“At what time did you get home?”
“Tea-time. About half-past four.”
“Thank you. Now for Friday at five, when the company met here and you showed them the automatic. Did they all leave together?”
“Yes,” said Henry.
“At what time?”
“Soon after six.”
“Nobody was alone in here at any time before they left?”
“No. We rehearsed in here. They all went out by the french window. It saves trailing through the house.”
“Yes. Is it always unlocked?”
“During the day it is.”
“I lock it before we go to bed,” said Jocelyn, “and fasten the shutters. Lock up the whole place.”
“You did this on Friday night, sir?”
“Yes. I was in here reading, all Friday evening.”
“Alone?”
“I was here part of the time,” Henry said. “Something had gone wrong with one of Dinah’s light plugs in the hall and I’d brought it up here to mend. I started in here, and then went to my own room where I had a screwdriver. I tried to ring Dinah up, but our telephone was out of order. A branch had fallen across it in Top Lane.”
“I see. Now, how about yesterday? Any visitors?”
“Templett came up in the morning to borrow an old four-in-hand tie of mine,” said Jocelyn. “He seemed to think he’d like to wear it in in the play. He offered to look at my cousin’s finger, but she wouldn’t come down.”
“She was afraid he’d tell her she couldn’t play her filthy ‘Venetian Suite,’ ” said Henry. “Do you admire the works of Ethelbert Nevin, Mr. Alleyn?”
“No,” said Alleyn.
“They’re gall and wormwood to me,” said Henry gloomily. “And I suppose we’ll have them here for the rest of our lives. Not that I like the bloody Prelude much better. Do you know what that Prelude is supposed to illustrate?”
“Yes, I think I do. Isn’t it — ”
“Burial,” said Henry. “It’s supposed to be a man buried alive. Bump, bump, bump on the coffin lid. Well, I suppose it’s not so frightfully inappropriate.”
“Not so frightfully,” agreed Alleyn rather grimly. “Now, about yesterday’s visitors.”
But Henry and his father were rather vague about yesterday’s visitors. The squire had driven into Great Chipping in the morning.
“And Miss Prentice?” asked Alleyn.
“Same thing. She went with us. She was in the hall all the morning. They were all there.”
“All?”
“Well, not Templett,” said Henry. “He called in here as we’ve described, at about ten o’clock, and my father gave him the tie. And a pretty ghastly affair it is, I may add.”
“They were damn’ smart at one time,” said the squire hotly. “I remember I wore that tie—”
“Well, anyway,” said Henry, “he got the tie. I didn’t see him. I was hunting up my own clothes. We all went out soon after he’d gone. You saw him off, didn’t you, Father?”
“Yes,” said the squire. “Funny sort of fellow, Templett. First I knew about him was that Taylor told me he was in here and wanted the four-in-hand. I told Taylor to hunt it up and came down and found Templett. We talked for quite a long time and I’m blessed if, when I walked out with him to the car, poor little Mrs. Ross wasn’t sitting there. Damn’ funny thing to do,” said Jocelyn, brushing up his moustache. “ ’Pon my word, I think the fellow wanted to keep her to himself.”
Alleyn looked thoughtfully at him.
“How was Dr. Templett dressed?” he asked.
“What? I don’t know. Yes, I think I do. Donegal tweed.”
“An overcoat?”
“No.”
“Bulging pockets?” asked Henry, with a grin at Alleyn.
“I don’t think so. Why? Good Lord, you don’t suppose he took my Colt, do you?”
“We’ve got to explore the possibilities, sir,” said Alleyn.
“My God,” said Jocelyn, “I suppose they’re all under suspicion! What?”
“Including us,” said Henry. “You know,” he added, “theoretically one wouldn’t put it past Templett. Eleanor’s been poisonous about his alleged — notice how I protect myself, Mr. Alleyn — his alleged affair with Selia Ross.”
“Good God!” shouted Jocelyn angrily, “haven’t you got more sense than to talk like that, Henry? This is a damn’ serious business, let me tell you, and you go blackening Mr. — Mr. Alleyn’s mind against a man who — ”
“I spoke theoretically, remember,” said Henry. “I don’t really suppose Templett is a murderer, and as for Mr. Alleyn’s mind — ”
“It doesn’t blacken very readily,” said Alleyn.
“And after all,” Henry continued, “you might make out just as bad a case against me. If I thought I could murder Cousin Eleanor in safety I dare say I should undertake it. And I should think Mr. Copeland would feel sorely tempted after the way she’s — ”
“Henry!”
“But, my dear Father, Mr. Alleyn is going to hear all the local gossip if he hasn’t done so already. Of course, Mr. Alleyn will suspect each of us in turn. Even dear Cousin Eleanor herself is not above suspicion. She may have infected her finger in the approved manner with a not too deadly toxin. Or made it up to look septic. Why not? There were the grease paints. True, she overdid it a bit, but that may have been pure artistry.”
“Damn’ dangerous twaddle,” shouted Jocelyn. “It was hurting her like hell. I’ve known Eleanor since we were children, and I’ve never seen her cry before. She’s a Jernigham.”
“A good deal of it was straight-out annoyance at not being able to perform the ‘Venetian Suite,’ if you ask me. Tears of anger, they were, and the only sort you’ll ever wring from Eleanor’s eyes. Did she cry when they yawked out her gall-bladder? No. She’s a Jernigham.”
“Be quiet, sir,” stormed Jocelyn.
“As far as I can see, the only one of us who could not have set the trap is poor old Idris Campanula. Oh, God!”
Alleyn, watching Henry, saw him turn very white before he moved away to the window.
“All right,” Henry said to the landscape. “One’s got to do something about it. Can’t go on all day thinking of an old maid with her brains blown out. Might as well be funny in our hard, decadent modern way.”
“I remember getting the same reaction in the war,” said Alleyn vaguely. “As they say in vaudeville, ‘I had to laugh.’ It’s not an uncommon rebound from shock.”
“I don’t suppose I was being anything but excessively commonplace,” said Henry tartly. iv
“Then you don’t know if anybody came while you were out yesterday morning?” asked Alleyn, after some considerable time spent in collecting the attention of the two Jernighams.
“I’ll ask the servants,” said Jocelyn importantly, and rang for Taylor.
As Alleyn expected, the evidence of the servants was completely inconclusive. Nobody had actually rung the door bells, but on the other hand anybody might have walked into the study and done anything. They corroborated Jocelyn and Henry’s statements about their own movements and Taylor remembered seeing Miss Prentice come in at four on Friday afternoon. When the last maid had gone Alleyn asked if they had all been at Pen Cuckoo for some time.
“Lord, yes,” said the squire. “Out of the question they should have anything to do with this affair. No motive, no opportunity.”
“And not nearly enough sense,” added Henry.
“In addition to which,” said Alleyn, “they have provided each other with alibis for the whole day until they all went down in a solid body to the church hall at seven-thirty.”
“I understand the entertainment provided,” said Henry, “caused cook to vomit three times on the way home, and this morning, Father, I am told, the boot-boy heaved everything he had into the tops of your hunting boots.”