“One of them won’t fancy that idea.”
“No. But it wouldn’t do to refuse.”
“The nerve might crack. There might be a bolt. With that sort of temperament,” Fox said, “you can’t tell what may happen. Still, we’re well provided.”
“If anybody’s nerve cracks it won’t be Miss Destiny Meade’s. What did you make of that scene in her flat, Fox?”
“Welclass="underline" to begin with, the lady was very much put out by my being there. In my view, Mr. Alleyn, she didn’t fancy police protection within the meaning of the code to anything like the extent that she fancied it coming in a personal way from yourself. Talk about the go-ahead signal! It was hung out like the week’s wash,” said Mr. Fox.
“Control yourself, Fox.”
“Now, on what she said we only missed Mr. Knight by seconds. She makes out he rang up and abused her to such an extent that she decided to call you and that he walked in while she was still talking to you.”
“Yes. And they went bang off into a roaring row which culminated in him handing her a tuppenny one to the jaw after which he flung out and we, within a couple of minutes minced in.”
“No thought in her mind, it appears,” Fox suggested, “of ringing Mr. Grove up to come and protect her. Only you.”
“I daresay she’s doing that very thing at this moment. I must say, I hope he knows how to cope with her.”
“Only one thing to do with that type of lady,” Fox said, “and I don’t mean a tuppenny one on the jaw. He’ll cope.”
“We’ll be talking to Conducis in half an hour, Fox, and it’s going to be tricky.”
“I should damn well think so,” Fox warmly agreed. “What with orchids and her just seeing him quietly from time to time. Hi!” he ejaculated. “Would Mr. Grove know about Mr. Conducis and would Mr. Conducis know about Mr. Grove?”
“Who is, remember, his distant relation. Search me, Fox. The thing at the moment seems to be that Knight knows about them both and acts accordingly. Big stuff.”
“How a gang like this hangs together beats me. You’d think the resignations’d be falling in like autumn leaves. What they always tell you, I suppose,” Fox said. “The Show Must Go On.”
“And it happens to be a highly successful show with fat parts and much prestige. But I should think that even they won’t be able to sustain the racket indefinitely at this pitch.”
“Why are we going to see Mr. Conducis, I ask myself. How do we shape up to him? Does he matter, as far as the case is concerned?”
“In so far as he was in the theatre and knows the combination, yes.”
“I suppose so.”
“I thought him an exceedingly rum personage, Fox. A cold fish and yet a far from insensitive fish. No indication of any background other than wealth, or of any particular race. He carries a British passport. He inherited one fortune and made Lord knows how many more, each about a hundred per cent fatter than the last. He’s spent most of his time abroad and a lot of it in the Kalliope, until she was cut in half in a heavy fog under his feet. That was six years ago. What did you make of Jay’s account of the menu card?”
“Rather surprising if he’s right. Rather a coincidence, two of our names cropping up in that direction.”
“We can check the passenger list with the records; But if s not really a coincidence. People in Conducis’s world tend to move about expensively in a tight group. There was, of course, an inquiry after the disaster and Conducis was reported to be unable to appear. He was in a nursing home on the Cote d’Azur suffering from exhaustion, exposure and severe shock.”
“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.”