“Bluff?”
“Perhaps. He certainly is a rum ’un and no mistake. Jay’s account of his behaviour that morning—by George,” Alleyn said suddenly. “Hell’s boots and gaiters!”
“What’s all this, now?” Fox asked placidly.
“So much hokum I daresay, but listen, all the same.”
Fox listened.
“Well,” he said. “You always say don’t conjecture but personally, Mr. Alleyn, when you get one of your hunches in this sort of way I reckon it’s safe to go nap on it. Not that this one really gets us any nearer an arrest.”
“I wonder if you’re right about that. I wonder.”
They talked for another five minutes, going over Peregrine’s notes, and then Alleyn looked at his watch and said they must be off. When they were halfway to Park Lane he said: “You went over all the properties in the theatre, didn’t you? No musical instruments?”
“None.”
“He might have had Will singing ‘Take, oh take those lips away’ to the Dark Lady. Accompanying himself on a lute. But he didn’t.”
“Perhaps Mr. Knight can’t sing.”
“You may be right at that”
They drove into Park Lane and turned into Drury Place.
“I’m going,” Alleyn said, “to cling to Peregrine Jay’s notes as Mr. Conducis was reported to have clung to his raft.”
“I still don’t know exactly what line we take,” Fox objected.
“We let him dictate it,” Alleyn rejoined. “At first. Come on.”
Mawson admitted them to that so arrogantly unobtrusive interior, and a pale young man advanced to meet them. Alleyn remembered him from his former visit. The secretary.
“Mr. Alleyn. And — er?”
“Inspector Fox.”
“Yes. How do you do? Mr. Conducis is in the library. He’s been very much distressed by this business. Awfully upset. Particularly about the boy. We’ve sent flowers and all that nonsense, of course, and we’re in touch with the theatre people. Mr. Conducis is most anxious that everything possible should be done. Well — shall we? You’ll find him, perhaps, rather nervous, Mr. Alleyn. He has been so very distressed.”
They walked soundlessly to the library door. A clock mellifluously struck five.
“Here is Superintendent Alleyn, sir, and Inspector Fox.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Mr. Conducis was standing at the far end of the library. He had been looking out of the window, it seemed. In the evening light the long room resembled an interior by some defunct academician: Orchardson, perhaps, or the Hon. John Collier. The details were of an undated excellence but the general effect was strangely Edwardian and so was Mr. Conducis. He might have been a deliberately understated monument to Affluence.
As he moved towards them Alleyn wondered if Mr. Conducis was ill or if his pallor was brought about by some refraction of light from the apple-green walls. He wore a gardenia in his coat and an edge of crimson silk showed above his breast pocket.
“Good evening,” he said. “I am pleased that you were able to come. Glad to see you again.”
He offered his hand. Large and white, it withdrew itself—it almost snatched itself away—from contact.
Mawson came in with a drinks tray, put it down, hovered, was glanced at and withdrew.
“You will have a drink,” Mr. Conducis stated.
“Thank you, but no,” Àlleyn said. “Not on duty, I’m afraid. This won’t stop you from having one, of course.”
“I am an abstainer,” said Mr. Conducis. “Shall we sit down?”
They did so. The crimson leather chairs received them like sultans.
Alleyn said, “You sent word you wanted to see us, sir, but we would in any case have asked for an interview. Perhaps the best way of tackling this unhappy business will be for us to hear any questions that it may have occurred to you to ask. We will then, if you please, continue the conversation on what I can only call routine investigation lines.”
Mr. Conducis raised his clasped hands to his mourn and glanced briefly over them at Alleyn. He then lowered his gaze to his fingers. Alleyn thought: “I suppose that’s how he looks when he’s manipulating his gargantuan undertakings.”
Mr. Conducis said, “I am concerned with this affair. The theatre is my property and the enterprise is under my control. I have financed it. The glove and documents are mine. I trust, therefore, that I am entitled to a detailed statement upon the case as it appears to your Department. Or rather, since you are in charge of the investigation, as it appears to you.”
This was said with an air of absolute authority. Alleyn was conscious, abruptly, of the extraordinary force that resided in Mr. Conducis.
He said very amiably: “We are not authorized, I’m afraid, to make detailed statements on demand—not even to entrepreneurs of businesses and owners of property, especially where a fatality has occurred on that property and a crime of violence may be suspected. On the other hand, I will, as I have suggested, be glad to consider any questions you like to put to me.”
And he thought: he’s like a lizard or a chameleon or whatever the animal is that blinks slowly. It’s what people mean when they talk about hooded eyes.”
Mr. Conducis did not argue or protest. For all the reaction he gave, he might not have heard what Alleyn said.
“In your opinion,” he said, “were the fatality and the injury to the boy caused by an act of violence?”
“Yes.”
“Both by the same hand?”
“Yes.”
“Have you formed an opinion on why it was done?”
“We have arrived at a working hypothesis.”
“What is it?”
“I can go so far as to say that I think both were defensive actions.”
“By a person caught in the act of robbery?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“Do you think you know who this person is?”
“I am almost sure that I do. I am not positive.”
“Who?”
“That,” Alleyn said, “I am not at liberty to tell you. Yet.”
Mr. Conducis looked fully at him, if the fact that those extraordinarily blank eyes were focussed on his face could justify this assertion.
“You said you wished to see me. Why?”
“For several reasons. The first concerns your property: the glove and the documents. As you know they have been recovered, but I think you should also know by what means.”
He told the story of Jeremy Jones and the substitution and he could have sworn that as he did so the sweet comfort of a reprieve flooded through Conducis. The thick white hands relaxed. He gave an almost inaudible but long sigh.
“Have you arrested him?”
“No. We have, of course, uplifted the glove. It is in a safe at the Yard with the documents.”
“I cannot believe, Superintendent Alleyn, that you give any credence to his story.”
“I am inclined to believe it.”
Then in my opinion you are either incredibly stupid or needlessly evasive. In either case, incompetent.”
This attack surprised Alleyn. He had not expected his slow-blinking opponent to dart his tongue so soon. As if sensing his reaction Mr. Conducis recrossed his legs and said: “I am too severe. I beg your pardon. Let me explain myself. Can you not see that Jones’s story was an impromptu invention? He did not substitute the faked glove for the real glove six months ago. He substituted it last night and was discovered in the act. He killed Jobbins, was seen by the boy and tried to kill him. He left the copy behind—no doubt if he had not been interrupted he would have put it in the safe—and he took the real glove to the safe-deposit.”
“First packing it with most elaborate care in an insulated box with four wrappings, all sealed.”
“Done in the night. Before Jay got home.”