“He didn’t write a cheque there and then,” said Lord Charles. “That was not his way, you know. I expect he wanted me to have a night to think over my wigging and feel properly ashamed of myself.”
“Did he promise to do so?” There was a fraction of a pause.
“Yes,” said Lord Charles.
Alleyn’s pencil whispered across his note-book. He turned a page, flattened it, and looked up. Neither Lord Charles nor Nigel had stirred but now Nigel cleared his throat and took out a cigarette case.
“He promised,” said Alleyn, “quite definitely, in so many words, to pay up your debts?”
“Not exactly in so many words. He muttered that he supposed he would have to see me through as usual, that — ah — that I would hear from him.”
“Yes. Lord Charles, your children, as you evidently have heard, lay in the corner there and listened to,the conversation. Suppose I told you they had not heard this promise of your brother’s, what would you say?”
“I shouldn’t be in the least surprised. They could not possibly have heard it. Gabriel had walked to the far end of the room and I had followed him. I only just heard it myself. He — ah — he mumbled it out as if he was half ashamed.”
“Then suppose, alternatively, that I tell you they state they did hear him promise to help you, would you say that they were not speaking the truth?”
“Somebody once told me,” said Lord Charles, “that detective officers were not allowed to set traps for their witnesses.”
“They are not allowed to hold out veiled promises and expose them to implied threats,” said Alleyn. “It is not quite the same thing, sir. I’m sure you know that you may leave any question unanswered if you think it advisable to do so.”
“I can only repeat,” said Lord Charles breathlessly, “that he promised to help me and that I think it unlikely that they could have heard him.”
“Yes,” said Alleyn, writing.
Nigel leant across the table, offering his cigarettes to Lord Charles. Lord Charles had not changed his modish attitude. He looked perfectly at his ease, perfectly aware of his surroundings, and yet he did not notice Nigel’s gesture. There was something odd in this unexpected revelation of his detachment. Nigel touched his sleeve with the cigarette case. He started, moved his arm sharply and, with a murmured apology, took a cigarette.
“I really don’t think there’s very much else,” said Alleyn. “There’s a small point about the arrival of your three elder sons after Lord Wutherwood left. In what order did they come into the drawing-room?”
“The twins came in first. Henry appeared a moment or two later.”
“How long, should you say, sir? A minute? Two minutes?”
“I shouldn’t think longer than two minutes. I don’t think any one had spoken before he came in.”
“You didn’t at once tell them that Lord Wutherwood had promised to see you out of the wood?”
“I didn’t, no. I was still rather chastened, you see, by my scolding.”
“Oh, yes,” said Alleyn politely. “Of course. That really is all, I think, sir. I’m so sorry but I’m afraid I shall have to litter a few men about the flat for a little while still.”
“Surely we may go out to-morrow?”
“Of course. You won’t, any of you, want to leave London?”
“No.”
“The inquest will probably be on Monday. I wonder, sir, if you can give me the name of Lord Wutherwood’s solicitors.”
“Rattisbon. They’ve been our family lawyers for generations. I must ring up old Rattisbon, I suppose.”
“Then that really is everything.“ Alleyn stood up. ”We shall ask you to sign a transcript of your statement tomorrow, if you will. I must thank you very much indeed, sir, for so patiently enduring all this police procedure.”
Lord Charles did not rise. He looked up with an air of hesitancy. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “there’s one other thing that rather bothers us, Alleyn. Tinkerton, my sister-in-law’s maid, you know, came into the dining-room just now in a great state. It seems that my sister-in-law, whom I may say we all thought was safely asleep in my wife’s bed, has now waked up and is in a really appalling frame of mind. She says she must have something or another from their house in Brummell Street and that Tinkerton and only Tinkerton can find it. Some patent medicine or another, it seems to be. Well now, your men are allowing no one to leave the flat. I explained all that to Tinkerton and she went off only to return saying that Violet was out of bed trying to dress herself and proving too big a handful for the nurse. The nurse, for her part, says she won’t tackle the job singlehanded. We’ve rung up for a second nurse but now Tinkerton, although she’s perfectly willing to carry on with the nurses, has obviously taken fright. It’s all a frightful bore, and Imogen and I are both at our wits’ end. I won’t pretend we wouldn’t be most relieved to see the last of poor Violet, but we also feel that if you allowed her to go she ought to have somebody who is not a servant or a strange nurse to be with her in that mausoleum of a house. Imogen says she will go but that I will not have. She’s completely fagged out and where she is to sleep if Violet stays here for the rest of the night I simply don’t know. I — really the whole thing is getting a little more than we can reasonably be expected to endure. I wonder if you could possibly help us?”
“I think so,” Alleyn said. “We can arrange for Lady Wutherwood to go to her own house. We shall have to send some one along to be on duty there, but that can easily be done. I can spare a man from here.”
“I’m extraordinarily relieved.”
“About somebody else going — who do you suggest?”
“Well…” Lord Charles passed his hand over the back of his head. “Well, Robin Grey — Roberta Grey, you know — has very nicely offered to go.”
“Rather a youthful guardian,” said Alleyn with a lift of his eyebrow.
“Ah — yes. Yes, but she’s a most resourceful and composed little person and says she doesn’t mind. My wife suggests that Nanny might go to keep her company. I mean she will be perfectly all right. Two trained nurses and Tinkerton, who for all her fright insists that she can carry on as usual and says Violet will be quite quiet when she has had this medicine of hers. You see Frid, my eldest girl, may be a bit shaken, and of course Patch — Patricia — is too young. And we feel it ought to be a woman — I mean just for the look of things. You see, the nurse says that without some one besides Tinkerton she feels she can’t take the responsibility until the second nurse comes. So we thought that if Robin — I mean, of course, with your approval.”
Alleyn remembered a steadfast face, heart-shaped and colourless, with wide-set eyes of grey. His own phrase “a courageous little liar” recurred to him. But it was no business of his who the Lampreys sent to keep up the look of things in Brummell Street. Better perhaps that it should be the small New Zealander who surely did not come into this tragicomedy except in the dim role of confidante and wholehearted admirer of the family. With a remote feeling of uneasiness Alleyn agreed that Miss Grey and Nanny Burnaby should go in a taxi to Brummell Street; that Lady Wutherwood, Tinkerton, and the nurses, should be driven there by Giggle with Gibson as police escort. Lord Charles hurried away to organize these manoeuvres. Nigel, with a dubious look at Alleyn, murmured something about returning in a minute or two and slipped out after Lord Charles. Alleyn, left alone, walked restlessly about the dining-room. When Fox returned Alleyn instantly thrust the notes of Lord Charles’s statement at him.
“Look at that,” he said, “or rather don’t. I’ll tell you. He said that when they got to the far end of the drawing-room his brother promised in a mumble to help him. He said that none of his precious brood could have heard it. He was in a fix. He didn’t know what they’d told me. I tripped him, Br’er Fox.”