Alleyn counted doors. Troy had told him which room belonged to which guest. They now approached his dressing-room, linked by a bathroom with Troy’s bedroom. Next came the Forresters’ bedroom, bathroom and dressing-room. Beyond these were Mr. Smith and, on the front corner of the east wing in a large room with its own bathroom, Cressida. Where Hilary himself slept — no doubt in some master apartment of great stateliness — Troy had had no idea.
It was from under the Forresters’ bedroom door that the light showed.
Alleyn listened for a moment and could hear nothing. He made a quick decision. He motioned Wrayburn to stay where he was and himself opened the door and walked straight in.
He did so to the accompaniment of a loud crash.
A man at the window turned to face him: a blond, pale man whom he had seen before, wearing dark trousers and an alpaca jacket.
“Good evening again,” Alleyn said. “I’ve made a mistake. I thought this was my wife’s room.”
“Next door,” the man barely articulated.
“Stupid of me. You must be Nigel, I think.”
“That’s right, sir.”
“I’ve been admiring your work in the courtyard. It really is quite something.”
Nigel’s lips moved. He was saying, inaudibly, “Thank you very much.”
The windowpane behind him streamed with driven rain. His head, face and the front of his jacket were wet.
“You’ve been caught,” Alleyn said lightly.
Nigel said: “It’s come down very sudden. I was — I was closing the window, sir. It’s very awkward, this window.”
“It’ll ruin your snow sculpture, I’m afraid.”
Nigel suddenly said, “It may be a judgment.”
“A judgment? On whom? For what?”
“There’s a lot of sin about,” Nigel said loudly. “One way and another. You never know.”
“Such as?”
“Heathen practices. Disguised as Christian. There’s hints of blasphemy there. Touches of it. If rightly looked at.”
“You mean the Christmas tree?”
“Heathen practices round graven images. Caperings. And see what’s happened to him.”
“What has happened to him?” asked Alleyn and wondered if he’d struck some sort of lunatic bonanza.
“He’s gone.”
“Where?”
“Ah! Where! That’s what sin does for you. I know. Nobody better. Seeing what I been myself.”
Nigel’s face underwent an extraordinary change. His mouth hung open, his nostrils distended, his white eyelashes fluttered and then, like a microcosm of the deluge outside, he wept most copiously.
“Now, look here —” Alleyn began but Nigel with an unconscionable roar fled from the room and went thudding down the corridor.
Wrayburn appeared in the doorway. “What the hell’s all that in aid of?” he asked. “Which of them was it?”
“That was Nigel, the second houseman, who once made effigies but became a religious maniac and killed a sinful lady. He is said to be cured.”
“Cured!”
“Although I believe Mr. Bill-Tasman has conceded that when Nigel remembers his crime he is inclined to weep. He remembered it just now.”
“I overheard some of his remarks. The chap’s certifiable. Religious maniac.”
“I wonder why he leaned out of the window.”
“He did?”
“I fancy so. He was too wet to match his story about just shutting it. And there’s a very little rain on the carpet. I don’t believe it was open until he opened it.”
“Funny!”
“It is, rather. Let’s have a look about, shall we?”
They found nothing in the bedroom more remarkable than the Forresters’ green-lined tropical umbrella. Nigel had turned down their bed, laid out their Viyella nightclothes, and banked up their fire. The windows were shut.
“Wouldn’t you think,” Mr. Wrayburn observed, “that they’d have heaters in these rooms? Look at the work involved! It must be dynamite.”
“He’s trying to re-create the past.”
“He’s lucky to have a lunatic to help him, then.”
They went through the bathroom with its soap, mackintosh and hair lotion smells. Mr. Wrayburn continued to exclaim upon the appointments at Halberds: “Bathrooms! All over the shop like an eight-star-plus hotel. You wouldn’t credit it.” He was somewhat mollified to discover that in the Colonel’s dressing-room a radiator had been built into the grate. It had been switched on, presumably by Nigel. “Look at that!” said Mr. Wrayburn. “What about his electrical bill! No trouble!”
“And here,” Alleyn pointed out, “are the Welsh fire irons. Minus the poker. Highly polished and, of course, never used. I think the relative positions of the fireplace, the bed, the window and the doors are worth noticing, Jack. If you come in from the bathroom, the window’s on your right, the door into the corridor on your left and the bed, projecting from the outside wall facing you, with the fireplace beyond it in the far wall. If I were to sit on the floor on the far side of the bed and you came through the bathroom door, you wouldn’t see me, would you?”
“No?” said Mr. Wrayburn, expecting an elaboration but getting none. Alleyn had moved to the far side of the bed: a single high-standing Victorian four-poster unadorned with curtains. Its authentic patchwork quilt reached to the floor and showed a sharp bulge at one side. He turned it back and exposed Colonel Forrester’s uniform box black-japanned, white-lettered, and quite noticeably dented and scarred about the padlock area.
“I do hate,” Alleyn said, sitting on his heels, “this going on a job minus my kit. It makes one feel such a damned, piddling amateur. However, Fox will bring it and in the meantime I’ve the Bill-Tasman lens. Look here, Jack. Talk of amateurism! This isn’t the handiwork of any master cracksman, is it?”
Mr. Wrayburn squatted down beside him. “Very clumsy attempt,” he agreed. “What’s he think he’d achieve? Silly.”
“Yes,” Alleyn said, using the lens, “a bit of hanky-panky with the padlock. Something twisted in the hoop.”
“Like a poker?”
“At first glance perhaps. We’ll have to take charge of this. I’ll talk to the Colonel.”
“What about the contents?”
“It’s big enough, in all conscience, to house the crown jewels but I imagine Mrs. Forrester’s got the lion’s share dotted about her frontage. Troy thinks they carry scrip and documents in it. And you did hear, didn’t you, that Moult has charge of the key?”
Wrayburn, with a hint of desperation in his voice, said, “I don’t know! Like the man said: you wouldn’t credit it if you read it in a book. I suppose we pick the lock for them, do we?”
“Or pick it for ourselves if not for them? I’ll inquire of the Colonel. In the meantime they mustn’t get their hands on it.”
Wrayburn pointed to the scarred area. “By Gum! I reckon it’s the poker,” he said.
“Oh for my Bailey and his dab-kit.”
“The idea being,” Wrayburn continued, following out his thought, “that some villain unknown was surprised trying to break open the box with the poker.”
“And killed? With the poker? After a struggle? That seems to be going rather far, don’t you think? And when you say ‘somebody’ —”
“I suppose I mean Moult.”
“Who preferred taking a very inefficient whang at the box to using the key?”
“That’s right — we dismiss that theory, then. It’s ridiculous. How about Moult coming in after he’d done his Christmas tree act and catching the villain at it and getting knocked on the head?”
“And then—?
“Pushed through the window? With the poker after him?”
“In which case,” Alleyn said, “he was transplanted before they searched. Let’s have a look at the window.”