“Hullo,” Troy said. “Still at it?”
“Very much so. Is Nicola with you?”
“Yes,” Troy said. “She and Andrew Bantling.”
“Could I have a word with her?”
“Here you are.”
Troy held out the receiver and Nicola took it feeling her heart thud stupidly against her ribs.
“Hullo, Cid,” she said.
“Hullo, Nicola. There’s something that’s cropped up here that you might just possibly be able to give me a line about. After I left you today, did you discuss our conversation with anybody?”
“Well, yes,” she said. “With Andrew.”
“Anyone else? Now don’t go jumping to conclusions, there’s a good child, but did Mr. Period want to know if you told me anything about his luncheon party?”
Nicola swallowed. “Yes, he did. But it was only, poor lamb, because he hates the idea of your hearing about the digs Mr. Cartell made at his snob-values. He was terribly keen to know if I’d told you anything about the baptismal register story.”
“And you said you had told me?”
“Well, I had to, when he asked me point-blank. I made as little of it as I could.”
“Yes. I see. One other thing — and it’s important, Nicola. Do you, by any chance, know anything that would connect Mr. Period with a popular song?”
“A song! No — not—”
“Something about O.K. by me?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Pixie
It had been five past eleven when Alleyn was summoned to the telephone. He and Fox, having struck a blank in respect to the gloves, had been mulling over their notes in the Codling pub when the landlord, avid with curiosity, summoned him.
“It’s a call for you, sir,” he said. “Local. I didn’t catch the name. There’s no one in the bar parlour, if that suits you.”
Alleyn took the call in the bar parlour.
He said: “Alleyn here. Hullo?”
Mr. Pyke Period, unmistakable and agitated, answered. “Alleyn? Thank God! I’m so sorry to disturb you at this unconscionable hour. Do forgive me. The thing is there’s something I feel I ought to tell—”
The voice stopped. Alleyn heard a bump, followed by a soft, heavier noise and then by silence. He waited for a moment or two. There was a faint definite click and, again, silence. He rang and got the “engaged” signal. He hung up and turned to find Fox at his side.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll tell you on the way.”
When they were clear of the pub he broke into a run, with Fox, heavy and capable, on his heels.
“Period,” Alleyn said. “And it looks damn’ fishy. Stopped dead in full cry. Characteristic noises.”
The pub was in a side street that led into the Green at Mr. Period’s end of it. There was nobody about and their footsteps sounded loud on the paving-stones. Connie Cartell’s Pekingese was yapping somewhere on the far side of the Green. Distantly, from the parish schoolroom, came the sound of communal singing.
Only one room in Mr. Period’s house was lit and that was the library. Stepping as quietly as the gravelled drive would permit, they moved towards the French windows. Bay trees stood on either side of the glass doors, which were almost but not quite shut.
Alleyn looked across the table Nicola had used, past her shrouded typewriter and stacked papers. Beyond, to his right, and against the window in the side wall, was Mr. Period’s desk. His shaded lamp, as if it had been switched on by a stage manager, cast down a pool of light on that restricted area, giving it an immense theatricality. The telephone receiver dangled from the desk and Mr. Period’s right arm hung beside it. His body was tipped forward in his chair and his face lay among his papers. The hair was ruffled like a baby’s and from his temple a ribbon of blood had run down the cheekbone to the nostril.
“Doctor”—Alleyn said—“What’s-his-name — Elkington.”
Fox said: “Better use the other phone.” He replaced the receiver very gingerly and went into the hall.
Mr. Period was not dead. When Alleyn bent over him, he could hear his breathing — a faint snoring sound. The pulse was barely perceptible.
Fox came back. “On his way,” he said. “Will I search outside?”
“Right. We’d better not move him. I’ll do the house.”
It was perfectly quiet and empty of living persons. Alleyn went from room to room, opening and shutting doors, receiving the indefinable smells of long-inhabited places, listening, looking and finding nothing. Mrs. Mitchell’s room smelt stuffily of hairpins and Alfred Belt’s of boot polish. Mr. Period’s bedroom smelt of hair lotion and floor polish, and Mr. Cartell’s of blankets and soap. Nothing was out of place anywhere in Mr. Period’s house. Alleyn returned to the library as Fox came in.
“Nothing,” Fox said. “Nobody, anywhere.”
“There’s the instrument,” Alleyn said.
It was the bronze paperweight in the form of a fish that Désirée had given Mr. Period. It lay on the carpet close to his dangling hand.
“I’ll get our chaps,” Fox said. “They’re in the pub. Here’s the doctor.”
Dr. Elkington came in looking as if his professional manner had been fully extended.
“What now, for God’s sake?” he said and went straight to his patient. Alleyn watched him make his examination, which did not take long.
“All right,” he said. “On the face of it he’s severely concussed. I don’t think there’s any extensive cranial injury but we’ll have to wait. Half an inch either way and it’d have been a different matter. We’d better get him out of this. Where’s that man of his — Alfred?”
“At a Church Social,” said Alleyn. “We could get a mattress. Or what about the sofa in the drawing-room?”
“All right. Better than manhandling him all over the shop.”
Fox and Alleyn carried Mr. Period into the drawing-room and propped him up on the sofa, Dr. Elkington supporting his head.
“Will he speak?” Alleyn asked Dr. Elkington.
“Might or might not. Your guess is as good as mine. There’s nothing we can do at the moment. He may have to go to hospital. I’d better get a nurse. What’s the story, if there is a story?”
“Somebody chucked a bronze paperweight at him. You’d better look at it. Don’t touch it unless you have to. Fox will show you. I’m staying here. I’ll let you know if there’s a change.”
“Attempted murder?” Dr. Elkington said, making a mouthful of it.
“I think so.”
“For God’s sake!” Dr. Elkington repeated. He and Fox went out of the room. Alleyn drew up a chair and watched Mr. Period.
His eyes were not quite closed and his breathing, though still markedly stertorous, seemed to be more regular. Alleyn heard Dr. Elkington at the telephone.
The doorbell rang. The other chaps, he thought. Fox would cope.
Mr. Period’s eyes opened and looked, squintingly, at nothing.
“You’re all right,” Alleyn said, leaning towards him.
Dr. Elkington came back. “It’s the paperweight sure enough,” he said. “Trace of blood on the edge.” He went to the sofa and took Mr. Period’s hand in his.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re all right.”
The flaccid lips parted. After an indeterminate noise a whisper drifted through them: “It was that song.”
“Song? What song?”
“He’s deeply concussed, Alleyn.”
“What song?”
“Should have told Alleyn. Whistling. Such awfully bad form. Luncheon.”
“What song?”
“Couldn’t — out of my head.” Mr. Period whispered plaintively. “So silly. ‘O.K. by me.’ So, of course. Recognized. At once.” The sound faded and for a moment or two the lips remained parted. Then Mr. Period’s own voice, uncannily articulate, said quite clearly: “May I speak to Superintendent Alleyn?”