Читать книгу Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 1: A Man Lay Dead, Enter a Murderer, The Nursing Home Murder - Ngaio Marsh, Stella Duffy - Страница 18

Alleyn’s first action on returning to Frantock from his session with Miss Stimson was to wash himself very thoroughly in the downstairs cloakroom. He then looked up one of his notes made during what he called ‘wardrobe inspection’ that morning, read a certain entry in reference to a red cap, and inquired of Ethel if he could speak to Miss Grant. He learned that Doctor Young was attending her in her room.

‘I will wait for Doctor Young,’ said Alleyn, and sat down in the hall.

He had not been there long before Wilde came in from the garden. He hesitated, as indeed they all did, at the sight of the inspector, and then asked if he was waiting for anyone.

‘I’m really waiting for Doctor Young,’ said Alleyn, ‘but I also wanted to see Sir Hubert. I wonder, Mr Wilde, if you know where he is?’

The archaeologist rubbed his hair up the wrong way—a characteristic gesture.

‘He was—in there,’ he said, pointing to the study door.

‘In the study?’

‘Yes.’

‘Really? I must have missed him somehow,’ remarked the inspector ambiguously. ‘When did he go in?’

‘Soon after they took—Charles—away,’ said Wilde. ‘He may still be there. Would you like me to ask if he can see you, Inspector?’

‘Thank you so much,’ said Alleyn gratefully.

Wilde opened the study door and looked inside. Evidently Handesley was still there, as Wilde went in and Alleyn heard their voices. He waited a couple of minutes, and then Wilde appeared again. Alleyn thought he looked faintly shocked.

‘He is just coming,’ he said, and with a nod to the inspector went upstairs.

Handesley came out of the study. He had a sheet of note-paper in his hand.

‘Ah, there you are, Inspector,’ he said. ‘I have just been going through a few papers that I wanted.’ He hesitated, and then went on with painful deliberation, ‘It was impossible for me to enter the room while Mr Rankin’s body lay there.’

‘I can well understand that,’ said Alleyn.

‘This,’ continued Handesley, holding out the paper, ‘is the document I mentioned this morning. The will Mr Rankin signed yesterday, bequeathing the dagger to me. You mentioned that you would like to see it.’

‘You have made things easy for me, Sir Hubert,’ said Alleyn. ‘It was in my mind to ask you for it.’

He took the paper and read it through impassively.

‘I suppose,’ said Handesley, who was staring out at the front door, ‘I suppose that, although the thing was drawn up more or less in fun, it does actually constitute a legal document?’

‘I am no lawyer,’ answered Alleyn, ‘but I should imagine that it was quite in order. May I keep it for the moment?’

‘Yes, of course. I suppose later on I may have it again? I should like to keep it.’ He paused, and then added quickly, ‘You see, it is the last thing he wrote.’

‘Certainly,’ said Alleyn imperturbably.

Doctor Young appeared and came downstairs.

‘May I see your patient, Doctor Young?’ asked Alleyn.

The doctor performed the feat known in Victorian nursery books as ‘looking grave’.

‘She’s not so grand,’ he said doubtfully. ‘Is it necessary?’

‘Shouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t,’ rejoined Alleyn quite amicably. ‘I won’t keep her long, and I’ve a beautiful bedside manner.’

‘She’s in a very highly strung condition. I’d rather she was left to herself for a bit—but, of course—’

‘Of course Mr Alleyn must see her,’ Handesley broke in. ‘This is no time for attacks of the vapours, Doctor Young.’

‘Well, Sir Hubert—’

‘I feel really strongly about it,’ said Handesley emphatically. ‘Rosamund is a young woman of character; she is most unlikely to give in to her nerves. The sooner the inspector gets through his job, the better for all of us.’

‘I wish everyone else felt the same way about it,’ said Alleyn. ‘I won’t be ten minutes, Doctor Young.’ And he went upstairs without waiting for the little doctor to answer him.

In response to his knock at her door, Rosamund Grant called out in her usual strong, rather deep voice. He went in and found her lying in bed. Her face was terribly white, and all the colour seemed to have been drained out of her lips. But she was cool enough when she saw who her visitor was, and invited him to sit down.

‘Thank you,’ said Alleyn. He drew up a small armchair, and seated himself between the bed and the window.

‘I’m sorry you are laid up, Miss Grant,’ he said in his matter-of-fact way, ‘and sorrier still to disturb you. I have often wondered which is the more indecently preposterous job—a detective’s or a journalist’s.’

‘You should compare notes with Nigel Bathgate,’ rejoined Rosamund Grant. ‘Not,’ she added wearily, ‘that he’s been trying to get stories out of us. I suppose even the keenest journalist does not try to make copy out of his cousin’s murder, especially when he happens to be his cousin’s heir.’

