“Pinky,” Richard said unevenly, “you really are no end of a darling. I’m afraid I can’t — I can’t… I’m sorry. I’m just not reacting much to anything.”
“Exactly,” Marchant said. “How well one understands. The proper thing, of course, would be for one to leave you to yourself, which unfortunately this Yard individual at the moment won’t allow.”
“He did send to say it wouldn’t be long now,” Bertie pointed out nervously.
“Do you suppose,” Pinky asked, “that means he’s going to arrest somebody?”
“Who can tell! Do you know what!” Bertie continued very rapidly and in an unnatural voice. “I don’t mind betting every man jack of us is madly wondering what all the others think about him. Or her. I know I am. I keep saying to myself, ‘Can any of them think I darted upstairs instead of into the loo, and did it!’ I suppose it’s no use asking you all for a frank opinion is it? It would be taking an advantage.”
“I don’t think it of you,” Pinky said at once. “I promise you, darling.”
“Pinky! Nor I of you. Never for a moment. And I don’t believe it of Anelida or Richard. Do you?”
“Never for a moment,” she said firmly. “Absolutely not.”
“Well,” Bertie continued, inspired by Pinky’s confidence, “I should like to know if any of you does suppose it might be me.” Nobody answered. “I can’t help feeling immensely gratified,” Bertie said. “Thank you. Now. Shall I tell you which of you I think could — just—under frightful provocation — do something violent all of a sudden?”
“Me, I suppose,” Gantry said. “I’m a hot-tempered man.”
“Yes. Timmy dear, you! But only in boiling hot blood with one blind swipe, not really meaning to. And that doesn’t seem to fit the bill at all. One wants a calculating iceberg of a person for this job, doesn’t one?”
There followed a period of hideous discomfort, during which nobody looked at anybody else.
“An idle flight of speculation, I’m afraid, Bertie,” said Marchant. “Would you be very kind and bring me a drink?”
“But of course,” said Bertie, and did so.
Gantry glanced at Richard and said, “Obviously there’s no connection — apart from the shock of Mary’s death having precipitated it — between Charles’s tragedy — and hers.” Nobody spoke and he added half-angrily, “Well, is there! Harkness — you were there.”
Dr. Harkness said quickly, “I don’t know what’s in Alleyn’s mind.”
“Where’s that momumental, that superb old ham, the Colonel? Why’s he gone missing all of a sudden?” Gantry demanded. “Sorry, Dicky, he’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?”
“He’s… Yes,” Richard said after a long pause. “He is. I think he’s with Alleyn.”
“Not,” Marchant coolly remarked, “under arrest, one trusts.”
“I believe not,” Richard said. He turned his back on Marchant and sat beside Anelida on the sofa.
“Oh lud!” Bertie sighed, “how wearing has been this long, long day and how frightened in a vague sort of way I continue to feel. Never mind. Toujours l’audace.”
The handle of the door into the hall was heard to turn. Everybody looked up. Florence walked round the leather screen. “If you’ll just wait, Miss,” the constable said and retired. Philpott cleared his throat.
Richard said, “Come in, Floy. Come and sit down.”
She glanced stonily at him, walked into the farthest corner of the room and sat on the smallest chair. Pinky looked as if she’d like to say something friendly to her, but the impulse came to nothing and a heavy silence again fell upon the company.
It was broken by the same sound and a heavier tread. Bertie half-rose from his seat, gave a little cry of frustration and sank back again as Colonel Warrender made his entry, very erect and looking at no one in particular.
“We were just talking about you,” said Bertie fretfully.
Richard stood up. “Come and join us,” he said, and pushed a chair towards the sofa.
“Thank you, old boy,” Warrender said awkwardly, and did so.
Anelida leant towards him and after a moment’s hesitation put her hand on his knee. “I intend,” she said under her breath, “to bully Richard into marrying me. Will you be on my side and give us your blessing?”
He drew his brows together and stared at her. He made an unsuccessful attempt to speak, hit her hand painfully hard with his own and ejaculated, “Clumsy ass. Hurt you, isn’t it? Ah — Bless you.”
“O.K.,” said Anelida and looked at Richard. “Now, you see, darling, you’re sunk.”
There was a sound of masculine voices in the hall, Pinky said. “Oh dear!” and Gantry, “Ah, for God’s sake!” Marchant finished his drink quickly and P.C. Philpott rose to his feet. So, after a mulish second or two, did Florence.
This time it was Alleyn who came round the leather screen.
There was only one place in the room from which he could take them all in at one glance and that was the hearthrug. Accordingly, he went to it and stood there like the central figure in some ill-assembled conversation piece.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “to have kept you hanging about. It was unavoidable and it won’t be for much longer. Until a short time ago you were still, all of you, persons of importance. From the police point of view, I mean, of course. It was through you that we hoped to assemble the fragments and fit them into their pattern. The pattern is now complete and our uncomfortable association draws to its end. Tomorrow there will be an inquest and you will be required, most of you, to appear at it. The coroner’s jury will hear your evidence and mine and one can only guess at what they will make of it. But you have all become too far involved for me to use any sort of evasion. Already some of you are suspecting others who are innocent. In my opinion this is one of those cases where the truth, at any cost, is less damaging in the long run, to vague, festering conjecture. For you all must know,” Alleyn went on, “you must know even if you won’t acknowledge it…”—his glance rested fleetingly on Richard—“that this has been a case of homicide.”
He waited. Gantry said, “I don’t accept that,” but without much conviction.
“You will, I think, when I tell you that the Home Office analyst has found a trace of Slaypest in the bulb of the scent-spray.”
“Oh,” Gantry said faintly, as if Alleyn had made some quite unimportant remark. “I see. That’s different.”
“It’s conclusive. It clears up all the extraneous matter. The professional rows, the threats that you were all so reluctant to admit, the evasions and half-lies. The personal bickerings and antagonisms. They were all tidied away by this single fact.”
Marchant, whose hands were joined in front of his face, lifted his gaze for a moment to Alleyn. “You are not making yourself particularly clear,” he said.
“I hope to do so. This one piece of evidence explains a number of indisputable facts. Here they are. The scent-spray was harmless when Colonel Warrender used it on Mrs. Templeton. At some time before she went up to her room with Mr. Dakers, enough Slaypest was transferred to the scent-spray to kill her. At some time after she was killed the scent-spray was emptied and washed out and the remaining scent from the original bottle was poured into it. I think there were two, possibly three, persons in the house at that time who could have committed these actions. They are all familiar with the room and its appointments and surroundings. The presence of any one of them in her room would, under normal circumstances, have been unremarkable.”