He slipped in after her and found her standing in front of her fire.
“You dodge down passages like Alice’s rabbit,” he said. “Don’t look doubtfully at me. Don’t worry. You aren’t here, my love. We can’t help this. You aren’t here.”
“I know.”
“It’s silly. It’s ludicrous.”
“I’m falling about, laughing.”
“Troy?”
“Yes. All right. I’ll expect you when I see you.”
“And that won’t be —”
Troy had lifted her hand. “What?” he asked, and she pointed to her built-in wardrobe. “You can hear the Forresters,” she said, “if you go in there and if they’ve left their wardrobe door open. I don’t suppose they have and I don’t suppose you want to. Why should you? But you can.”
He walked over to the wardrobe and stuck his head inside. The sound of voices in tranquil conversation reached him, the Colonel’s near at hand, Mrs. Forrester’s very distant. She’s still in the bathroom, Alleyn thought. Suddenly there was a rattle of coat hangers and the Colonel, startlingly close at hand, said, “— jolly difficult to replace —” and a few seconds later: “Yes, all right, I know. Don’t fuss me.”
Silence: Alleyn turned back into the room.
“On Christmas morning,” Troy said, “just after midnight, when I hung my dress in there, I heard them having what sounded like a row.”
“Oh?”
“Well — just one remark from the Colonel. He said something was absolutely final and if she didn’t he would. He sounded very unlike himself. And then she banged a door — their bathroom door, I suppose, and I could hear her barking her way into bed. I remembered my manners with an effort and wrenched myself away.”
“Curious,” Alleyn said and after a moment’s consideration: “I must be off.”
He was halfway across the room when Mrs. Forrester screamed.
Seven — House Work
Colonel Forrester lay in a little heap face down under the window. He looked small and accidental. His wife, in her red dressing gown, knelt beside him, and as Troy and Alleyn entered the room, was in the act of raising him to a sitting position. Alleyn helped her.
Troy said, “He takes something, doesn’t he?”
“Tablets. Bedside table. And water.”
He was leaning back in his wife’s arms now, his eyes wide open and terrified and his head moving very slightly in time with his breathing. Her thin plait of hair dangled over him.
“It’s not here,” Troy said.
“Must be. Pill things. Capsules. He put them there. Be quick.”
Alleyn said: “Try his dressing gown pocket, if you can reach it. Wait. I will.” It was empty.
“I saw them. I reminded him. You haven’t looked. Fred! Fred, you’re all right, old man. I’m here.”
“Truly,” said Troy. “They’re not anywhere here. How about brandy?”
“Yes. His flask’s in the middle drawer. Dressing table.”
It was there. Troy unscrewed the top and gave it to her. Alleyn began casting about the room.
“That’ll be better. Won’t it, Fred? Better?”
Troy brought a glass of water but was ignored. Mrs. Forrester held the mouth of the flask between her husband’s lips. “Take it, Fred,” she said. “Just a sip. Take it. You must. That’s right. Another.”
Alleyn said: “Here we are!”
He was beside them with a capsule in his palm. He held it out to Mrs. Forrester. Then he took the flask from her put it beside a glass phial on the dressing table.
“Fred, look. Your pill. Come on, old boy.”
The delay seemed interminable. Into the silence came a tiny rhythmic sound: “Ah — ah — ah,” of the Colonel’s breathing. Presently Mrs. Forrester said: “That’s better. Isn’t it? That’s better, old boy.”
He was better. The look of extreme anxiety passed. He made plaintive little noises and at last murmured something.
“What? What is it?”
“Moult,” whispered the Colonel.
Mrs. Forrester made an inarticulate exclamation. She brushed her husband’s thin hair back and kissed his forehead.
“Turn,” said the Colonel, “wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“All right soon.”
“Of course you will be.”
“Up.”
“Not yet, Fred.”
“Yes. Get up.”
He began very feebly to scrabble with his feet on the carpet. Mrs. Forrester, with a look of helplessness of which Troy would have thought her totally incapable, turned to Alleyn.
“Yes, of course,” he said, answering it. “He shouldn’t lie flat, should he?”
She shook her head.
Alleyn leant over the Colonel. “Will you let me put you to bed, sir?” he asked.
“Very kind. Shouldn’t bother.”
Troy heaped up the pillows on the bed and opened it back. When she looked about her she found Alleyn with the Colonel in his arms.
“Here we go,” said Alleyn and gently deposited his burden.
The Colonel looked up at him. “Collapse,” he said, “of Old Party,” and the wraith of his mischievous look visited his face.
“You old fool,” said his wife.
Alleyn chuckled. “You’ll do,” he said. “You’ll do splendidly.”
“Oh yes. I expect so.”
Mrs. Forrester chafed his hands between her two elderly ones.
Alleyn picked up the phial delicately between finger and thumb and held it up to the light.
“Where was it?” Troy asked.
He motioned with his head towards a lacquered leather wastepaper bin under the dressing table. The gesture was not so slight that it escaped Mrs. Forrester.
“In there?” she said. “In there?”
“Is there something I can put the capsules in? I’d like to keep the phial if I may?”
“Anything. There’s a pin box on the dressing table. Take that.”
He did so. He spread his handkerchief out and gingerly wrapped up the phial and its stopper.
“The stable door bit,” he muttered and put them in his pocket.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” snapped Mrs. Forrester, who was rapidly returning to form.
“It means mischief,” said Alleyn.
The Colonel in a stronger voice said, “Could there be some air?”
The curtain was not drawn across the window under which they had found him. The rain still beat against it. Alleyn said, “Are you sure?”
Mrs. Forrester said, “We always have it open at the top. Moult does it before he goes to bed. Two inches from the top. Always.”
Alleyn found that it was unlatched. He put the heels of his hands under the top sash in the lower frame and couldn’t budge it. He tried to raise it by the two brass loops at the base but with no success.
“You must push up the bottom in order to lower the top,” Mrs. Forrester observed.
“That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“You can’t be. It works perfectly well.”
“It doesn’t, you know.”
“Fiddle,” said Mrs. Forrester.
The ejaculation was intended contemptuously, but he followed it like an instruction. He fiddled. His fingers explored the catch and ran along the junction of the two sashes.
“It’s wedged,” he said.
“What?”
“There’s a wedge between the sashes.”
“Take it out.”
“Wait a bit,” Alleyn said, “Mrs. Forrester. You just wait a bit.”
“Why!”
“Because I say,” he replied and the astounded Troy saw that Mrs. Forrester relished this treatment.