Miss Prentice gave Alleyn her martyred smile, shook her head slightly at the bandaged finger, and looked restlessly at the clock.
“H’m,” she said unhappily.
“Well,” said Alleyn. “The music was in the hall from Thursday onwards and you put it in the rack yesterday morning. And none of you went into the hall before the show last night. Good.”
Miss Prentice said, “Well — I think I shall just— Jocelyn, dear, that’s the first bell, isn’t it?”
“I’m sorry,” said Alleyn, “but I should like, if I may, to have a word with you, Miss Prentice. Perhaps you will let me drive you down. Or if not — ”
“Oh,” said Miss Prentice, looking very flurried, “thank you. I think I should prefer — I’m afraid I really can’t — ”
“Cousin Eleanor,” said Henry, “I will drive you down, father will drive you down, or Mr. Alleyn will drive you down. You might even drive yourself down. It is only twenty-five to eleven now and it doesn’t take more than ten minutes to walk down, so you can easily spare Mr. Alleyn a quarter of an hour.”
“I’m afraid I do fuss rather, don’t I, but you see I like to have a few quiet moments before — ”
“Now, look here, Eleanor,” said the squire warmly, “this is an investigation into murder. Good Lord, it’s your best friend that’s been killed, my dear girl, and when we’re right in the thick of it, damme, you want to go scuttling off to church.”
“Jocelyn!”
“Come on, Father,” said Henry. “We’ll leave Mr. Alleyn a fair field.”
iii
“—you see,” said Alleyn, “I don’t think you quite realise your own position. Hadn’t it occurred to you that you were the intended victim?”
“It is such a dreadful thought,” said Miss Prentice.
“I know it is, but you’ve got to face it. There’s a murderer abroad in your land and as far as one can see his first coup hasn’t come off. It’s been a fantastic and horrible failure. For your own, if not for the public’s good, you must realise this. Surely you want to help us.”
“I believe,” said Miss Prentice, “that our greatest succour lies in prayer.”
“Yes,” Alleyn said slowly, “I can appreciate that. But my job is to ask questions, and I do ask you, most earnestly, if you believe that you have a bitter enemy among this small group of people.”
“I cannot believe it of any one.”
Alleyn looked at her with something very like despair. She had refused to sit down after they were alone, but fidgeted about in the centre of the room, looked repeatedly down the Vale, and was thrown into a fever of impatience by the call of the church bells.
A towering determined figure, he stood between Eleanor and the window, and concentrated his will on her. He thought of his mind as a pin-pointed weapon and he drove it into hers.
“Miss Prentice. Please look at me.”
Her glance wavered. Her pale eyes travelled reluctantly to his. Deliberately silent until he felt he had got her whole attention, he held her gaze with his own. Then he spoke. “I may not try to force information from you. You are a free agent. But think for a moment of the position. You have escaped death by an accident. If you had persisted in playing last night you would have been shot dead. I am going to repeat a list of names to you. If there is anything between any one of these persons and yourself which, if I knew of it, might help me to see light, ask yourself if you should not tell me of it. These are the names:
“Mr. Jocelyn Jernigham?
“His son, Henry Jernigham?
“The rector, Mr. Copeland?”
“No!” she cried, “no! Never! Never!”
“His daughter, Dinah Copeland?
“Mrs. Ross?”
He saw the pale eyes narrow a little.
“Dr. Templett?”
She stared at him like a mesmerised rabbit.
“Well, Miss Prentice, what of Mrs. Ross and Dr. Templett?”
“I can accuse nobody. Please let me go.”
“Have you ever had a difference with Mrs. Ross?”
“I hardly speak to Mrs. Ross.”
“Or with Dr. Templett?”
“I prefer not to discuss Dr. Templett,” she said breathlessly.
“At least,” said Alleyn, “he saved your life. He dissuaded you from playing.”
“I believe God saw fit to use him as an unworthy instrument.”
Alleyn opened his mouth to speak and thought better of it. At last he said, “In your own interest, tell me this. Has Mrs. Ross cause to regard you as her enemy?”
She wetted her lips and answered him with astounding vigour:
“I have thought only as every decent creature who sees her must think. Before she could silence the voice of reproach she would have to murder a dozen Christian souls.”
“Of whom Miss Campanula was one?”
She stared at him vacantly and then he saw she had understood him.
“That’s why he wouldn’t let me play,” she whispered.
iv
On his way back, Alleyn turned off the Vale road and drove up past the church to the hall. Seven cars were drawn up outside St. Giles and he noticed a stream of villagers turning in at the lych-gate.
“Full house, this morning,” thought Alleyn grimly. And suddenly he pulled up by the hall, got out, and walked back to the church.
“The devil takes a holiday,” he thought, and joined in with the stream.
He managed to elude the solicitations of a sidesman and slip into a seat facing the aisle in the back row where he sat with his long hands clasped round his knee. His head looked remotely austere in the cold light from the open doors.
Winton St. Giles is a beautiful church and Alleyn, overcoming that first depression inseparable from the ecclesiastical smell, and the sight of so many people with decorous faces, found pleasure in the tranquil solidity of stone shaped into the expression of devotion. The single bell stopped. The organ rumbled vaguely for three minutes, the congregation stood, and Mr. Copeland followed his choir into church.
Like everybody else who saw him for the first time, Alleyn was startled by the rector’s looks. The service was a choral Eucharist and he wore a cope, a magnificent vestment that shone like a blazon in the candle light. His silver hair, the incredible perfection of his features, his extreme pallor, and great height, made Alleyn think of an actor admirably suited for the performance of priestly parts. But when the time came for the short sermon, he found evidence of a simple and unaffected mind with no great originality. It was an unpretentious sermon touched with sincerity. The rector spoke of prayers for the dead and told his listeners that there was nothing in the teaching of their church that forbade such prayers. He invited them to petition God for the peace of all souls departed in haste or by violence, and he commended meditation and a searching of their own hearts lest they should harbour anger or resentment.
As the service went on, Alleyn, looking down the aisle, saw a dark girl with so strong a resemblance to the rector that he knew she must be Dinah Copeland. Her eyes were fixed on her father and in them Alleyn read anxiety and affection.
Miss Prentice was easily found, for she sat next the aisle in the front row. She rose and fell like a ping-pong ball on a water jet, sinking in solitary genuflexions and crossing herself like a sort of minor soloist. The squire sat beside her. The back of his neck wore an expression of indignation and discomfort, being both scarlet and rigid. Much nearer to Alleyn, and also next the aisle, sat a woman whom he recognised as probably the most fashionable figure in the congregation. Detectives are trained to know about clothes and Alleyn knew hers were impeccable. She wore them like a Frenchwoman. He could only see the thin curve of her cheek and an immaculate wing of straw-coloured hair, but presently, as if aware of his gaze, she turned her head and he saw her face. It was thinnish and alert, beautifully made-up, hard, but with a look of amused composure. The pale eyes looked into his and widened. She paused with unmistakable deliberation for a split second, and then turned away. Her luxuriously gloved hand went to her hair.