Читать книгу Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 8: Death at the Dolphin, Hand in Glove, Dead Water - Ngaio Marsh, Stella Duffy - Страница 19

‘I tell you what, Mrs M.,’ Alfred said as he prepared to set the dinner table. ‘The weather in this household has deteriorated and the forecast is for atmospheric disturbances followed by severe storms.’

‘Go on!’ Mrs Mitchell said eagerly. ‘How?’

‘How, I don’t know. If you ask me why, I can give a pretty good guess. For ten years, Mrs M., we’ve organized ourselves quietly and comfortably in the way that suits us. Everything very nice and going by clockwork. Nothing unexpected. Settled. No upsets of any kind whatsoever. Suits us and incidentally, I may say, suits you and me. Now what? What’s the present situation? Look at today. We’ve had more upsets in this one day, Mrs M., than we’ve had to put up with in the total length of my service.’

Mrs Mitchell executed the toss of the head and upward turn of the eyes that had only one connotation.

‘Him?’ she suggested.

‘Exactly. Him,’ Alfred said. ‘Mr Harold Cartell.’

‘Good God, Mr Belt!’ Mrs Mitchell exclaimed. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’

‘The matter, Mrs M.?’

‘The way you looked! Coo! Only for a sec but my word! Talk about old-fashioned.’

‘You’d look old-fashioned yourself,’ Alfred countered, ‘if suggestions of the same nature were made to you.’

‘By ‘im?’ she prompted, unguardedly.

‘Correct. In reference to our cigarette-case. Which, as I mentioned earlier, was left by those two on the window-ledge and has disappeared. Well. As we noticed this afternoon, Mr Cartell went off in the Bloodbath with George Copper and Bert Raikes.’

‘Very peculiar, yes.’

‘Yes. All right. It now appears they went to Baynesholme.’

‘To the Big House?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Well! To see her ladyship?’

‘To see them. Those two. They’d gone there, if you please. Unasked, by all accounts.’

‘Sauce!’

‘What it was all about I have not yet gathered, but will from George Copper. The point is that when I take drinks to the library just now, they’re at it hammer-and-tongs.’

‘Our two gentlemen?’

‘Who else? And so hot they don’t stop when they see me. At least he doesn’t. Mr C. He was saying he’d forgotten in the heat of the moment at Baynesholme to ask young Leiss and that Moppett about where they’d left the cigarette-case and Mr Period was saying the young lady, Miss Maitland-Mayne, saw it on the sill. And I was asked to say if it was there when I cleared and I said no. And I added that someone had opened the window.’

‘Who?’

‘Ah! You may well ask. So Mr Cartell says, in a great taking-on, that the chaps doing the sewage in Green Lane must have taken it and my gentleman says they’re very decent chaps and he can’t believe it. “Very well, then,” says Mr C. very sharp and quite the lawyer, “perhaps Alfred would care to reconsider his statement.” And the way he said it was sufficient! After that suggestion, Mrs M., I don’t mind telling you it’s him or me. Both of us this residence will not accommodate.’

‘What did our gentleman say?’

‘Ah! What would you expect? Came out very quiet and firm on my behalf. “I think,” he said, “that Alfred has given us a perfectly clear picture and that there is no need to ask him to repeat it. Thank you, Alfred. I’m sorry to have troubled you.” So, of course, I said, “Thank you, sir,” with what I trust was the proper emphasis, and withdrew. But you can take it from me, there’s serious trouble and deep feeling in more than one direction. Something was said at luncheon that was very ill-received by our gentleman. Said by Mr C. Speculation,’ added Alfred, who had grown calmer and reverted to his normal habit of speech, ‘speculation is unprofitable. Events will clarify.’

‘Why Raikes, though?’ she pondered.

‘Ah! And I happened to ascertain from the chaps in the lane that Raikes brought Mr C. back in George Copper’s Bloodbath and George himself turned up in that Scorpion he’s got in his garage. And what’s more, the rural mail-van gave those two a lift back. They’ve been invited to the Big House party tonight. They’re dining and staying with Miss Cartell. They were very pleased with themselves, the mail-van driver said, but cagey in their manner.’

The kitchen door was ajar and Mr Cartell’s voice sounded clearly from the hall.

‘Very well,’ he was saying. ‘If that should prove to be the case I shall know how to act and I can assure you, P.P., that I shall act with the utmost vigour. I trust that you are satisfied.’

The front door slammed.

‘Mercy on us!’ Mrs Mitchell apostrophized. ‘Now, what?’ and added precipitantly: ‘My bedroom window!’

She bolted from the kitchen and Alfred heard her thundering up the back stairs.

Presently she returned, flushed and fully informed.

‘Across the green,’ she reported, ‘to Miss Cartell’s.’

‘And you may depend upon it, Mrs M.,’ Alfred said, ‘that the objective is Miss Moppett.’