“Did you go to the hall on Friday?”
“Yes,” said Dinah. “I went in the lunch hour to supervise the work. I came away before they had quite finished, and returned here.”
“And then you walked up Top Lane towards Pen Cuckoo?”
“Yes,” said Dinah in surprise, and into her eyes came that same guarded look he had seen in Henry’s.
“Was Georgie Biggins in the hall when you left at about two o’clock?”
“Yes. Making life hideous with his masterly water-pistol. He is a naughty boy, Daddy,” said Dinah. “I really think you ought to exorcise Georgie. I’m sure he’s possessed of a devil.”
“Then you haven’t heard about Georgie?” murmured Alleyn. “Roper has his points.”
“What about Georgie?”
Alleyn told them.
“I want,” he said, “to make as little as possible of the obvious implication. There seems to be little doubt that Georgie, plus Twiddletoy, and his water-pistol made the bullets that the murderer subsequently fired. It’s an unpleasant responsibility to lay on a small boy’s shoulders, however bad he may be. I’m afraid it must come out in evidence, but as far as possible I think we ought to try and avoid village gossip.”
“Certainly,” said the rector. “At the same time, he knew he was doing something wrong. The terrible consequences — ”
“Are disproportionately terrible, don’t you think.”
“I do. I agree with you,” said Dinah.
Alleyn, seeing priest’s logic in the rector’s eye, hurried on.
“You will see,” he said, “that the substitution of the Colt for the water-pistol must have taken place after two o’clock on Friday when Georgie was flourishing his pistol. I know he stayed behind on Friday and rigged it up. He had admitted this. Miss Campanula’s chauffeur, at her request, looked through the open window at two-thirty and saw the piano with the top open. His story leads us to believe that at that time Georgie was hiding somewhere in the building. Georgie did not tell me that at all willingly, and I confess I am afraid the memory of Miss Campanula, banging at the doors and demanding admittance, is likely to become a childish nightmare. I don’t pretend to understand child psychology.”
“The law,” said Dinah, “in the person of her officer, seems to be surprisingly merciful.”
Alleyn disregarded this.
“So that gives us two-thirty on Friday as a starting-off point. You, Miss Copeland, walked up Top Lane and by chance encountered Mr. Henry Jernigham.”
“What!” the rector ejaculated. “Dinah!”
“It’s all right,” said Dinah in a high voice. “It was by accident, Daddy. I did meet Henry and we did behave as you might have expected. Our promise was almost up. It’s my fault. I couldn’t help it.”
“Miss Prentice arrived some time later, I believe,” said Alleyn.
“Has she told you that?”
“Mr. Henry Jernigham told me and Miss Prentice agreed. Do you mind, Miss Copeland, describing what happened at this triple encounter?”
“If they haven’t told you,” said Dinah, “I won’t.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Confession From a Priest
i
Won’t you?” said Alleyn mildly. “That’s a pity. We shall have to do the Peer Gynt business.”
“What’s that?”
“Go roundabout. Ask servants about the relationship between Miss Prentice and her young cousin. Tap the fabulous springs of village gossip — all that.”
“I thought,” flashed Dinah, “that nowadays the C.I.D. was almost a gentleman’s job.”
“Oh, no!” said Alleyn. “You couldn’t be more mistaken.”
Her face was scarlet. “That was a pretty squalid remark of mine,” said Dinah.
“It was inexcusable, my dear,” said her father. “I am ashamed that you have been capable of it.”
“I find no offence it in at all,” Alleyn said cheerfully. “It was entirely apposite.”
But Mr. Copeland’s face was pink with embarrassment, and Dinah’s still crimson with mortification. The rector addressed her as if she was a children’s service. His voice became more markedly clerical, and in the movement of his head Alleyn recognised one of his pulpit mannerisms. He said, “You have broken a solemn promise, Dinah, and to this fault you add a deliberate evasion and an ill-bred and entirely unjustifiable impertinence. You force me to make Mr. Alleyn some sort of explanation.” He turned to Alleyn. “My daughter and Henry Jernigham,” he said, “have formed an attachment of which his father and I do not approve. Dinah suggested that they should give their word not to meet alone for three weeks. Friday was the final day of the three weeks. Miss Prentice was also of our mind in this matter. If she came upon them at a moment when, as Dinah has admitted, they had completely forgotten or ignored this promise, I am sure she was extremely disappointed and distressed.”
“She wasn’t!” exclaimed Dinah, rallying a little. “She wasn’t a bit like that. She was absolutely livid with rage and beastliness.”
“Dinah!”
“Oh, Daddy, why do you shut your eyes? You must know what she’s like — you of all people!”
“Dinah, I must insist — ”
“No!” cried Dinah. “No! First you say I’ve been underhand; and then, when I go all upperhand and open, you don’t like it any better. I’m sorry in a way that Henry and I didn’t stay the course; but we nearly did, and I won’t think there was anything very awful about Friday afternoon. I won’t have Henry and me made seem grubby. I’m sorry I was rude to Mr. Alleyn and I — well, I mean it’s quite obvious it wasn’t only rude, but silly. I mean, it’s obvious from the way he’s taken it — I mean — oh, hell! Oh, Daddy, I’m sorry.”
Alleyn choked down a laugh.
The rector said, “Dinah! Dinah!”
“Yes, well, I am sorry. And now Mr. Alleyn will think heaven knows what about Friday afternoon. I may as well tell you, Mr. Alleyn, that in Henry’s and my opinion Miss Prentice is practically ravers. It’s a well-known phenomenon with old maids. She’s tried to sublimate her natural appetites and — and — work them off in religion. I can’t help it, Daddy, she has. And it’s been a failure. She’s only repressed and repressed, and when she sees two natural, healthy people making love to each other she goes off pop.”
“It is I,” said the rector, looking hopelessly at his child, “who have been a failure.”
“Don’t. You haven’t. It’s just that you don’t understand these women. You’re an angel, but you’re not a modern angel.”
“I should be interested to know,” said Alleyn, “how an angel brings himself up to date. Stream-lined wings, I suppose.”
Dinah grinned.
“Well, you know what I mean,” she said. “And I’m right about these two. If you had heard Miss Prentice! It was simply too shaming and hideous. She actually shook all over and sort of gasped. And she said the most ghastly things to us. She threatened at once to tell you, Daddy, and the squire. She suggested — oh, she was beyond belief. What’s more, she dribbles and spits.”
“Dinah, my dear!”
“Well, Daddy, she does. I noticed the front of her beastly dress, and it was disgusting. She either dribbles and spits, or else she spills her tea. Honestly! And, anyway, she was perfectly sceptic, the things she said.”
“Didn’t either of you try to stop her?” asked Alleyn.