to me.”