He replaced the book.
“That’ll be the husband’s,” Fox said. “Judging by the bookplate.”
“The husband’s. Borrowed by the ward and accessible to all and sundry. For what it’s worth. Well, Foxkin, that about completes our tour of the room. Tabloid history of the tastes and career of Richard Dakers. Hullo! Look here, Fox.”
He was stooping over the writing desk and had opened the blotter.
“This looks fresh,” he said. “Green ink. Ink on desk dried up and anyway, blue.”
There was a small Georgian glass above the fireplace. Alleyn held the blotting-paper to it and they looked at the reflected image:
“I e ck to y at it w u d e o se my te ding I n’t n ven a rible shock that I tget t rted t tl’m sure t ll e ter if we do t me t. I c t hin clea now ut at ast I now. I’ll n for e your tr ment of An d this after on I ould ave been told everything from the beginning. R.”
Alleyn copied this fragmentary message on a second sheet of paper, carried the blotter back to the desk and very carefully removed the sheet in question.
“We’ll put the experts on to this,” he said, “but I’m prepared to take a sporting chance on the result, Br’er Fox. Are you?”
“I’d give it a go, Mr. Alleyn.”
“See if you can find Florence, will you? I’ll take a flying jump while you’re at it.”
Fox went out. Alleyn put his copy of the message on the desk and looked at it.
The correct method of deciphering and completing a blotting-paper impression is by measurement, calculation and elimination but occasionally, for persons with a knack, the missing letters start up vividly in the mind and the scientific method is thus accurately anticipated. When he was on his game, Alleyn possessed this knack and he now made use of it. Without allowing himself any second thoughts, he wrote rapidly within the copy and stared with disfavour at the result. He then opened Richard Daker’s dispatch case and found it contained a typescript of a play, Husbandry in Heaven. He flipped the pages over and came across some alterations in green ink and in the same hand as the letter.
“Miss Florence Johnson,” said Fox, opening the door and standing aside with something of the air of a large sporting dog retrieving a bird. Florence, looking not unlike an apprehensive fowl, came in.
Alleyn saw an unshapely little woman, with a pallid, tear-stained face and hair so remorselessly dyed that it might have been a raven wig. She wore that particular air of disillusionment that is associated with the Cockney and she reeked of backstage.
“The Superintendent,” Fox told her, “just wants to hear the whole story like you told it to me. Nothing to worry about.”
“Of course not,” Alleyn said. “Come and sit down. We won’t keep you long.”
Florence looked as if she might prefer to stand, but compromised by sitting on the edge of the chair Fox had pushed forward.
“This has been a sad business for you,” Alleyn said.
“That’s right,” Florence said woodenly.
“And I’m sure you must want to have the whole thing cleared up as soon and as quietly as possible.”
“Clear enough, isn’t it? She’s dead. You can’t have it much clearer than that.”
“You can’t indeed. But you see it’s our job to find out why.”
“Short of seeing it happen you wouldn’t get much nearer, would you? If you can read, that is.”
“You mean the tin of Slaypest?”
“Well, it wasn’t perfume,” Florence said impertinently. “They put that in bottles.” She shot a glance at Alleyn and seemed to undergo a slight change of temper. Her lips trembled and she compressed them. “It wasn’t all that pleasant,” she said. “Seeing what I seen. Finding her like that. You’d think I might be let alone.”
“So you will be if you behave like a sensible girl. You’ve been with her a long time, haven’t you?”
“Thirty years, near enough.”
“You must have got along very well to have stayed together all that time.”
Florence didn’t answer and he waited. At last she said, “I knew her ways.”
“And you were fond of her?”
“She was all right. Others might have their own ideas. I knew ’er. Inside out. She’d talk to me like she wouldn’t to others. She was all right.”
It was, Alleyn thought, after its fashion, a tribute.
He said, “Florence, I’m going to be very frank indeed with you. Suppose it wasn’t an accident. You’d want to know, wouldn’t you?”
“It’s no good you thinking she did it deliberate. She never! Not she. Wouldn’t.”
“I didn’t mean suicide.”
Florence watched him for a moment. Her mouth, casually but emphatically painted, narrowed into a scarlet thread.
“If you mean murder,” she said flatly, “that’s different.”
“You’d want to know,” he repeated. “Wouldn’t you?”
The tip of her tongue showed for a moment in the corner of her mouth. “That’s right,” she said.
“So do we. Now, Inspector Fox has already asked you about this, but never mind, I’m asking you again. I want you to tell me in as much detail as you can remember just what happened from the time when Miss Bellamy dressed for her party up to the time you entered her room and found her — as you did find her. Let’s start with the preparations, shall we?”
She was a difficult subject. She seemed to be filled with some kind of resentment and everything had to be dragged out of her. After luncheon, it appeared, Miss Bellamy rested. At half-past four Florence went in to her. She seemed to be “much as usual.”
“She hadn’t been upset by anything during the day?”
“Nothing,” Florence muttered, after a further silence, “to matter.”
“I only ask,” Alleyn said, “because there’s a bottle of sal volatile left out in the bathroom. Did you give her sal volatile at any stage?”
“This morning.”
“What was the matter, this morning? Was she faint?”
Florence said, “Overexcited.”
“About what?”
“I couldn’t say,” Florence said, and shut her mouth like a trap.
“Very well,” he said patiently. “Let’s get on with the preparation for the party. Did you give her a facial treatment of some kind?”
She stared at him. “That’s correct,” she said. “A mask.”
“What did she talk about, Florence?”
“Nothing. You don’t with that stuff over your face. Can’t.”
“And then.”
“She make up and dressed. The two gentlemen came in and I went out.”
“That would be Mr. Templeton and — who?”
“The Colonel.”
“Did either of them bring her Parma violets?”
She stared at him. “Vi’lets? Them? No. She didn’t like vi’lets.”
“There’s a bunch on her dressing-table.”
“I never noticed,” she said. “I don’t know anything about vi’lets. There wasn’t any when I left the room.”
“And you saw her again — when?”
“At the party.”
“Well, let’s hear about it.”
For a second or two he thought she was going to keep mum. She had the least eloquent face he had ever seen. But she began to speak as if somebody had switched her on. She said that from the time she left her mistress and during the early part of the cocktail party she had been with Mrs. Plumtree in their little sitting room. When the gong sounded they went down to take their places in the procession. After the speeches were over Old Ninn had dropped her awful brick about candles. Florence recounted the incident with detachment, merely observing that Old Ninn was, in fact, very old and sometimes forgot herself. “Fifty candles,” Florence said grimly. “What a remark to pass!” It was the only piece of comment, so far, that she had proffered. She had realized, Alleyn gathered, that her mistress had been upset and thinking she might be wanted had gone into the hall. She heard her mistress speak for a moment to Mr. Templeton, something about him asking her not to use her scent. Up to here Florence’s statement had been about as emotional as a grocery list, but at this point she appeared to boggle. She looked sideways at Alleyn, seemed to lose her bearings and came to a stop.