“Hadn’t you better go to bed? You’re not yourself, you know.”
“Exactly,” Ninn said with hauteur. “I’m going.”
She made off at an uncertain gait towards the backstairs. Alleyn said, “Mr. Dakers, what are you doing up here?”
“I wanted to get into my room.”
“I’m afraid we’re occupying it at the moment. But if there’s anything you need…”
“Oh God!” Richard cried out. “Is there to be no end to these indignities? No! No, there’s nothing I need. Not now. I wanted to be by myself in my room where I could make some attempt to think.”
“You had it all on your own in the drawing-room,” Fox said crossly. “Why couldn’t you think down there? How did you get past the man on duty, sir?”
“He was coping with a clutch of pressmen at the front door and I nipped up the backstairs.”
“Well,” Alleyn said, “you’d better nip down again to where you came from and if you’re sick of the drawing-room, you can join the party next door, Unless, of course, you’d like to stay and tell us your real object in coming up here.”
Richard opened his mouth and shut it again. He then turned on his heels and went downstairs. He was followed by Fox, who returned looking portentous. “I gave that chap in the hall a rocket,” he said. “They don’t know the meaning of keeping observation these days. Mr. Dakers is back in the drawing-room. Why do you reckon he broke out, sir?”
“I think,” Alleyn said, “he may have remembered the blotting-paper.”
“Ah, there is that. May be. Mrs. Plumtree wasn’t bad value, though, was she?”
“Not bad. But none of it proves anything, of course,” Alleyn said. “Not a damn thing.”
“Floy getting the sack’s interesting. If true.”
“It may be a recurrent feature of their relationship, for all we know. What about the sounds they both heard in the bedroom?”
“Do we take it,” Fox asked, “that Floy’s crash came before Mrs. Plumtree’s hiss?”
“I suppose so. Yes.”
“And that Florence retired after the crash?”
“While Ninn remained for the hiss. Precisely.”
“The inference being,” Fox pursued, “that as soon as Mr. Dakers left her, the lady fell with a deafening crash on the four-pile carpet.”
“And then sprayed herself all over with Slaypest.”
“Quite so, Mr. Alleyn.”
“I prefer a less dramatic reading of the evidence.”
“All the same, it doesn’t look very pleasant for Mr. Dakers.” And as Alleyn didn’t reply, “D’you reckon Mrs. Plumtree was talking turkey when she let out about his parentage?”
“I think it’s at least possible that she believes it.”
“Born,” Fox speculated, “out of wedlock and the parents subsequently married?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Wait a bit.” He took down the copy of Who’s Who in the Theatre. “Here we are. Bellamy. Sumptuous entry. Birth, not given. Curtis says fifty. Married 1932, Charles Gavin Templeton. Now, where’s the playwright? Dakers, Richard. Very conservative entry. Born 1931. Educated Westminster and Trinity. List of three plays. That’s all. Could be, Foxkin. I suppose we can dig it out if needs must.”
Fox was silent for a moment. “There is this,” he then said. “Mrs. Plumtree was alone on the landing after Florence went downstairs?”
“So it seems.”
“And she says she heard deceased using the Slaypest. What say she went in and used it herself? On deceased.”
“All right. Suppose she did. Why?”
“Because of the way deceased treated her ward or son or whatever he is? Went in and let her have it and then made off before Florence came back.”
“Do you like it?”
“Not much,” Fox grunted. “What about this story of Mrs. Plumtree going into the bedroom and rearranging the remains?”
“She didn’t. The body was as Harkness and Gantry left it. Unless Harkness is too much hungover to notice.”
“It might be something quite slight.”
“What, for pity’s sake?”
“God knows,” Fox said. “Could you smell scent on Mrs. P?”
“I could smell nothing but rich old tawny port on Mrs. P.”
“Might be a blind for the perfume. Ah, forget it!” Fox said disgustedly. “It’s silly. How about this crash they heard after Mr. Dakers left the room?”
“Oh that. That was the lady pitching Madame Vestris into the bathroom.”
“Why?”
“Professional jealousy? Or perhaps it was his birthday present to her and she was taking it out on the Vestris.”
“Talk about conjecture! We do nothing else,” Fox grumbled. “All right. So what’s the next step, sir?”
“We’ve got to clear the ground. We’ve got to check, for one thing, Mr. Bertie Saracen’s little outburst. And the shortest way with that one, I suppose, is to talk to Anelida Lee.”
“Ah, yes. You know the young lady, don’t you, Mr. Alleyn?”
“I’ve met her in her uncle’s bookshop. She’s a charming girl. I know Octavius quite well. I tell you what, Foxkin, you go round the camp, will you? Talk to the butler. Talk to the maids. Pick up anything that’s offering on the general setup. Find out the pattern of the day’s events. Furious Floy suggested a dust-up of some sort with Saracen and Miss Cavendish. Get the strength of it. And see if you can persuade the staff to feed the troops. Hullo — what’s that?”
He went out into the passage and along to the landing. The door of Miss Bellamy’s room was open. Dr. Curtis and Dr. Harkness stood just inside it watching the activities of two white-coated men. They had laid Miss Bellamy’s body on a stretcher and had neatly covered it in orthodox sheeting. P.C. Philpott from the half-landing said, “O.K. chaps,” and the familiar progress started. They crossed the landing, changed the angle of their burden and gingerly began the descent. Thus Miss Bellamy made her final journey downstairs. Alleyn heard a subdued noise somewhere above him. He moved to a position from which he could look up the narrower flight of stairs to the second-floor landing. Florence was there, scarcely to be seen in the shadows, and the sound he had heard was of her sobbing.
Alleyn followed the stretcher downstairs. He watched the mortuary van drive away, had a final word with his colleagues, and went next door to call on Octavius Browne.
Octavius, after hours, used his shop as his sitting-room. With the curtains drawn, the lamp on his reading table glowing and the firelight shining on his ranks of books, the room was enchanting. So, in his way, was Octavius, sunk deep in a red morocco chair with his book in his hand and his cat on his knee.
He had removed his best suit and, out of habit, had changed into old grey trousers and a disreputable but becoming velvet coat. For about an hour after Richard Dakers left (Anelida having refused to see him), Octavius had Been miserable. Then she had come down, looking pale but familiar, saying she was sorry she’d been tiresome. She had kissed the top of his head and made him an omelette for his supper and had settled in her usual Monday night place on the other side of the fireplace behind a particularly large file in which she was writing up their catalogue. Once, Octavius couldn’t resist sitting up high in order to look at her and as usual she made a hideous face at him and he made one back at her, which was a private thing they did on such occasions. He was reassured but not entirely so. He had a very deep affection for Anelida, but he was one of those people in whom the distress of those they love begets a kind of compassionate irritation. He liked Anelida to be gay and dutiful and lovely to look at; when he suspected that she had been crying he felt at once distressed and helpless and the sensation bored him because he didn’t understand it.
When Alleyn rang the bell Anelida answered it. He saw, at once, that she had done her eyes up to hide the signs of tears.