“Why?”
“He reckoned he couldn’t take the new setup. The bitch worried him. Not even clean, Mrs. Mitchell says. And the deceased seems to have suggested that Alfred might have had something to do with the missing cigarette case, which, Mrs. Mitchell says, Alfred took great exception to. They were both very upset, because they’ve been there so long and didn’t fancy a change at their time of life. Alfred went so far as to tell Mr. Period that it was either them or Mr. Cartell.”
“When did he do that, Fox?”
“Last evening. Mr. Period was horribly put out about it, Mrs. Mitchell says. He made out life wouldn’t be worth living without Alfred and her. And he practically undertook to terminate Mr. Cartell’s tenancy. They’d never known him to be in such a taking-on. Quite frantic, was the way she put it.”
“Indeed?…I think he cooked the baptismal register, all right, Fox, and I think Mr. Cartell rumbled it,” Alleyn said, and described his visit to Ribblethorpe.
“Now, isn’t that peculiar behaviour!” Fox exclaimed. “A gentleman going to those lengths to make out he’s something he is not. You’d hardly credit it.”
“You’d better, because I’ve a strong hunch that this case may well turn about Mr. Period’s obsession. And it is an obsession, Br’er Fox. He’s been living in a world of fantasy, and it’s in danger of exploding over his head.”
“Lor!” Fox remarked, comfortably.
“When you retire in fifty years’ time,” Alleyn said with an affectionate glance at his colleague, “you must write a monograph on Snobs I Have Known. It’s a fruitful field and it has yet to be exhausted. Shall I tell you what I think might be the Period story?”
“I’d be obliged,” said Fox.
“Well, then. A perfectly respectable upper-middle-class origin. A natural inclination for grandeur and a pathologically sensitive nose for class distinctions. Money, from whatever source, at an early enough age to provide the suitable setting. Employment that brings him in touch with the sort of people he wants, God save the mark, to cultivate. And all this, Br’er Fox, in, let us say, the twenties, when class distinctions were comparatively unjolted. It would be during this period — what a name he’s got, to be sure! — that a fantasy began to solidify. He became used to the sort of people he had admired, felt himself to be one of them, scarcely remembered his natural background and began to think of himself as one of the nobs. The need for justification nagged at him. He’s got this unusual name. Somebody said: ‘By the way, are you any relation to the Period who married one of the Ribblethorpe Pykes?’ and he let it be thought he was. So he began to look into the Ribblethorpe Pykes and Periods and found that both sides have died out. It would be about now that ‘Pyke’ was adopted as a second name — not hyphenated, but always used. He may have done it by deed poll. That, of course, can be checked. And — well, there you are. I daresay that by now he’d persuaded himself he was all he claimed to be and was happily established in his own fairy tale until Cartell, by some chance, was led to do a little private investigation and, being exasperated beyond measure, blew the gaff at yesterday’s luncheon party. And if that,” Alleyn concluded, “is not an excursion into the hateful realms of surmise and conjecture, I don’t know what it is.”
“Silly,” Fox said. “If true. But it makes you feel sorry for him.”
“Does it? Yes, I suppose it does.”
“Well, it does me,” Fox said uneasily. “What’s the next move, Mr. Alleyn?”
“We’ll have to try to find those blasted gloves.”
“Where do we start?”
“Ask yourself. We’re told by the unspeakable Moppett that she wore them when they drove from London to Little Codling. They might have been dropped at Miss Cartell’s, Mr. Period’s, or Baynesholme. They might be in the pocket of the Scorpion. They might have been burnt or buried. All we know is that it’s odds-on the planks were shifted, with homicidal intent, by someone who was probably wearing leather and string gloves, and that Leonard Leiss, according to his fancy-girl, is raising merry hell because he’s lost such a pair. So, press on, Br’er Fox. Press on.”
“Where do we begin?”
“The obvious place is Miss Cartell’s. The Moppett says she dumped their overcoats there, and that the gloves were in Leiss’s pocket. I don’t want Miss Cartell to think we’re hounding her treasured ward, because if she does think that, she perfectly capable of collaborating with Leiss or the Moppett herself or Lord knows who, out of pure protective hennery. She’s a fool of a woman, Lord help her. I tell you what, Fox. You do your well-known stuff with Trudi — and make it jolly careful. Then try your hand with the Period household, which evidently, as far as the staff is concerned, has been nicely softened-up by you.”
“They’re going out this evening,” Fox said. “Church Social. They’ll be in great demand, I daresay.”
“Damn. All right, we’d better let them go. And, if that fails, we’ll have to ask at Baynesholme. What’s the matter?”
Fox was looking puffy — a sure sign, in that officer, of embarrassment.
“Well, Mr. Alleyn,” he said, “I was just thinking.”
“Thinking what?”
“Well, there’s one aspect of the case which of course you’ve considered, so I’m sure there’s no need to mention it. But since you ask me, there’s the other young couple. Mr. Bantling and Miss Maitland-Mayne.”
“I know. They were canoodling in the lane until after the other couples went back to Baynesholme, and might therefore have done the job. So they might, Br’er Fox. So, indubitably, they might.”
“It’d be nice to clear them up.”
“Your ideas about what would be nice vary between a watertight capital charge and cold lamb with cucumber relish. But it would be nice, I agree.”
“You may say, you see, that as far as the young man is concerned, somebody else’s defending counsel, with his back to the wall, could talk about motive.”
“You may indeed.”
“Mind, as far as the young lady’s concerned, the idea’s ridiculous. I think you said they met for the first time yesterday morning.”
“I did. And apparently took to each other at first sight. But, I promise you, you’re right. As far as the young lady is concerned I really do believe the idea’s ridiculous. As for Master Andrew Bantling, he’s a conventionally dressed chap. I can’t think that his rig was topped off by a pair of string-backed hacking gloves. All right,” Alleyn said, raising a finger. “Could he, by some means, have got hold of Leiss’s gloves? When? At Baynesholme? There, or at Mr. Period’s? Very well! So he drove his newly acquired girlfriend to the lane, confided his troubles to her, put on Leiss’s gloves and asked her to wait a bit while he rearranged the planks.”
“Well, there you are!” Fox exclaimed. “Exactly. Ridiculous!” He nodded once or twice and then said: “Where is he? Not that it matters.”
Alleyn looked at his watch.
“I should think,” he said, “he’s on the main London highway with Nicola Maitland-Mayne. God bless my soul!” he ejaculated.
“What’s up, Mr. Alleyn?”
“Do you know, I believe she’s taking him to show one of his paintings to Troy. Tonight. She asked me if I thought Troy would mind. This was before the case had developed. I don’t mind betting she sticks to it.”
In this supposition he was entirely right.
“She’s not a Scorpion,” Andrew remarked as he negotiated a conservative overtake, “but she goes, bless her tiny little horsepower. It feels to me, Nicola, that we have been taking this trip together much more often than twice. Are you ever called ‘Nicky’?”