“This specific spray?” Alleyn asked, pointing to the Slaypest.
“Yes. It gives the formula. I wanted to look it up.”
“For God’s sake, Charles,” Warrender exclaimed, “why the devil can’t you make yourself understood?” Charles said nothing and he waved his hands at Alleyn. “He was worried about the damned muck!” he said. “Told Mary. Showed it…”
“Yes?” Alleyn said as he came to a halt. “Showed it to whom’/”
“To me, blast it! We’d been trying to persuade her not to use the stuff. Gave it to me to read.”
“Did you read it?”
“ ’Course I did. Lot of scientific mumbo-jumbo but it showed how dangerous it was.”
“What did you do with the book?”
“Do with it? I dunno. Yes, I do, though. I gave it to Florence. Asked her to get Mary to look at it. Didn’t I, Florence?”
“I don’t,” said Florence, “remember anything about it, sir. You might have.”
“Please try to remember,” Alleyn said. “Did you, in fact, show the book to Mrs. Templeton?”
“Not me. She wouldn’t have given me any thanks.” She turned round in her chair and looked at Old Ninn. “I remember now. I showed it to Mrs. Plumtree. Gave it to her.”
“Well, Ninn? What did you do with the book?”
Old Ninn glared at him. “Put it by,” she said. “It was unwholesome.”
“Where?”
“I don’t recollect.”
“In the upstairs study?”
“Might have been. I don’t recollect.”
“So much for the book,” Alleyn said wryly and turned to Warrender. “You, sir, tell us that you actually used the scent-spray, lavishly, on Mrs. Templeton before the party. There were no ill-effects. What did you do after that?”
“Do? Nothing. I went out.”
“Leaving Mr. and Mrs. Templeton alone together?”
“Yes. At least…” His eyes slewed round to look at her. “There was Florence.”
“No, there wasn’t. If you’ll pardon my mentioning it, sir,” Florence again intervened. “I left, just after you did, not being required any further.”
“Do you agree?” Alleyn asked Charles Templeton. He drew his hand across his eyes.
“I? Oh yes. I think so.”
“Do you mind telling me what happened then? Between you and your wife?”
“We talked for a moment or two. Not long.” ”
“About?”
“I asked her not to use the scent. I’m afraid I was in a temper about it.” He glanced at Pinky. I’m sorry, Pinky, I just — didn’t like it. I expect my taste is hopelessly old-fashioned.”
“That’s all right, Charles. My God,” Pinky added in a low voice, “I never want to smell it again, myself, as long as I live.”
“Did Mrs. Templeton agree not to use it again?”
“No,” he said at once. “She didn’t. She thought me unreasonable.”
“Did you talk about anything else?”
“About nothing that I care to recall.”
“Is that final?”
“Final,” Charles said.
“Did it concern, in some way, Mr. Dakers and Colonel Warrender?”
“Damn it!” Warrender shouted. “He’s said he’s not going to tell you, isn’t it!”
“It did concern them,” Charles said.
“Where did you go when this conversation ended?”
“I went downstairs to my study. Richard came in at about that time and was telephoning. We stayed there until the first guests arrived.”
“And you, Colonel Warrender? Where were you at this time? What did you do when you left the bedroom?”
“Ah — I was in the drawing-room. She — ah — Mary— came in. She wanted a re-arrangement of the tables. Gracefield and the other fella did it and she and I had a drink.”
“Did she seem quite herself, did you think?”
“Rather nervy. Bit on edge.”
“Why?”
“Been a trying day, isn’t it?”
“Anything in particular?”
He glanced at Richard. “No,” he said. “Nothing else.”
Fox returned. “Mr. Marchant will be here in about a quarter of an hour, sir,” he said.
There were signs of consternation from Pinky, Bertie and Timon Gantry.
“Right.” Alleyn got up, walked to the far end of the table and picked up the crumpled paper that still lay where Richard had thrown it down. “I must ask Colonel Warrender and Mr. Dakers to give me a word or two in private. Perhaps we may use the study.”
They both rose with the same abrupt movement and followed him from the room, stiffly erect.
He ushered them into the study and turned to Fox who had come into the hall.
“I’d better take this one solus, I think, Fox. Will you get the exhibits sent at once for analysis. Say it’s first priority and we’re looking for a trace of Slaypest in the scent-spray.They needn’t expect to find more than a trace, I fancy. I want the result as soon as possible. Then go back to the party in there. See you later.”
In Charles Templeton’s study, incongruously friendly and comfortable, Warrender and Richard Dakers faced Alleyn, still not looking at each other.
Alleyn said, “I’ve asked you in here, without witnesses, to confirm or deny the conclusion I have drawn from the case-history, as far as it goes. Which is not by any means all the way. If I’m wrong, one or both of you can have a shot at knocking me down or hitting me across the face or performing any other of the conventional gestures. But I don’t advise you to try.”
They stared at him apparently in horrified astonishment.
“Well,” he said, “here goes. My idea, such as it is, based on this business of the letter, which, since you seem to accept my pot shot at it, runs like this.”
He smoothed out the crumpled sheet of paper. “It’s pieced together, by the way,” he said, “from the impression left on the blotting-paper.” He looked at Richard. “The original was written, I believe, by you to Mrs. Templeton when you returned, finally, to the house. I’m going to read this transcription aloud. If it’s wrong anywhere, I hope you’ll correct me.”
Warrender said, “There’s no need.”
“Perhaps not. Would you prefer to show me the original?”
With an air of diffidence that sat very ill on him, Warrender appealed to Richard. “Whatever you Say,” he muttered.
Richard said, “Very well! Go on. Go on. Show him.”
Warrender put his hand inside his coat and drew out an envelope. He dropped it on Charles Templeton’s desk, crossed to the fireplace and stood there with his back turned to them.
Alleyn picked up the envelope. The word “Mary” was written on it in green ink. He took out the enclosure and laid his transcription beside it on the desk. As he read it through to himself the room seemed monstrously quiet. The fire settled in the grate. A car or two drove past and the clock in the hall told the half-hour.
“I’ve come back,” Alleyn read, “to say that it would be no use my pretending I haven’t been given a terrible shock and that I can’t get it sorted out, but I’m sure it will be better if we don’t meet. I can’t think clearly now, but at least I know I’ll never forgive your treatment of Anelida this afternoon. I should have been told everything from the beginning. R.”
He folded the two papers and put them aside. “So they do correspond,” he said. “And the handwriting is Mr. Dakers’s.”
Neither Richard nor Warrender moved or spoke’.
“I think,” Alleyn said, “that when you came back for the last time, you went up to your study and wrote this letter with the intention of putting it under her door. When you were about to do so you heard voices in the room, since two of my men were working there. So you came downstairs and were prevented from going out by the constable on duty. It was then that you came into the room where I was interviewing the others. The letter was in your breast pocket. You wanted to get rid of it and you wanted Colonel Warrender to know what was in it. So you passed it to him when you were lying on the sofa in the drawing-room. Do you agree?”