“Inspector,” he said, “Miss Tarne has remembered an incident three days old which we both think might possibly be of some help. What should we do about it?” The others stirred a little. J.G. opened his eyes. Fox got up. “Thank you very much, sir,” he said. “When Mr. Alleyn is disengaged I’m sure he’ll— Yes? What is it?”
P. C. Lamprey had come in. He delivered a message that the dressing-rooms were now open for the use of their occupants. At the sound of his brisk and loudish voice they all stirred. Helena and Darcey got to their feet Jacko sat up. Clem, Gay and Dr. Rutherford opened their eyes, listened to the announcement and went to sleep again.
Fox said: “You can take this young lady along to the Chief in three minutes, Lamprey. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you’d care to go to your rooms.”
He shepherded Helena and Darcey through the door and looked back at Poole. “What about you, sir?”
Poole, with his eyes on Martyn, said: “Yes, I’m coming.” Fox waited stolidly at the door for him and, after a moment’s hesitation, Poole followed the others. Fox went with them.
Mike Lamprey said: “We’ll let them get settled, Miss Tarne, and then I’ll take you along to Mr. Alleyn. You must be getting very bored with all this hanging about.” Martyns whose emotional processes were in a state of chaos, replied with a vague smile. She wondered disjointedly if constables of P. C. Lamprey’s class were a commonplace in the English Force. He glanced good-humouredly at Gay and the three dozing men and evidently felt obliged to make further conversation.
“I heard someone say,” he began, “that you are a New Zealander. I was out there as a small boy.”
“Were you, really?” Martyn said, and wondered confusedly if he could have been the son of a former governor-general.
“We had a place out there on a mountain. Mount Silver, it was. Would that be anywhere near your part of the world?”
Something clicked in Martyn’s memory. “Oh yes!” she said. “I’ve heard about the Lampreys of Mount Silver, I’m sure, and—” Her recollection clarified a little. “Yes, indeed,” she added lamely.
“No doubt,” said Mike with a cheerful laugh, “a legend of lunacy has survived us. We came Home when I was about eight, and soon afterwards my uncle happened to get murdered in our flat and Mr. Alleyn handled the case. I thought at the time I’d like to go into the Force and the idea sort of persisted. And there you are, you know. Potted autobiography. Shall we go along and see if he’s free?”
He escorted her down the passage to the Greenroom door, past Sergeant Gibson, who seemed to be on guard there. Mike chatted freely as they went, rather as if he were taking her into supper after a successful dance. The star-bemused Martyn found herself brightly chatting back at him.
This social atmosphere was not entirely dispelled, she felt, by Alleyn himself, who received her rather as a distinguished surgeon might greet a patient.
“Come in, Miss Tarne,” he said cordially. “I hear you’ve thought of something to tell us about this wretched business. Do sit down.”
She sat in her old chair, facing the gas fire and with her back to the table. Only when she looked up involuntarily at the sketch of Adam Poole did she realize that young Lamprey had settled himself at the table and taken out a note-book. She could see his image reflected in the glass.
Inspector Fox came in and went quietly to the far end of the room, where he sat in a shadowed corner and appeared to consult his own note-book.
“Well,” Alleyn said, “what’s it all about?”
“You’ll probably think it’s about nothing,” Martyn began, “and if you do I shall be sorry I’ve bothered you with it. But I thought — just in case—”
“You were perfectly right. Believe me, we are ‘conditioned,’ if that’s the beastly word, to blind alleys. Let’s have it.”
“On my first morning in this theatre,” Martyn said, “which was the day before yesterday… no, if it’s past midnight, the day before that.”
“Tuesday?”
“Yes. On that morning I went to Mr. Bennington’s room to fetch Miss Hamilton’s cigarette case. He was rather strange in his manner, but at first I thought that was because — I thought he’d noticed my likeness to Mr. Poole. He couldn’t find the case and in hunting through the pockets of a jacket, he dropped a letter to the floor. I picked it up and he drew my attention to it in the oddest sort of way. I’d describe his manner almost as triumphant. He said something about autographs. I think he asked me if I collected autographs or autographed letters. He pointed to the envelope, which I still had in my hand, and said there was somebody who’d give a hell of a lot for that one. Those, I’m almost sure, were his exact words.”
“Did you look at the letter?”
“Yes, I did, because of what he said. It was addressed to him and it had a foreign stamp on it. The writing was very bold and it seemed to me foreign-looking. I put it on the shelf face downwards and he drew my attention to it again by stabbing at it with his finger. The name of the sender was written on the back.”
“Do you remember it?”
“Yes, I do, because of his insistence.”
“Good girl,” said Alleyn quietly.
“It was Otto Brod and the address was a theatre in Prague. I’m afraid I don’t remember the name of the theatre or the street. I ought to remember the theatre. It was a French name, Théâtre de — something. Why can’t I remember!”
“You haven’t done badly. Was there something in the envelope?”
“Yes. It wasn’t anything fat. One sheet of paper, I should think.”
“And his manner was triumphant?”
“I thought so. He was just rather odd about it. He’d been drinking — brandy, I thought — the tumbler was on the dressing-shelf and he made as if to put the flask behind his looking-glass.”
“Did you think he was at all the worse for wear?”
“I wondered if it accounted for his queer behaviour.”
“Can you tell me anything else he said? The whole conversation if you remember it.”
Martyn thought back, and it seemed she had journeyed half a lifetime in three days. There was the room. There was J.G. going out and leaving her with Bennington, and there was Bennington staring at her and talking about the cigarette case. There was also something else, buried away behind her thoughts, of which the memory now returned. She was made miserable by it.
“He said, I think, something about the cigarette case. That he himself hadn’t given it to Miss Hamilton.”
“Did he say who gave it to her?”
“No,” Martyn said, “I don’t think he said that. Just that he didn’t.”
“And was his manner of saying this strange?”
“I thought his manner throughout was — uncomfortable and odd. He seemed to me to be a very unhappy man.”
“Yet you used the word ‘triumphant’?”
“There can be unhappy victories.”
“True for you. There can, indeed. Tell me one thing more. Do you connect the two conversations? I mean, do you think what he said about the cigarette case had anything to do with what he said about the letter?”
“I should say nothing. Nothing at all.”
“Oh Lord!” Alleyn said resignedly and called out: “Have you got all that, Mike?”
“Coming up the straight, sir.”
“Put it into longhand, now, will you, and we’ll ask Miss Tarne to have a look at it and see if she’s been misrepresented. Do you mind waiting a minute or two, Miss Tarne? It’ll save you coming back.”