“Not so bad,” he murmured and, whistling softly, put the Charter pads away again.
He went up to Mrs. Compline’s room, taking the not very willing Mandrake with him.
“I like to have a witness,” he said vaguely. “As a general rule we work in pairs over the ticklish bits. It’ll be all right when Fox comes, but in the meantime you, as an unsuspected person, will do very nicely.”
Mandrake kept his back turned to the shrouded figure on the bed and watched Alleyn go through the clothes in the wardrobe. Alleyn got him to feel the shoulders and skirts of a Harris tweed overcoat.
“Damp,” said Mandrake.
“Was it snowing when you went down to the pond?”
“Yes. My God, were they her footsteps? She must have walked down inside my own, as Chloris suggested?”
Alleyn was looking at the hats on the top shelf of the wardrobe.
“This is the one she wore,” he said. “It’s still quite wettish. Blue tweedish sort of affair with a salmon fly as ornament. No, two flies. A yellow-and-black salmon fly, and a rather jaded and very large trout-fly — scarlet-and-green, an Alexandra. That seems excessive, doesn’t it?” He peered more closely at the hat. “Now, I wonder…” he said — and, when Mandrake asked him peevishly what he wondered, sent Mandrake off to find the maid who had looked after Mrs. Compline. She proved to be a Dorset girl, born and bred on the Highfold estate, a chatterbox, very trim and bright and full of the liveliest curiosity about the clothes and complexions of the ladies in Jonathan’s party. She was anxious to become a ladies’ maid, and Mrs. Pouting had been training her. This was the first time she had maided any visitors to Highfold. She burst into a descriptive rapture over the wardrobes of Madame Lisse and Miss Wynne. It was with difficulty that Alleyn hauled her attention round to the less exciting garments of Mrs. Compline. The interview took place in the passage and Alleyn held the tweed hat behind his back while the little maid chattered away about the wet coat.
“Mrs. Compline hadn’t worn that coat before, sir. She arrived in a Burberry like you see at the shooting parties, and when they took a walk on the first evening she wore it again, sir. It was yesterday morning she took out the tweed. When the two gentlemen was going to have that bet, sir,” said the little maid turning pink. “I was in Madam’s room, sir, asking what I should put out for her to wear, when poor Mr. William called out in the passage ‘It’s worth a tenner to see him do it.’ She seemed very upset, sir. She got up and went to the door and looked after him. She called out, but I don’t think he heard her because he ran downstairs. She said she didn’t require me. So I went out and she must have followed him.”
“When did you see her again?”
“Well, after a minute or two, I saw her go downstairs wearing that coat, sir, and a tweed hat, and I called Elsie, the second housemaid, sir, and said we could slip in and make Mrs. Compline’s bed and do her room. So we did. At least—” here the little maid hesitated.
“Yes?” Alleyn asked.
“Well, sir, I’m afraid we did look out of the window because we knew about the bet. But you can’t see the pond from that window on account of the shrubs. Only the terrace. We saw the poor lady cross the terrace. It was snowing very hard. She seemed to stare down towards the pond, sir, for a little while and then she looked round and — and Elsie and I began to make the bed. It wasn’t above two minutes before she was back, as white as a sheet and trembling. I offered to take away her wet coat and hat, but she said, ‘No, no, leave them,’ rather short, so Elsie and I went out. By that time there was a great to-do, down by the pond, and Thomas came in and said one of the gentlemen had fallen in.”
“And while Mrs. Compline was on the terrace, nobody joined her or appeared near her?”
“No, sir. I think Miss Wynne and poor Mr. William must have gone out afterwards, because we heard their voices down there, just before Mrs. Compline got back.”
“Well done,” said Alleyn. “And is this—” he showed her the tweed hat—“is this the hat she was wearing?”
“That’s it, sir.”
“Looks just the same?”
The little maid took it in her hands and turned it round, eyeing it in a thoughtful bird-like manner. “It’s got two of those feathery hooks,” she said at last. “Funny kind of trimming, I think. Two.”
“Yes?”
“It only had one yesterday. The big yellow-and-black one.”
“Thank you,” said Alleyn, and quite fluttered her by the fervency of his smile.
Detective-Inspector Fox, and Detective-Sergeants Bailey and Thompson, arrived at seven o’clock in a hired car from Pen Gidding. Alleyn was delighted to see them. He set Bailey to work on the brass Buddha, the Charter forms, the Maori mere, and the wireless cabinet. Thompson photographed all the details that Alleyn had already taken with his own camera. And at last the body of William Compline was taken away from the armchair in the smoking-room. There was a ballroom at Highfold. It had been added incontinently to the east side by a Victorian Royal and was reached by a short passage. Here, in an atmosphere of unused grandeur and empty anticipation, Sandra Compline lay, not far removed from the son for whom she had not greatly cared. Alleyn heard Jonathan issuing subdued but emphatic orders for flowers.
Fox and Alleyn went together to the library.
“Sit down, Br’er Fox,” said Alleyn. “Sorry to have hauled you out, but I’m damn’ glad to see you.”
“We had quite a job getting here,” said Fox, taking out his spectacle case. “Very unpleasant weather. Nasty affair this, sir, by the looks of it. What’s the strength of it? Murder followed by suicide, or what?”
“There’s my report. You’d better take a look at it.”
“Ah,” said Fox. “Much obliged. Thank you.” He settled his spectacles rather far down his nose and put on his reading face. Fox had a large rosy face. To Alleyn, his reading expression always suggested that he had a slight cold in the head. He raised his sandy eyebrows, slightly opened his mouth and placidly absorbed the words before him. For some time there was no sound but the crackle of turning leaves and Fox’s breathing.
“Um,” he said when he had finished. “Silly sort of business. Meant to look complicated but isn’t. When do we fix this customer up, Mr. Alleyn?”
“We’ll wait for Bailey, I think. I’d like to arrest on a minor charge, but there isn’t the smell of an excuse so far.”