“That was once known as the glad eye,” thought Alleyn.
Under cover of a hymn he slipped out of church.
v
He crossed the lane to the hall. Sergeant Roper was on duty at the gate and came smartly to attention.
“Well, Roper, how long have you been here?”
“I relieved Constable Fife an hour ago, sir. The super sent him along soon after you left. About seven-thirty, sir.”
“Anybody been about?”
“Boys,” said Roper, “hanging round like wasps and as bold as brass with that young Biggins talking that uppish you’d have thought he was as good as the murderer, letting on as he was as full of inside knowledge as the Lord Himself, not meaning it in the way of blasphemy. I subdued him, however, and his mother bore him off to church. Mr. Bathgate took a photograph of the building, and asked me to say, sir, that he’d look back in a minute or two in case you were here.”
“I dare say,” granted Alleyn.
“And the doctor came along, too, in a proper taking on. Seems he left one of his knives for slashing open the body in the hall last night, and he wanted to fetch her out for to lay bare the youngest Cain’s toe. I went in with the doctor but she was nowhere to be found, no not even in the pockets of his suit which seemed a strange casual spot for a naked blade, no doubt so deadly sharp as ’twould penetrate the very guts of a man in a flash. Doctor was proper put about by the loss and made off without another word.”
“I see. Any one else?”
“Not a living soul,” said Roper. “I reckon rector will have brought this matter up in his sermon, sir. The man couldn’t well avoid it, seeing it’s his job to put a holy construction on the face of disaster.”
“He did just touch on it,” Alleyn admitted.
“A ticklish affair and you may be sure one that he didn’t greatly relish, being a timid sort of chap.”
“I think I’ll have a look round the outside of the hall, Roper.”
“Very good, sir.”
Alleyn wandered round the hall on the lane side, his eyes on the gravelled path. Roper looked after him wistfully until he disappeared at the back. He came to the rear door, saw nothing of interest, and turned to the outhouses. Here, in a narrow gap between two walls, he found a nail where he supposed the key had hung yesterday. He continued his search round the far side of the building and came at last to a window, where he stopped.
He remembered that they had shut this window last night before they left the hall. It was evidently the only one that was ever opened. The others were firmly sealed in accumulated grime. Alleyn looked at the wall underneath it. The surface of the weathered stone was grazed in many places, and on the ground he discovered freshly detached chips. Between the gravelled path and the side of the building was a narrow strip of grass. This bore a rectangular impress that the night’s heavy rain had softened but not obliterated. Within the margin of the impress he found traces of several large footprints and two smaller ones. Alleyn returned to a sort of lumbershed at the back and fetched an old box. The edges at the open end bore traces of damp earth. He took it to the impression and found that it fitted exactly. It also covered the lower grazes on the wall. He examined the box minutely, peering into the joints and cracks in the rough wood. Presently he began to whistle. He took a pair of tweezers from his pocket, and along the edge, from a crack where the. wood had split, he pulled out a minute red scrap of some spongy substance. He found two more shreds caught in the rough surface of the wood, and on a projecting nail. He put them in an envelope and sealed it. Then he replaced the box. He measured the height from the box to the window-sill.
“Good-morning,” said a voice behind him. “You must be a detective.”
Alleyn glanced up and saw Nigel Bathgate leaning over the stone fence that separated the parish hall grounds from a path on the far side.
“What a fascinating life yours must be,” continued Nigel.
Alleyn did not reply. Inadvertently he released the catch on the steel tape. It flew back into the container.
“Pop goes the weasel,” said Nigel.
“Hold your tongue,” said Alleyn, mildly, “and come here.”
Nigel vaulted over the wall.
“Take this tape for me. Don’t touch the box if you can help it.”
“It would be pleasant to know why.”
“Five-foot-three from the box to the sill,” said Alleyn. “Too far for Georgie, and in any case we know he didn’t. That’s funny.”
“Screamingly.”
“Go to the next window, Bathgate, and raise yourself by the sill. If you can.”
“Only if you tell me why.”
“I will in a minute. Please be quick. I want to get this over before the hosts of the godly are upon us. Can you do it?”
“Listen, Chief. This is your lucky day. Look at these biceps. Three months ago I was puny like you. By taking my self-raising course — ”
Nigel reached up to the window sill, gave a prodigious heave, and cracked the crown of his head smartly on the sill.
“Great strength rings the bell,” said Alleyn. “Now try and get a foothold.”
“Blast and damn you!” said Nigel, scraping at the wall with his shoes.
“That will do. I’m going into the hall. When I call out, I want you to repeat this performance. You needn’t crack your head again.”
Alleyn went into the hall, forced open the second window two inches, and went over to the piano.
“Now!”
The shape of Nigel’s head and shoulders rose up behind the clouded glass. His collar and tie appeared in the gap. Alleyn had a fleeting impression of his face.
“All right.”
Nigel disappeared and Alleyn rejoined him.
“Are we playing Peep Bo or what?” asked Nigel sourly.
“Something of the sort. I saw you all right. Yes,” continued Alleyn, examining the wall. “The lady used the box. We will preserve the box. Dear me.”
“At least you might say I can come down.”
“I’m so sorry. Of course. And your head?”
“Bloody.”
“But unbowed, I feel sure. Now I’ll explain.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Top Lane Incident
i
Alleyn gave Nigel his explanation as they walked up Top Lane by the route Dinah had taken on Friday afternoon. They walked briskly, their heads bent, and a look of solemn absorption on their faces. In a few minutes they crossed a rough bridge and reached a sharp turn in the lane.
“It was here,” said Alleyn, “that Henry Jernigham met Dinah Copeland on Friday afternoon. It was here that Eleanor Prentice found them on her return from the confessional. I admit that I am curious about their encounters, Bathgate. Miss Prentice came upon them at three, yet she left the church at half-past two. Young Jernigham says he was away two hours. He left home at two-thirty. It can take little more than five minutes to come down here from Pen Cuckoo. They must have been together almost half an hour before Miss Prentice arrived.”
“Perhaps they are in love.”
“Perhaps they are. But there is something that neither Miss Prentice nor Master Henry cares to remember when one speaks of this meeting. They turn pale. Henry becomes sardonic and Miss Prentice sends out waves of sanctimonious disapproval in the manner of a polecat.”
“What can you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter. She left the church at three. She only spent five minutes here with the others and yet she did not reach Pen Cuckoo till after four. There seems to be a lot of time to spare. Henry struck up this path to the hill-top. Miss Copeland returned by the way we have come, Miss Prentice went on to Pen Cuckoo. I have a picture of three specks of humanity running together, exploding, and flying apart.”