Alleyn and Fox withdrew into the hall.
“That chap’s certifiable,” said Fox, looking very put out. “I mean to say, he’s certifiable.”
“I’m told he only cuts up rough occasionally.”
“Does he cart those trays round the bedrooms?”
“At eight-thirty, Troy says.”
“I wouldn’t fancy the tea.”
“Troy says it’s all right. It’s Vincent who’s the arsenic expert, remember, not Nigel.”
“I don’t like it,” Fox said.
“Damn it all, Br’er Fox, nor do I. I don’t like Troy being within a hundred miles of a case, as you very well know. I don’t like — well, never mind all that. Look. Here are the keys of Colonel Forrester’s dressing-room. I want Thompson and Bailey to give it the full treatment. Window-sashes. All surfaces and objects. That’s the wardrobe key. It’s highly probable that there are duplicates of the whole lot but never mind. In the wardrobe, standing on its end, is this damned tin uniform box. Particular attention to that. Tell him to report to me when they’ve finished. I’m going to stir up Bill-Tasman.”
“For God’s sake!” cried Hilary from the top of the stairs. “What now!”
He was leaning over the gallery in his crimson dressing gown. His hair rose in a crest above his startled countenance. He was extremely pale.
“What’s happening in the stable yard?” he demanded. “What are they doing? You’ve found him? Haven’t you? You’ve found him.”
“Yes,” said Alleyn. “I’m on my way to tell you. Will you wait? Join us, Fox, when you’re free.”
Hilary waited, biting his knuckles. “I should have been told,” he began as soon as Alleyn reached him. “I should have been told at once.”
“Can we go somewhere private?”
“Yes, yes, yes. All right. Come to my room. I don’t like all this. One should be told.”
He led the way round the gallery to his bedroom, a magnificent affair in the west wing corresponding, Alleyn supposed, with that occupied by Cressida in the east wing. It overlooked on one side the courtyard, on the other the approach from the main road, and in front, the parklands-to-be. A door stood open into a dressing-room and beyond that into a bathroom. The dominant feature was a fourposter on a dais, sumptuously canopied and counterpaned.
“I’m sorry,” Hilary said, “if I was cross, but really the domestic scene in this house becomes positively quattrocento. I glance through my window,” he gestured to the one that overlooked the courtyard, “and see something quite unspeakable being pushed into a car. I glance through the opposite window and the car is being driven round the house. I go to the far end of the corridor and look into the stable yard and there they are, at it again, extricating their hideous find. No!” Hilary cried. “It’s too much. Admit. It’s too much.”
There was a tap on the door. Hilary answered it and disclosed Mr. Fox. “How do you do,” Hilary said angrily.
Alleyn introduced them and proceeded, painstakingly, to rehearse the circumstances leading to the discovery of Moult. Hilary interrupted the recital with petulant interjections.
“Well, now you’ve found it,” he said when he had allowed Alleyn to finish, “what happens? What is expected of me? My servants will no doubt be in an advanced state of hysteria, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one and all they gave me notice. But command me. What must I do?”
Alleyn said, “I know what a bore it all is for you, but it really can’t be helped. Can it? We’ll trouble you as little as possible and, after all, if you don’t mind a glimpse of the obvious, it’s been an even greater bore for Moult.”
Hilary turned slightly pink. “Now you’re making me feel shabby,” he said. “What an alarming man you are. One doesn’t know where to have you. Well — what shall I do?”
“Colonel Forrester must be told that Moult has been found, that he’s dead, that he’s been murdered, and that we shall ask the Colonel to identify the body?”
“Oh no!” Hilary shouted. “How beastly for him! Poorest Uncle Flea! Well, I can’t tell him. I’ll come with you if you do,” he added. “I mean if you tell him. Oh all right, then, I’ll tell him but I’d like you to come.”
He walked about the room, muttering disconsolately.
Alleyn said, “But of course I’ll come. I’d rather be there.”
“On the watch!” Hilary pounced. “That’s it, isn’t it? Looking out for the way we all behave?”
“See here,” Alleyn said. “You manoeuvred me into taking this case. For more than one reason I tried to get out of it but here, in the event, I am, and very largely by your doing. Having played for me and got me, I’m afraid you’ll have to lump me and that’s the long and the short of it.”
Hilary stared at him for some seconds and then the odd face Troy had likened to that of a rather good-looking camel broke into a smile.
“How you do cut one down to size!” he said. “And of course you’re right. I’m behaving badly. My dear man, do believe me, really I’m quite ashamed of myself and I am, indeed I am, more than thankful we are in your hands. Peccavi, peccavi,” cried Hilary, putting his hands together and after a moment, with a decisive air: “Well! The sooner it’s over the better, no doubt. Shall we seek out Uncle Flea?”
But there was no need to seek him out. He was coming agitatedly along the corridor with his wife at his heels, both wearing their dressing gowns.
“There you are!” he said. “They’ve found him, haven’t they? They’ve found poor Moult.”
“Come in, Uncle,” Hilary said. “Auntie — come in.”
They came in, paused at the sight of Alleyn and Fox, said, “Good morning,” and turned simultaneously on Hilary. “Speak up, do,” said Mrs. Forrester. “He’s been found?”
“How did you know? Yes,” said Hilary. “He has.”
“Is he —?”
“Yes, Uncle Flea, I’m afraid so. I’m awfully sorry.”
“You’d better sit down, Fred. Hilary; your uncle had belter sit down.”
Colonel Forrester turned to Alleyn. “Please tell me exactly what has happened,” he said. “I should like a full report.”
“Shall we obey orders and sit down, sir? It’ll take a little time.”
The Colonel made a slight impatient gesture but he took the chair Hilary pushed forward. Mrs. Forrester walked over to the windows, folded her arms and throughout Alleyn’s recital stared out at the landscape. Hilary sat on his grand bed and Fox performed his usual feat of self-effacement.
Alleyn gave a full account of the finding of Moult’s body and, in answer to some surprisingly succinct and relevant questions from the Colonel, of the events that led up to it. As he went on he sensed a growing tension in his audience: in their stillness, in Mrs. Forrester’s withdrawal, in her husband’s extreme quietude and in Hilary’s painful concentration.
When he had finished there was a long silence. And then, without turning away from the window or, indeed, making any movements, Mrs. Forrester said, “Well, Hilary, your experiment has ended as might have been predicted. In disaster.”
Alleyn waited for an expostulation, if not from the Colonel, at least from Hilary. But Hilary sat mum on his magnificent bed and the Colonel, after a long pause, turned to look at him and said: “Sorry, old boy. But there it is. Bad luck. My poor old Moult,” said the Colonel with a break in his voice. “Well — there it is.”
Alleyn said: “Do I take it that you all suppose one of the servants is responsible?”
They moved just enough to look at him.