“What about the box?”
“Pardon, sir?”
“Didn’t you get a box out of the shed at the back of the hall for Miss Campanula to stand on in order to look through the window?”
“No, sir. No.”
Nigel grinned and whistled softly.
“All right,” said Alleyn. “It’s no matter. Anything else?”
“No, sir. Miss Prentice come out looking very upset, passed me, and went up the lane. I reckon she was going home by Top Lane.”
“Miss Prentice looked upset?”
“She did so, sir. It’s my belief Mr. Copeland had sent her off with a flea in her ear, if you’ll excuse the liberty.”
“Did you watch her go? Look after her, I mean?”
“No, sir, I didn’t like, seeing she was looking so queer.”
“D’you mean she was crying?”
“She wasn’t actually that way, sir. Not shedding tears or anything, but she looked queer. Upset, very down in the mouth.”
“You don’t know if she went to the hall?”
“No, sir, I can’t say. I did have a look in the driving mirror and I saw her cross the road as soon as she’d gone a few steps, but she’d do that, anyway, sir, very likely.”
“Gibson, can you remember exactly how the piano looked? Describe it for me as accurately as you possibly can.”
Gibson scraped his jaw with his mechanic’s hand. “Down on the floor where it was in the evening, sir. Stool in front of it. No music on it. Er — let’s see now. It wasn’t quite the same. No, that’s right. It was kind of different.”
Alleyn waited.
“I got it,” said Gibson loudly. “Yes, by gum, I got it.”
“Yes?”
“Those pot plants was on the edge of the stage and the top of the piano was open.”
“Ah,” said Alleyn, “I hoped so.”
iii
“What’s the inner significance of all that?” demanded Nigel when Gibson had gone. “What about this box? Is it the one you had under the window?”
“It is.” Alleyn spoke to Fox. “At some time since Gibson hauled himself up to look in at the window, somebody has put an open box there and stood on it. It’s left a deep rectangular scar overlapping one of Gibson’s prints. I found the box in the outhouse. It wasn’t young Georgie. He used the door, and anyway the window would have been above his eye-level. The only footprints are Miss C’s and some big ones, no doubt Gibson’s. They trod on the turf. The box expert must have come later, perhaps on Saturday, and only stood on the gravel. We’ll try the box for prints, but I don’t think we’ll do any good. When I heard Gibson’s story I expected we would find that Miss Campanula had used it. Evidently not. It’s a tedious business but we’ll have to clear it up. Have you said much to the maids?”
“It looks as if deceased was a proper tartar,” said Fox. “I’ve heard enough to come to the conclusion. Mary, the parlourmaid, you saw just now, sir, seems to have acted as a kind of lady’s-maid as well. Miss Campanula had a very open way with Mary when she was in the mood. Surprising some of the things she used to tell her.”
“For instance, Brer Fox?”
“Well, Mr. Alleyn, to Mary’s way of thinking, Miss C. was a bit queer on the subject of Mr. Copeland. Potty on him is the way Mary puts it. She says that about the time the rector walks through the village of a morning, deceased used to go and hang about under one pretext or another until she could meet him.”
“Oh Lord!” said Alleyn distastefully.
“Yes, it’s kind of pitiful, sir, isn’t it? Mary says she’d dress herself up, very particularly, walk up to Chipping, and go into the little shop. She’d keep the woman there talking, while she bought some trifle or another, and. all the time she’d be looking through the glass door. If the rector showed up, Miss Campanula would be off like lightening. She was a very uncertain tempered lady, and when things went wrong she used to scare the servants by the wild way she talked, saying she’d do something violent, and so on.”
“This is getting positively Russian,” said Alleyn, “and remarkably depressing. Go on.”
“It wasn’t so bad till Miss Prentice came. She had it her own way in the parish till then. But Miss Prentice seems to have put her in the shade, as you might say. Miss Prentice beat her to all the top places. She’s president of this Y.P.F.C. affair and Miss C. was only secretary. Same sort of thing with the Girl Guides.”
“She’s never a Girl Guide!” Alleyn ejaculated.
“Seems like it, and she beat Miss C. hands down, teaching the kids knots and camp cookery. Got herself decorated with badges and so on. Started at the bottom and swotted it all up. The local girls didn’t faney it much, but she kind of got round them; and when Lady Appleby gave up the Commissioner’s job Miss Prentice got it. Same sort of thing at the Women’s Circle and all the other local affairs. Miss P. was too smart for Miss C. They were as thick as thieves; but Mary says sometimes Miss C. would come back from a Friendly meeting or something of the sort, and the things she’d say about Miss Prentice were surprising.”
“Oh, Lord!”
“She’d threaten suicide and all the rest of it. Mary knew all about the will. Deceased often talked about it, and as short time back as last Thursday, when they had their dress rehearsal, she said it’d serve Miss Prentice right if she cut her out, but she was too charitable to do that, only she hoped if she did go first the money would be like scalding water on Miss Prentice’s conscience. On Friday, Mary says, she had one of her good days. Went off to confession and came back very pleased. Same thing after the five o’clock affair at Pen Cuckoo, and in the evening she went to some Reading Circle or other at the rectory. She was in high feather when she left, but she didn’t get back until eleven — very much later than usual. Gibson says she didn’t speak on the way back, and Mary says when she came in she had a scarf pulled round her face and her coat collar turned up and — ”
“It wasn’t her,” said Nigel. “Miss Prentice had disguised herself in Miss C’s clothes in order.to have a look at the will.”
“Will you be quiet, Bathgate. Go on, Fox.”
“Mary followed her to her room; but she said she didn’t want her, and Mary swears she was crying. She heard her go to bed. Mary took in her first tea first thing yesterday morning, and she says Miss Campanula looked shocking. Like an Aunt Sally that had been left out in the rain, was the way Mary put it.”
“Graphic! Well?”
“Well, she spent yesterday morning at the hall with the others, but when she came back she wrote a note to the lawyers and gave it to Gibson to post; but she stayed in all yesterday afternoon.”
“I knew you had something else up your sleeve,” said Alleyn. “Where’s the blotting paper?”
Fox smiled blandly.
“It’s all right, as it turns out, sir. Here it is.”