“What? Oh, yes. Yes, certainly.”
“I’m much obliged, sir. I’ll say good-afternoon.”
“Good-afternoon,” said Jocelyn restlessly.
vi
“This is Miss Bruce,” said the supervisor. “She was on duty on Friday night, but I doubt if she’ll be able to help you.”
Fox looked placidly at Miss Bruce and noted that she seemed a bright young person.
He said, “Well, Miss Bruce, we’ll be very pleased if you can put us right in this little matter. I understand you were on duty as an operator at ten o’clock on Friday evening.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Yes. Now the call we’re interested in came through somewhere round about 10.30. It was to the rectory, Winton St. Giles. It’s a party line with the old manual telephones and a long extension. Not many of those left, are there?”
“They’ll be gone by this time next year,” said the supervisor.
“Is that a fact?” said Fox comfortably. “Well, well. Now, Miss Bruce, can you help us?”
“I don’t remember any calls on the rectory phone on Friday night,” said Miss Bruce. “Chipping 10, the number is. I’m in the Y.P.F.C, so I know. We always have to ring a long time there, because the old housemaid Mary’s a bit deaf, and Miss Dinah’s room’s away upstairs, and the rector never answers until he’s fetched. It’s a line that’s used a lot, of course.”
“It would be.”
“Yes. Friday was Reading Circle night, and they’re usually over at the hall, so everybody knows not to ring up on Friday, see, because they won’t be in. Actually, last Friday it was at the rectory because of the play; but people wouldn’t know that, see. They’d think: ‘Well, Friday. It’s no use ringing on Friday.’ ”
“So you’re sure nobody rang?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m sure of it. I’d swear to it if that’s what’s wanted.”
“If the extension was used you wouldn’t know, I suppose?”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“No,” agreed Fox. “Well, thank you very much, miss. I’m greatly obliged. Good-afternoon.”
“Pleasure, I’m sure,” said Miss Bruce. “Ta-ta.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Final Vignettes
i
The express from London roared into Great Chipping station. Alleyn, who had been reading the future in the murky window pane, rose hurriedly and put on his overcoat.
Fox was on the platform.
“Well, Brer Fox?” said Alleyn when they reached the Biggins’s Ford.
“Well, sir, the Yard car’s arrived. They’re to drive up quietly after we’ve all assembled. Alison can come into the supper-room with his two men and I’ll wait inside the front door.”
“That’ll be all right. I’d better give you all a cue to stand by, as Miss Copeland would say. Let’s see. I’ll ask Miss Prentice if she’s feeling the draught. We’ll sit on the stage round that table so there’ll probably be a hell of a draught. How did you get on at Pen Cuckoo?”
“She was there.”
“Not?”
“Ross or Rosen. You had a lucky strike there, Mr. Alleyn. Fancy her being Claude Smith’s girl. We were on the Quantock case at that time, weren’t we?”
“We weren’t at the Yard, anyway. I’ve never seen her before this.”
“More’ve I. Well, she was there. Something up — between him and her — I should say.”
“Between who and her, Mr. Fox?” asked Nigel. “You’re very dark and cryptic this evening.”
“Between Jernigham senior and Mrs. Ross, Mr. Bathgate. When I arrived he was looking peculiar, and Mr. Henry seemed as if he thought something was up. She was cool enough, but I’d say the other lady was a case for expert opinion.”
“Miss Prentice?” murmured Alleyn.
“That’s right, sir. Young Jernigham went and fetched her. She owned up to opening the window as sweet as you please, and then began to talk a lot of nonsense about letting in the unpardonable sin. I took it all down, but you’d be surprised how silly it was.”
“The unpardonable sin? Which one’s that, I wonder?”
“Nobody owned to the onion,” said Fox gloomily.
“I think onions, in any form, the unpardonable sin,” said Nigel.
“I reckon you’re right about the onion, Mr. Alleyn.”
“I think so, Fox. After all, on finding onions in teapots, why not exclaim on the circumstance? Why not say, ‘Georgie Biggins for a certainty,’ and raise hell?”
“That’s right, sir. Well, from the way they shaped up to the question, you’d say none of them had ever smelt one. Mr. Jernigham’s talking about getting a doctor in. Do you know what? I think he’s sweet on her. On Rosen, I mean.”
Fox changed into second gear for Chipping Rise and said, “The telephone’s right. I told you that when I rang up, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“And I’ve seen the four girls who helped Gladys Wright. Three of them are ready to swear on oath that nobody came down into the hall from the stage, and the fourth is certain nobody did, but wouldn’t swear, as she went into the porch for a minute. I’ve re-checked the movements of all the people behind the scenes. Mr. Copeland sat facing the footlights from the time he got there until he went in to Mr. Jernigham’s room, when they tried to telephone to Mrs. Ross. He went back to the stage and didn’t leave it again until they all crowded round Miss Prentice.”
“I think it’s good enough, Fox.”
“I think so, too. This Chief Constable business is awkward, isn’t it, Mr. Alleyn?”
“It is, indeed. I know of no precedent. Oh, well, we’ll see what the preliminary interview does. You arranged that?”
“Yes, sir, that’s all right. Did you dine on the train?”
“Yes, Fox. The usual dead fish and so on. Mr. Bathgate wants to know who did the murder.”
“I do know,” said Nigel in the back seat; “but I won’t let on.”
“D’you want to stop at the pub, Mr. Alleyn?”
“No. Let’s get it over, Brer Fox, let’s get it over.”
ii
At Henry’s suggestion, they had invited Dinah and the rector to dinner.
“You may as well take Dinah and me for granted, father. We’re not going to give each other up, you know.”
“I still think — however!”
And Henry, watching his father, knew that the afternoon visit of Miss Campanula’s lawyers to the rectory was Vale property. Jocelyn boggled and uttered inarticulate noises; but already, Henry thought, his father was putting a new roof on Winton. It would be better not to speak, thought Henry, of his telephone conversation with Dinah after Fox had gone. For Dinah had told Henry that her father felt he could not accept the fortune left him by Idris Campanula.
Henry said, “I don’t suppose you suspect either the rector or Dinah, do you, even though they do get the money? They don’t suspect us. Cousin Eleanor, who suspects God knows who, is in her room and won’t appear until dinner.”
“She ought not to be alone.”
“One of the maids is with her. She’s quietened down again and is quite normally long-suffering and martyred.”
Jocelyn looked nervously at Henry.
“What do you think’s the matter with her?”
“Gone ravers,” said Henry cheerfully.
The Copelands accepted the invitation to dinner. Sherry was served in the library, but Henry managed to get Dinah into the study, where he had made up a large fire and had secretly placed an enormous bowl of yellow chrysanthemums.
“Darling Dinah,” said Henry, “there are at least fifty things of the most terrific importance to say to you, and when I look at you I can’t think of one of them. May I kiss you? We’re almost publicly betrothed, aren’t we?”