Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 3: Death in a White Tie, Overture to Death, Death at the Bar. Ngaio Marsh
said Alleyn quickly, while the empurpled General sucked in his breath, ‘every guest at Marsdon House is in need of an alibi.’
‘Every guest! Every guest! But, damn it, sir, the man was murdered in a bloody cab, not a bloody ballroom. Some filthy bolshevistic fascist,’ shouted the General, having a good deal of difficulty with this strange collection of sibilants. He slightly dislodged his upper plate but impatiently champed it back into position. ‘They’re all alike!’ he added confusedly. ‘The whole damn boiling.’
Alleyn hunted for a suitable phrase in a language that General Halcut-Hackett would understand. He glanced at Fox who was staring solemnly at the General over the top of his spectacles.
‘I’m sure you’ll realize, sir,’ said Alleyn, ‘that we are simply obeying orders.’
‘What!’
‘That’s done it,’ thought Alleyn.
‘Orders! I can toe the line as well as the next fellow,’ said the General, and Alleyn, remembering Carrados had used the same phrase, reflected that in this instance it was probably true. The General, he saw, was preparing to toe the line.
‘I apologize,’ said the General. ‘Lost me temper. Always doing it nowadays. Indigestion.’
‘It’s enough to make anybody lose their temper, sir.’
‘Well,’ said the General, ‘you’ve kept yours. Come on, then.’
‘It’s just a statement, sir, that you didn’t go out again after you got back here and, if possible, someone to support the statement.’
Once again the General looked strangely embarrassed.
‘I can’t give you a witness,’ he said. ‘Nobody saw me go to bed.’
‘I see. Well then, sir, if you’ll just give me your word that you didn’t go out again.’
‘But, damme, I did take a – take a – take a turn round the Square before I went to bed. Always do.’
‘What time was this?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You can’t give me an idea? Was it long after you got home?’
‘Some time. I saw the child to her room and stirred up my wife’s maid to look after her. Then I came down here and got myself a drink. I read for a bit. I dare say I dozed for a bit. Couldn’t make up my mind to turn in.’
‘You didn’t glance at the clock on the mantelpiece there?’
Again the General became acutely self-conscious.
‘I may have done so. I fancy I did. Matter of fact, I remember now I did doze off and woke with a bit of a start. The fire had gone out. It was devilish chilly.’ He glared at Alleyn and then said abruptly: ‘I felt wretchedly down in the mouth. I’m getting an old fellow nowadays and I don’t enjoy the small hours. As you say, I looked at the clock. It was half-past two. I sat there in this chair trying to make up my mind to go to bed. Couldn’t. So I took a walk round the Square.’
‘Now that’s excellent, sir. You may be able to give us the very piece of information we’re after. Did you by chance notice anybody hanging about in the Square?’
‘No.’
‘Did you meet anybody at all?’
‘Constable.’
Alleyn glanced at Fox.
‘PC Titheridge,’ said Fox. ‘We’ve got his report, sir.’
‘All right,’ said Alleyn. ‘Were people beginning to leave Marsdon House when you passed, sir?’
The General muttered something about ‘might have been,’ paused for a moment and then said: ‘It was devilish murky. Couldn’t see anything.’
‘A misty night; yes,’ said Alleyn. ‘Did you happen to notice Captain Maurice Withers in the mist?’
‘No!’ yelled the General with extraordinary vehemence. ‘No, I did not. I don’t know the feller. No!’
There was an uncomfortable pause and then the General said: ‘Afraid that’s all I can tell you. When I got in again I went straight to bed.’
‘Your wife had not returned?’
‘No,’ said the General very loudly. ‘She had not.’
Alleyn waited for a moment and then he said:
‘Thank you very much, sir. Now, we’ll prepare a statement from the notes Inspector Fox has taken, and if you’ve no objection, we’ll get you to sign it.’
‘I – um – um – um – I’ll have a look at it.’
‘Yes. And now, if I may, I’d like to have a word with Mrs Halcut-Hackett.’
Up went the General’s chin again. For a moment Alleyn wondered if they were in for another outburst. But the General said: ‘Very good. I’ll tell her,’ and marched out of the room.
‘Crikey!’ said Fox.
‘That’s Halcut-Hackett, that was,’ said Alleyn. ‘Why the devil,’ he added rubbing his nose, ‘why the devil is the funny old article in such a stew over his walk round the Square?’
‘Seems a natural thing for a gentleman of his kind to do,’ Fox ruminated. ‘I’m sure I don’t know. I should have thought he’s the sort that breaks the ice on the Serpentine every morning as well as walking round the Square every night.’
‘He’s a damn bad liar, poor old boy. Or is he a poor old boy? Is he not perhaps a naughty old boy? Blast! Why the devil couldn’t he give us a nice straight cast-iron alibi? Poking his nose into Belgrave Square; can’t tell us exactly when or exactly why or for exactly how long. What did the PC say?’
‘Said he’d noticed nothing at all suspicious. Never mentioned the General. I’ll have a word with Mr PC Titheridge about this.’
‘The General is probably a stock piece if he walks round Belgrave Square every night,’ said Alleyn.
‘Yes, but not at half-past two in the morning,’ objected Fox.
‘Quite right, Fox, quite right. Titheridge must be blasted. What the devil was old Halcut-Hackett up to last night! We can’t let it go, you know, because, after all, if he suspects –’
Alleyn broke off. He and Fox stood up as Mrs Halcut-Hackett made her entrance.
Alleyn, of course, had met her before, on the day she came to his office with the story of Mrs X and the blackmailing letters. He reflected now that in a sense she had started the whole miserable business. ‘If it hadn’t been for this hard, wary, stupid woman’s visit,’ he thought, ‘I shouldn’t have asked Bunchy to poke his head into a deathtrap. Oh, God!’ Mrs Halcut-Hackett said:
‘Why, Inspector, they didn’t tell me it was you. Now, do you know I never realized, that day I called about my poor friend’s troubles, that I was speaking to Lady Alleyn’s famous son.’
Inwardly writhing under this blatant recognition of his snob-value Alleyn shook hands and instantly introduced Fox to whom Mrs Halcut-Hackett was insufferably cordial. They all sat down. Alleyn deliberately waited for a moment or two before he spoke. He looked at Mrs Halcut-Hackett. He saw that under its thick patina of cream and rouge her face was sagging from the bones of her skull. He saw that her eyes and her hands were frightened.
He said: ‘I think we may as well begin with that same visit to the Yard. The business we talked about on that occasion seems to be linked with the death of Lord Robert Gospell.’
She sat there, bolt upright in her expensive stays and he knew she was terrified.
‘But,’ she said, ‘that’s absurd.