“So we’re told. With forks and spades. Thundering over the terrain like a herd of dinosaurs, I daresay. I think we must have a go. After all we can’t rule out the possibility that he was hit on the head and stunned.”
“And wandered away? And collapsed?”
“You name it. Hold on while I get my mackintosh.”
“You’ll need gum boots.”
“See if there are any stray pairs in the other cloakroom, will you? I won’t be long.”
When Alleyn had collected his mackintosh and a futile hat from his dressing-room, he called on his wife.
He was surprised and not overdelighted to find Cressida Tottenham there, clothed in a sea-green garment that stuck to her like a limpet where it was most explicit and elsewhere erupted in superfluous frills.
“Look who’s here!” Cressida said, raising her arm to a vertical position and flapping her hand. “My Favourite Man! Hullo, Heart-throb!”
“Hullo, Liar,” he mildly returned.
“Rory!” Troy protested.
“Sorry.”
“Manners, Jungle Cat,” said Cressida. “Not that I object. It all ties in with the groovy image. The ruder they are, the nearer your undoing.”
Troy burst out laughing. “Do you often,” she asked, “make these frontal attacks?”
“Darling: only when aroused by a Gorgeous Brute. Do you mind?”
“Not a bit.”
Alleyn said, “Gorgeous brute or not, I’m on the wing, Troy.”
“So I see.”
“Think nothing of it if you notice a commotion under your windows.”
“Right.”
“We’ve been brushing our hair,” Cressida offered, “and emptying our bosoms. Ever so cosy.”
“Have you, indeed. By the way, Miss Tottenham, while I think of it: what did you wear on your feet when you made Moult up in the cloakroom?”
“On my feet?” she asked and showed him one of them in a bejewelled slipper. “I wore golden open-toed sandals, Mr. Alleyn, and golden toenails to go with my handsome gold dress.”
“Chilly,” he remarked.
“My dear — arctic! So much so, I may tell you, that I thrust my ten little pigs into Uncle Flea’s fur-lined trotters.”
“Damn!”
“Really? But why?” She reflected for a moment. “My dear!” Cressida repeated, making eyes at Troy. “It’s the smell! Isn’t it? Those wolfish dogs! I’ve mucked up poor Mr. Moult’s footwork for them. Admit!”
“Presumably you swapped for the performance?”
“But, of course. And I’m sure his feet will have triumphed over mine or does my skin scent beat him to the post?”
Ignoring this, Alleyn made for the door and then stopped short. “I almost forgot,” he said. “When did you come upstairs?”
Cressida blew out her cheeks and pushed up the tip of her nose with one finger. The effect was of an extremely cheeky Zephyr.
“Come on,” Alleyn said. “When? How long ago?”
“Well. Now. When did I?”
“You came in here ten minutes ago, if it’s any guide,” Troy said. “I’d just wound my watch.”
“And you’d been in your room,” Alleyn said. “How long?” He glanced at her. “Long enough anyway to change your clothes.”
“Which is no slight matter,” Cressida said. “Say twenty minutes. It was getting a bit of a drag in the library. Hilly’s lost his cool over the sleuthing scene and Uncle Bert Smith doesn’t exactly send one. So I came up.”
“Did you meet anybody on the way?”
“I certainly did. I met that ass Nigel at the head of the stairs, bellowing away about sin. I suppose you’ve heard how he pushed a sexy note under my door. About me being a sinful lady?”
“You feel certain he wrote it?”
“Who else would?” Cressida reasoned. “Whatever they might think? It’s his theme song, isn’t it — the sinful lady bit?”
“Very much so. When did you go down to dinner?”
“I don’t know. Last, as usual, I expect.”
“Did you at any stage meet anybody going into or coming out of the Forresters’ rooms?”
Cressida helplessly flapped her arms. “Yes,” she said. “Nigel again. Coming out. He’d been doing his turning down the bed lot. This time he only shrank back against the wall as if I had infective hepatitis.”
“Thank you,” Alleyn said. “I must be off.” He looked at his wife.
“All right?” he asked.
“All right.”
When he had gone Cressida said, “Let’s face it, darling. I’m wasting my powder.”
Eight — Moult
Before he went out into the night, Alleyn visited the study and found it deserted. He turned on all the lights, opened the window curtains, and left, locking the door behind him and putting the key in his pocket. He listened for a moment or two outside the library door and heard the drone of two male voices topped by Mr. Smith’s characteristic short bark of laughter. Then he joined Wrayburn, who waited in the great porch with four of his men and the two handlers with their dogs. They moved out into the open courtyard.
“Rain’s lifted,” Wraybuni shouted. It had spun itself into a thin, stinging drive. The noise out-of-doors was immense: a roar without definition as if all the trees at Halberds had been given voices with which to send themselves frantic. A confused sound of water mingled with this. There were whistles and occasional clashes as of metal objects that had been blown out of their places and clattered about wildly on their own account.
Nigel’s monument was dissolving into oblivion. The recumbent figure, still recognizable, was horridly mutilated.
They rounded the front of the east wing, and turned right into the full venom of the wind.
The library windows were curtained and emitted only thin blades of light, and the breakfast-room was in darkness. But from the study a flood of lamplight caught the sapling fir, lashing itself to and fro distractedly, and the heaps of indeterminate rubble that surrounded it. Broken glass, cleaned by the rain, refracted the light confusedly.
Their faces were whipped by the wind, intermittent shafts of rain, and pieces of blown litter. The men had powerful search-lamps and played them over the area. They met at the discarded Christmas tree from which tatters of golden tinsel madly streamed. They searched the great heaps of rubble and patches of nettle and docks. They found, all over the place, evidence of Hilary’s men with their forks and shovels and trampling boots. They explored the sapling fir and remained, focussed on it, while Alleyn with his back to the wind peered up into the branches. He saw, as he had already seen from the dressing-room window, that the tender ones were bent into uncouth positions. He actually found, in a patch of loamy earth beneath the study window, prints of Hilary’s smart shoes where he had climbed over the sill to retrieve the poker.
He took a light, moved up to the tree, and searched its inward parts. After a minute or two he called to one of the men and asked him to hold the light steady as it was. He had to yell into the man’s ear, so boisterous was the roar of the wind.
The man took the light and Alleyn began to climb the tree. He kept as close as he could to the trunk where the young boughs were strongest. Wet pine needles brushed his face. Cascades of snow fell about his neck and shoulders. Branches slapped at him and he felt resin sticking to his hands. As he climbed, the tree swayed, he with it, and the light moved. He shifted round the trunk and hauled himself upward.
Suddenly an oblong sliver of fresh light appeared below and to his right. There was Hilary Bill-Tasman’s face, upturned and staring at Alleyn. He had come to the library window.
Cursing, Alleyn grasped the now slender trunk with his left hand, leant outward, and looked up. Dislodged snow fell into his face.