‘Mr Bathgate is the only member of this household from whom I have definitely withdrawn suspicion,’ said Alleyn.

‘Indeed,’ she answered harshly. ‘And do I head the list of suspects, Inspector Alleyn?’

Alleyn recrossed his legs and appeared to deliberate. Had a third person been there at Rosamund Grant’s bedside, he might have thought to himself how strangely secret are the thoughts of human beings. Impossible to read what mental agonies tormented the mind of this pale harsh woman. Impossible to see behind the shadowy face of the detective into the pigeon-holes of his brain.

‘I think,’ he said at last, ‘I think you were ill-advised to mislead me at the mock trial this morning. That sort of thing creates a very bad impression. Far better to tell me where you went after your bath last night. You did not go to your room. Florence saw you returning to it from somewhere along the corridor. Miss Grant—where had you been?’

‘Has it not occurred to you that—that there might be a perfectly natural and obvious explanation that it would have embarrassed me to give at our mock trial?’ said Rosamund.

‘Oh, nonsense,’ answered Alleyn crisply. ‘You are not the type to recoil upon Victorian gentility with a charge of this sort under discussion. That I don’t believe. Tell me where you went, Miss Grant. I cannot force you to answer, but I do earnestly advise you to do so.’

Silence.

‘Then tell me,’ said Alleyn, ‘with whom you went walking in the woods, wearing your red cap, and weeping so bitterly.’

‘I can’t tell you,’ said Rosamund fiercely. ‘I can’t—I can’t.’

‘As you please.’ Alleyn appeared to be suddenly indifferent. ‘Perhaps before I go you will let me have a few more details about yourself.’ He produced his notebook. ‘How long have you known Mr Rankin?’

‘Six years.’

‘Quite a long friendship—you could have scarcely been grown up when you first met.’

‘I was at Newnham; Charles was nearly twenty years older than I.’

‘At Newnham?’ said Alleyn, politely interested. ‘You must have been up with a cousin of mine—Christina Alleyn.’

Rosamund Grant waited for some seconds before she answered him.

‘Yes,’ she said at last, ‘yes—I remember her, I think.’

‘She is a fully-fledged chemist now,’ he told her, ‘and lives in an ultra-modern flat in Knightsbridge. Well, I shall be flayed alive by Doctor Young if I stay here any longer.’ He got up and stood over the bed. ‘Miss Grant,’ he said, ‘be advised by me. Think it over. I shall come here tomorrow. Make up your mind to tell me where you went to immediately before Mr Rankin was murdered.’

He walked to the door and opened it. ‘Think it over,’ he repeated, and went out.

Marjorie Wilde and her husband were standing in the passage.

‘How is she?’ asked Mrs Wilde quickly. ‘I want to go in and see her.’

‘Not a hope, I’m afraid. It’s strictly against orders,’ answered Alleyn cheerfully.

‘There you are, Marjorie,’ said Wilde. ‘What did I tell you? Wait till you’ve seen Doctor Young. I am sure Rosamund does not want visitors.’

‘You saw her!’ said Mrs Wilde to Alleyn. ‘I should have thought that would be worse than any ordinary visitor.’

‘Marjorie darling!’ ejaculated Wilde.

‘Oh, everybody loves a policeman,’ remarked Alleyn. ‘She was thrilled to see me.’

‘Marjorie!’ called Angela’s voice from the stairs.

Mrs Wilde looked from her husband to the inspector.

‘Marjorie!’ called Angela again.

‘Coming!’ answered Mrs Wilde suddenly. ‘I’m coming!’ And she turned away and walked quickly towards the stairs.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Wilde, looking troubled. ‘She’s not exactly herself, and she had made up her mind to see Miss Grant. It’s a horrible experience for a woman, all this.’

‘It is, indeed,’ agreed Alleyn. ‘Are you coming down, Mr Wilde?’

Wilde glanced at the closed door.

‘Yes, certainly,’ he said, and they went down together.

Alleyn had finished at Frantock for the time being, but he did not yet feel entitled to call it a day. His next move was to the police station at Little Frantock, where he put through a long-distance call to London. He waited a minute and then spoke into the receiver:

‘Christina!’ he said. ‘Is it yourself! What a bit of luck! Look here, you can help me if you will. It’s your cousin the policeman, and he’s up agin it, my dear. Drag your mind away from shattered atoms and bicarbonate of soda, cast it back six years, and tell me everything—everything you can remember about one Rosamund Grant who was up at Newnham with you.’

A miniature voice crackled in the ear-piece.

‘Yes,’ said Alleyn, getting out his pencil and straightening the message block by the telephone, ‘yes.’

The voice crackled on. Alleyn extended his call. He wrote busily, and gradually a curious expression—eager, doubtful, intensely concentrated—stole over his face. It was a look with which they were very familiar at the Yard.