“You see,” said Alleyn, “all the murderer had to do was exactly what I’m doing now. The Colt fits into the same place, and the loose end of cord which was tied round the butt of the water-pistol is tied round the butt of the Colt. It passes across the trigger. It is remarkably strong cord, rather like fishing line. I’ve left the safety catch on. Now look.”
He sat on the piano stool and pressed the soft pedal. The two pulleys stood out rigidly from their moorings, the cord tautened as the dampers moved towards the strings and checked.
“It’s stood firm,” said Alleyn. “Georgie made sure of his pulleys. Now.”
“By gum!” ejaculated Nigel, “I never thought of—”
“I know you didn’t.”
Alleyn reached inside and released the safety catch. Again he trod lightly on the soft pedal. This time the soft pedal worked. The cord tightened in the pulleys and the trigger moved back. They all heard the sharp click of the striker.
“Well, there you are for what it’s worth,” said Alleyn lightly.
“Yes, but last night the top of the piano was smothered in bunting and six he-men aspidistras,” objected Henry.
“So you think it was done last night,” said Alleyn.
“I don’t know when it was done, and I don’t think it could have been done last night, unless it was before we all got to the hall.”
Alleyn scowled at Nigel, who was obviously pregnant with a new theory.
“It’s perfectly true,” said Nigel defiantly. “Nobody could have moved those pots after 6.30.”
“I so entirely agree with you,” said Alleyn. A bell pealed distantly. Henry jumped.
“That’s the telephone,” he said and started forward.
“I’ll answer it, I think,” said Alleyn. “It’s sure to be for me.”
He crossed the stage, found a light switch and made his way to the first dressing-room on the left. The old-fashioned manual telephone pealed irregularly until he lifted the receiver.
“Hullo?”
“Mr. Alleyn? It’s Dinah Copeland. Somebody wants to speak to you from Chipping.”
“Thank you.”
“Here you are,” said Dinah. The telephone clicked and the voice of Sergeant Roper said, “Sir?”
“Hullo?”
“Roper, sir. I thought I should find you, seeing as how Fife is still asleep here. I have a small matter in the form of a recent arrest to bring before your notice, sir.”
“In what form?”
“By name Saul Tranter, and by employment as sly a poacher as ever you see; but we’ve cotched him very pretty, sir, and the man’s sitting here at my elbow with guilt written all over him in the form of two fine cock-pheasants.”
“What the devil—?” began Alleyn, and checked himself. “Well, Roper, what about it?”
“This chap says he’s got a piece of information that’ll make the court think twice about giving him the month’s hard he’s been asking for these last two years. He won’t tell me, sir, but in his bold way he asks to be faced with you. Now, we’ve got to get him down to the lock-up some time and — ”
“I’ll send Mr. Bathgate down, Roper. Thank you.” Alleyn hung up the receiver and stared thoughtfully at the telephone.
“I’ll have to see about you,” he told it and returned to the front of the hall.
“Hullo,” he said, “where’s Master Henry?”
“Gone home,” said Fox. “He’s a funny sort of young gentleman, isn’t he?”
“Rather a bumptious infant, I thought,” said Nigel.
“He’s about the same age as you were when I first met you,” Alleyn pointed out, “and not half as bumptious. Bathgate, I’m afraid you’ll have to go into Chipping and get a poacher.”
“A poacher!”
“Yes. Treasure-trove of Roper’s. Apparently the gentleman wishes to make a blunderbuss about his impending sentence. He says he’s got a story to unfold. Bring Fife with him. Stop at the pub on the way back and get your own car, and let Fife drive the Ford here and he can use it afterwards to deliver this gentleman to the lock-up. We’ll clear up this place to-night.”
“Am I representative of a leading London daily or your odd-boy?”
“You know the answer to that better than I do. Away you go.”
Nigel went, not without further bitter complaint. Alleyn and Fox moved to the supper-room.
“All this food can be thrown away to-morrow,” said Alleyn. “There’s something else I want to see down here, though. Look, there’s the tea-tray ready to be carried on in the play. Mrs. Ross’s silver, I dare say. It looks like her. Modern, expensive and streamlined.”
He lifted the lid of the teapot.
“It reeks of onion. Dear little Georgie.”
“I suppose someone spotted it and threw it out. You found it lying on the floor here, didn’t you, Mr. Alleyn?”
“In that box over there. Yes. Bailey has found Georgie’s and Miss P’s prints in the pot, so presumably Miss P. hawked out the onion.
He stooped down and looked under the table.
“You went all over here last night, didn’t you, Fox? Last night! This morning! ‘Little Fox, we’ve had a busy day.’ ”
“All over it, sir. You’ll find the onion peel down there. Young Biggins must have skinned it and then put it in the teapot.”
“Did you find any powder in here?”
“Powder? No. No, I didn’t. Why?”
“Or flour?”
“No. Oh, you’re thinking of the flour on the onion.”
“I’ll just get the onion.”
Alleyn fetched the onion. He had put it in one of his wide-necked specimen bottles.
“We haven’t had time to deal with this as yet,” he said. “Look at it, Fox, it’s pinkish. That’s powder, not flour.”
“Perhaps young Biggins fooled round with it in one of the dressing-rooms.”
“Let’s look at the dressing-rooms.”
They found that on each dressing-table there was a large box of theatrical powder. They were all new, and it looked as if Dinah had provided them. The men’s boxes contained a yellowish powder, the women’s a pinkish cream. Mrs. Ross, alone, had brought her own in an expensive-looking French box. In the dressing-room used by Miss Prentice and Miss Campanula, some of their powder had been spilled across the table. Alleyn stooped and sniffed at it.
“That’s it,” he said. “Reeks of onion.” He opened the box. “But this doesn’t. Fox, ring up Miss Copeland and ask when the powder was brought into these rooms. It’s an extension telephone. You just turn the handle.”
Fox plodded away. Alleyn, in a sort of trance, stared at the top of the dressing-table, shook his head thoughtfully and returned to the stage. He heard a motor-horn, and in a minute the door opened. Roper and Fife came in shepherding between them a pigmy of a man who looked as if he had been plunged in a water-butt.
Mr. Saul Tranter was an old man with a very bad face. His eyes were no bigger than a pig’s and they squinted, wickedly close together, on either side of his mean little nose. His mouth was loose and leered uncertainly, and his few teeth were objects of horror. He smelt very strongly indeed of dirty old man, dead birds and whisky. Roper thrust him forward as if he was some fabulous orchid, culled at great risk.
“Here he be, sir,” said Roper. “This is Saul Tranter, sure enough, with all his wickedness hot in his body, having been taken in the act with two of squire’s cock-pheasants and his gun smoking in his hands. Two years you’ve dodged us, haven’t you, Tranter, you old fox? I thought I’d come along with Fife, sir, seeing I’ve got the hang of this case, having brought my mind to bear on it.”
“Very good of you, Roper.”
“Now then, Tranter,” said Roper, “speak up to the chief inspector and let him have the truth — if so be it lies in you to tell it.”