“Yes,” Alleyn said, holding up a warning hand. “Alleyn speaking.”
“Just to tell you. Whistling. Recognized it. Last night. In the lane. Very wrong of me not to — Divided loyalties.” There was a longish silence. Alleyn and Elkington stared absently at each other. “O.K. by me,” the voice sighed. “So vulgar.”
The eyes closed again.
“This may go on for hours, Alleyn.”
“How much will he remember when he comes round?”
“Everything probably, up to the moment he was knocked out. Unless there’s a serious injury to the brain.” Dr. Elkington was stooping over his patient. “Still bleeding a bit. I’ll have to put in a couple of stitches. Where’s my bag?” He went out. Fox was talking to the men in the hall. “We’ll seal the library and cover the area outside the window.”
“Do we search?” asked somebody. Williams, Alleyn decided.
“Better talk to the Chief.”
Fox and Williams came in with Dr. Elkington, who opened his professional bag.
“Just steady his head, will you?” he asked Alleyn.
Holding Mr. Period’s head between his hands, Alleyn said to Fox and Williams: “It looks as if the thing was thrown at him by somebody standing between the table and the French windows while he was ringing me up. I heard the receiver knock against the desk as it fell and I heard a click that might well have been made by the windows being pulled to. You’re not likely to find anything on the drive. It’s as dry as a bone and in any case the French doors are probably used continually. Whoever made the attack had time enough to effect a clean getaway before we came trundling in, but I think the best line we can take is to keep watch in case he’s still hiding in the garden — Noakes and Thompson can do that — and Fox, you rouse up Miss Cartell’s household. Somebody will have to stay here in case he speaks again. Bob, would you do that?”
“Right,” said Superintendent Williams.
“I’ve got a call to London.”
“To London?” Williams repeated.
“It may give us a line. Fox, I’ll join you at Miss Cartell’s. O.K?”
“O.K., Mr. Alleyn.”
“And Bailey had better have a go at the paperweight. I think it was probably on the table near the French windows. There are various piles of stacked papers, all but one weighed down. And one of the ashtrays has got two lipsticked butts in it. Miss Ralston and Leiss smoke Mainsails, Lady Bantling smokes Cafards and Mr. Period, Turkish. Ask him to look. Gloves!” Alleyn ejaculated. “If we could find those damn’ gloves. Not that they are likely to have anything to do with this party, but we’ve a glove-conscious homicide on our hands, I fancy. All right.…Let’s get cracking.”
It was at this juncture — at a quarter to midnight — that he talked on the telephone to Nicola Maitland-Mayne.
Then he rejoined Elkington in the drawing-room.
“Has he said anything else?”
“No.”
“Look here, Elkington, can you stick it here with Williams for a bit? We’re fully extended, we can’t risk the chance of missing anything he may say, and Williams will be glad of a witness. Somebody will relieve you as soon as possible.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Write it down, Bob, if he does speak. I’m much obliged to you both.”
He was about to go when a sound, fainter than anything they had yet heard, came from the sofa. It wavered tenuously for a second or two and petered out. Mr. Period, from whatever region he at present inhabited, had been singing.
As Alleyn was about to leave the house, Detective Sergeant Bailey presented himself.
“There’s a small thing,” he said.
“What small thing?”
“There’s nothing for us on the gravel outside the French windows, Mr. Alleyn, but I reckon there’s something on the carpet.”
“What?”
“Traces of ash. Scuffed into the carpet, I reckon, by one of those pin-point heels.”
“Good man,” Alleyn said. “Carry on.” He let himself out and walked down the drive.
It was a dark night, overcast and rather sultry. As he approached the gates he became aware of a very slight movement in a patch of extremely black shadows cast by a group of trees. He stopped dead. Was it Thompson or Noakes, on to something and keeping doggo, or was it…? He listened and again there was a rustle and the sound of heavy breathing. At this moment a spot of torchlight danced about the drive and Sergeant Noakes himself appeared from the opposite direction, having apparently crossed the lawn and emerged through Mr. Period’s shrubs. He shone his light in Alleyn’s face and said: “Oh, beg pardon, sir. There’s nothing to be seen, sir, anywhere. Except dog prints. Two kinds.”
Alleyn gestured silently towards the shadows. “Eh?” said Noakes. “What?” And then comprehensively: “Cor!”
There being no point after this in attempting any further concealment Alleyn said: “Look out, you ass,” and switched on his own torchlight, aiming it at the shadows.
“On your toes, now,” he said and advanced, Noakes with him.
He walked past a lowish thicket of evergreens, pointed his light into the depths beyond, and illuminated Alfred Belt with Mrs. Mitchell, transfixed in his arms.
“I’m sure I beg your pardon, sir,” said Alfred.
Mrs. Mitchell said: “Oh dear; what a coincidence! What will the gentlemen be thinking,” and tittered.
“What we’ll be thinking,” Alleyn said, “depends to a certain extent on what you’ll be saying. Come out.”
Alfred looked at his arms as if they didn’t belong to him, released Mrs. Mitchell and advanced to the drive. “I should have thought, sir,” he said with restraint, “that the circumstance was self-explanatory.”
“We didn’t return by the side gate,” Mrs. Mitchell offered, “on account of my not fancying it after what has taken place.”
“A very natural feminine reaction, sir, if I may say so.”
“We were returning,” said Mrs. Mitchell, “from the Church Social.”
“Mrs. Mitchell has been presented with the long-service Girls’ Friendly Award. Richly deserved, I was offering my congratulations.”
“Jolly good,” Alleyn said. “May I offer mine?”
“Thank you very much, I’m sure. It’s a teapot,” Mrs. Mitchell said, exhibiting her trophy.
“And of course, a testimonial,” Alfred amended.
“Splendid. And you have spent the evening together?”
“Not to say together, sir. Mrs. Mitchell, as befitted the occasion, occupied the rostrum. I am merely her escort,” said Alfred.
“The whole thing,” Alleyn confessed, “fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. What are you going to do next?”
“Next, sir?”
“Next.”
“Well sir. As it’s something of an event, I hope to persuade Mrs. Mitchell to join me in a nightcap, after which we will retire,” Alfred said with some emphasis, “to our respective accommodations.”
“Dog permitting,” Mrs. Mitchell said abruptly.
“Dog?”
“Pixie, sir. She is still at large. There may be disturbances.”
“Alfred,” Alleyn said, “when did you leave Mr. Period?”
“Leave him, sir?”
“Tonight?”
“After I had served coffee, sir, which was at eight-thirty.”
“Do you know if he was expecting a telephone call?”
“Not that I was aware,” Alfred said. “He didn’t mention it. Is anything the matter, sir, with Mr. Period?”
“Yes,” Alleyn said, “there is. He has been the victim of a murderous assault, and is severely concussed.”
“Oh, my Gawd!” Mrs. Mitchell ejaculated and clapped a hand over her mouth.
“My gentleman? Where is he? Here,” Alfred said loudly, “let me go in!”