“Yes,” Alleyn agreed absently. “It would, wouldn’t it?”
He had stooped down and was peering under the makeup bench. He pulled out a cardboard box that had been used for rubbish and put it on the bench.
“Absorbent tissues,” he said, exploring the contents. “A chunk of rag. Wrapping paper and — hullo, what’s this.”
Very gingerly he lifted out two pads of cotton wool about the shape of a medium-sized mushroom.
“Wet,” he said and bent over them. “No smell. Pulled off that roll there by the powder box. But what for? What the devil for?”
“Clean off the makeup?” Wrayburn hazarded.
“They’re not discoloured. Only wettish. Odd!”
“I’d better not keep those chaps waiting,” Wrayburn said wistfully. “It’s been a pleasure, by and large. Made a change. Back to routine, now. Good luck, anyway.”
They shook hands and he left. Alleyn cut himself a sample of gold lamé from the hem of the robe.
He had a final look round and then locked the cloakroom. Reminded by this action of the study, he crossed the hall into the east-wing corridor, unlocked the door, and turned out the lights.
As he returned, the library door at the far end of the corridor opened and Mr. Smith came out. He checked for a moment on seeing Alleyn, and then made an arresting gesture with the palm of his hand as if he were on point duty.
Alleyn waited for him by the double doors into the hall. Mr. Smith took him by the elbow and piloted him through. The hall was lit by two dying fires and a single standard lamp below the gallery and near the foot of the right-hand stairway.
“You’re up late,” Alleyn said.
“What about yourself?” he rejoined. “Matter of fact, I thought I’d like a word with you if that’s in order. ’Illy’s gone up to bed. How about a nightcap?”
“Thanks very much, but no. Don’t let me stop you, though.”
“I won’t bother. I’ve had my lot and there’s still my barley water to come. Though after that little how-d’ye-do the other night the mere idea tends to turn me up in advance.”
“There’s been no more soap?”
“I should bloody well hope not,” said Mr. Smith.
He walked up to the nearest hearth and kicked its smouldering logs together. “Spare a moment?” he asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“If I was to ask you what’s your opinion of this turn-up,” he said. “I suppose I’d get what they call a dusty answer, would’n I?”
“In the sense that I haven’t yet formed an opinion, I suppose you would.”
“You telling me you don’t know what to think?”
“Pretty much. I’m collecting.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You’ve been a collector and a very successful one, haven’t you, Mr. Smith?”
“What of it?”
“There must have been times in your early days, when you had a mass of objects in stock on which you couldn’t put a knowledgeable value. Some of them might be rubbish and some might be important. In all the clutter of a job lot there might be one or two authentic pieces. But in those days I daresay you couldn’t for the life of you tell which was which.”
“All right. All right. You’ve made your point, chum.”
“Rather pompously, I’m afraid.”
“I wouldn’t say so. But I tell you what. I pretty soon learned in my trade to take a shine on the buyer and seller even when I only had an instinct for good stuff. And I always had that, I always had a flare. You ask ’Illy. Even then I could pick if I was having a stroke pulled on me.”
Alleyn had taken out his pipe and was filling it. “Is that what you want to tell me, Mr. Smith?” he asked. “Do you think someone’s pulling a stroke on me?”
“I don’t say that. They may be, but I don’t say so. No, my idea is that it must come in handy in your job to know what sort of characters you’re dealing with. Right?”
“Are you offering,” Alleyn said lightly, “to give me a breakdown on the inhabitants of Halberds?”
“That’s your definition, not mine. All right, I’m thinking of personalities. Like I said. Character. I’d of thought in your line, character would be a big consideration.”
Alleyn fished out a glowing clinker with the fire-tongs. “It depends,” he said, lighting his pipe. “We deal in hard, bumpy facts and they can be stumbling blocks in the path of apparent character. People, to coin a bromide, can be amazingly contradictory.” He looked at Mr. Smith. “All the same, if you’re going to give me an expert’s opinion on—” he waved his hand “— on the collection here assembled, I’ll be very interested.”
There was no immediate answer. Alleyn looked at Mr. Smith and wondered if he were to define his impression in one word, what that word would be. “Sharp”? “Cagey”? “Inscrutable”? In the bald head with streaks of black hair trained across it, the small bright eyes and compressed lips, he found a predatory character. A hard man. But was that hindsight? What would he have made of Mr. Smith if he’d known nothing about him?
“I assure you,” he repeated, “I’ll be very interested,” and sat down in one of two great porter’s chairs that flanked the fireplace.
Mr. Smith stared at him pretty fixedly. He took out his cigar case, helped himself, and sat in the other chair. To anyone coming into the hall and seeing them, they would have looked like subjects for a Christmas Annual illustration called “The Cronies.”
Mr. Smith cut his cigar, removed the band, employed a gold lighter, emitted smoke, and contemplated it. “For a start,” he said. “I was fond of Alf Moult.”
It was a curious little story of an odd acquaintanceship. Mr. Smith knew Moult when Hilary was a young man living with the Forresters in Hans Place. The old feud had long ago died out and Mr. Smith made regular visits to luncheon on Sundays. Sometimes he would arrive early before the Forresters had returned from church, and Moult would show him into the Colonel’s study. At first Moult was very standoffish, having a profound mistrust of persons of his own class who had hauled themselves up by their bootstraps. Gradually, however, this prejudice was watered down if never entirely obliterated, and an alliance was formed: grudging, Alleyn gathered, on Moult’s part but cordial on Mr. Smith’s. He became somebody with whom Moult could gossip. And gossip he did, though never about the Colonel, to whom he was perfectly devoted.
He would talk darkly about unnamed persons who exploited the Colonel, about tradesmen’s perfidy and the beastliness of female servants of whom he was palpably jealous.
“By and large,” said Mr. Smith, “he was a jealous kind of bloke.” And waited for comment.
“Did he object to the adopted nephew under that heading?”
“To ’Illy? Well — kind of sniffy on personal lines, like he made work about the place and was late for meals. That style of thing.”
“He didn’t resent him?”
Mr. Smith said quickly, “No more than he did anybody else that interfered with routine. He was a caution on routine, was Alf. ’Course he knew I wouldn’t —” He hesitated.
“Wouldn’t?” Alleyn prompted.
“Wouldn’t listen to anything against the boy,” said Mr. Smith shortly.
“How about Miss Tottenham? How did she fit in with Moult’s temperament?”
“The glamour girl? I’m talking about twenty years ago. She was — what? — three? I never see ’er, but they talked about ’er. She was being brought up by some posh family what was down on its uppers and needed the cash. Proper class lot. Alf used to rave about ’er and I will say the result bears ’im out.” The unelevating shadow of a leer slipped over Mr. Smith’s face and slid away again. “Bit of all right,” he said.
“Has Moult ever expressed an opinion about the engagement?”