“What you may not realize,” said Henry suddenly, “is that Mike is a most accomplished little liar. He’ll think he’s telling the truth but if an agreeably dramatic invention occurs to him he’ll use it.”
“How old is Michael?” Alleyn asked Lady Charles.
“Eleven.”
“Eleven? A splendid age. Do you know that in the police-courts we regard small boys between the ages of ten and fifteen as ideal witnesses? They almost top the list.”
“Really?” said Henry. “And what type of witness do the experts put at the bottom of the list?”
“Oh,” said Alleyn with his politely depracting air, “young people, you know. Young people of both sexes between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six.”
“Why?” asked the twins and Henry and Frid simultaneously.
“The text-books say that they are generally rather unobservant,” Alleyn murmured. “Too much absorbed in themselves and their own reactions. May we go, Nanny?”
Without a word Nanny led the way into the hall. Alleyn followed her and shut the door but not before he heard Frid say: “And that, my dears, takes us off with a screech of laughter and a couple of loud thumps.”
CHAPTER X
STATEMENT FROM A SMALL BOY
Mike was fast asleep and therefore looked his best. The treachery of sleep is seen in the circumstances of its adding years to the middle-aged and taking them away from children. Mike’s cheeks were filmy with roses, his lips were parted freshly and his lashes made endearing smudges under his delicate eyelids. His mouse-coloured hair was tousled and still moist from his bath. Near to his face one hand, touchingly defenseless, lay relaxed across the handle of a Woolworth magnifying glass. He looked about seven years old and alarmingly innocent. Nanny, scowling hideously, smoothed the bed-clothes and laid a gnarled finger against Mike’s cheek. Mike made a babyish sound and curled down closer in his bed..
“Damn’ shame to wake him,” Alleyn said under his breath.
“Needs must, I suppose,” said Nanny, unexpectedly gracious.. “Michael.”
“Yes, Nanny?” said Mike and opened his eyes.
“Here’s a gentleman to see you.”
“Gosh! Not a doctor!”
“No,” said Nanny grimly, “a detective.”
Mike lay perfectly still and stared at Alleyn. Alleyn sat on the edge of the bed.
“I’m so sorry to rouse you up,” he said civilly, “but you know what these cases are. One must follow the trail while it’s fresh.”
Mike swallowed and then, with admirable nonchalance, said: “I know.”
“I wonder if you’d mind going over one or two points with me.”
“O.K.,” breathed Mike. He uttered a luxurious sigh. “Then it is murder,” he said.
“Well, it looks a bit like it!”
“Golly!” said Mike. “What a whizzer!” He appeared to think deeply for a moment and then said: “I say, sir, have you got a clue?”
“At the moment,” said Alleyn, “I am completely baffled.”
“Jiminy cricket!”
“I know.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be any of us, of course.”
“Of course not,” said Nanny. “It was some good-for-nothing out in the street. One of these Nazzys. The police will soon have them locked up.”
“An outside job,” said Mike deeply.
“That’s what we’re working on at the moment,” agreed Alleyn. “But there are one or two points.” He looked at Mike’s parted lips and brilliant eyes and thought: “I must keep this unreal and how the devil I’m to do it’s a problem. No element of danger but plenty of fictitious excitement.” He said, “As a matter of fact it’s quite possible that the bird has flown to a hide-out miles and miles away from here. We just want to check one or two points and I think you can help us. You were in the flat this afternoon, weren’t you?”
“Yes. I was having a bit of a go with my Hornby train. Giggle helped me. He’s absolutely wizard with trains. Being a motor expert helps, of course.”
“Yes, of course. Where do you do it? Not much room in here, is there?”
Mike shrugged his shoulders. “Hopeless,” he said. “We used the passage. And then, just when he’d got the coupling mended and everything, Giggle had to go.”
“So I suppose you simply carried on without him?”
“As a matter of fac’, I didn’t. Ackshully, Robin was going to play with me. You see I had to give Uncle G. the parcel.” Mike looked out of the corners of his eyes at Nanny. “I say,” he said, “it’s pretty funny to think of, isn’t it? I mean, where is dead?”
“Heaven,” said Nanny firmly. “Your Uncle Gabriel’s as happy as the day’s long. Well content, he is, you may depend upon it.”
“Well, Henry said this afternoon that Uncle G. could go to hell for all he cared.”
“Nonsense. You didn’t hear Henry properly.”
“Where was the parcel?” asked Alleyn.
“In Mummy’s room. Just by the screen inside the door. I couldn’t find it when Robin said Mummy wanted me to give it to Uncle G.”
“When was that?” asked Alleyn, taking out his cigarette case.
“Oh, before. After they’d done their charade. The others were horribly waxy because Uncle G. didn’t look at the charade. Stephen said he was an old—”
“That’ll do, Michael.”
“Well, Nanny, he did. I heard him when I was looking for the parcel.”
“Did you give the parcel up as a bad job?” asked Alleyn.
Mike shrugged again. It was a gesture that turned him momentarily into a miniature of his mother. “Sort of,” he admitted. “I went back to Giggle and the Hornby and then I saw the parcel. We were by the door.”
“Was anyone in the bedroom?”
“Mummy and Aunt V. and Aunt Kit had come in. They were gassing away behind the screen.”
“So what did you do?”
“Oh, I just scooped it up and took it to Uncle G. in the drawing-room. Uncle G. looked as waxy as hell.”
“Michael!”
“Well, sorry, Nanny, but he did. He didn’t say anything. Not thank you or anything like that. He just goggled at me and Daddy told me to put it down and bunk. So I bunked. Patch said they had the manners of hogs and I think they had too. Not Daddy, of course.”
“Don’t speak like that, Michael,” said Nanny “It’s silly and rude. Mr. Alleyn doesn’t want to hear—”
“I say.” Mike sat up abruptly. “You’re not Handsome Alleyn, are you?”
Alleyn’s face turned a brilliant red. “You’ve been reading the lower type of newspapers, young Lamprey.”
“I say, you are! Gosh! I read all about the Gospell murder in the True Detective! A person in my form at school knew a person whose father is a friend of — Gosh, of yours. He bucked about it for weeks. He won’t buck much longer, ha-ha. I say, sir, I’m sorry I mentioned that name. You know — H.A.”
“That’s all right.”
“I suppose you think it’s a pretty feeble sort of nickname to have. At school,” said Mike lowering his voice, “some people call me Potty. Potty Lamprey.”
“One lives down these things.”
“I know. Ackshully, I suppose you wouldn’t remember a person called N. Bathgate. He’s a reporter.”
“Nigel Bathgate? I know him very well indeed.”
Mike achieved an admirable expression of detachment. “So,” he said off-handedly, “as a matter of fac’ do we. He told me he called you Hand — you know — as a sort of joke. In the paper. To make you waxy.”
“He did.”
Mike giggled and gave Alleyn a sidelong glance.
“I suppose there’s not much hope nowadays,” he said, “for anybody to get into detection. I suppose you have to be rather super at everything.”