Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 7: Off With His Head, Singing in the Shrouds, False Scent. Ngaio Marsh
‘It had all the appearance of a piece of full-sized hokum.’
‘Hell, how shaming! Never mind, I’ll press on. I sent them away because I wanted to ask you a personal question and, having no witnesses makes it unofficial. I wanted to ask you if you were about to become engaged to be married.’
Camilla choked on her cigarette.
‘Come on,’ Alleyn said. ‘Do tell me, like a nice comfortable child.’
‘I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t.’
‘Can’t you make up your mind?’
‘There’s no reason that I can see,’ Camilla said, with a belated show of spirit, ‘why I should tell you anything at all about it.’
‘Nor there is, if you’d rather not.’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘It makes it easier to talk to people,’ Alleyn said, ‘if you know about their preoccupations. A threatened engagement is a major preoccupation, as you will allow and must admit.’
‘All right,’ Camilla said. ‘I’ll tell you. I’m not engaged but Ralph wants us to be.’
‘And you? Come,’ Alleyn said, answering the brilliant look she suddenly gave him. ‘You’re in love with him, aren’t you?’
‘It’s not as easy as all that.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘You see, my mother was Bess Andersen. She was the feminine counterpart of Dan and Andy and Chris and Nat, and talked and thought like them. She was their sister. I loved my mother,’ Camilla said fiercely, ‘with all my heart. And my father, too. We should have been a happy family, and, in a way, we were, in our attachment for each other. But my mother wasn’t really happy. All her life she was homesick for South Mardian and she never learned to fit in with my father’s setting. People tell you differences of that sort don’t matter any more. Not true. They matter like hell.’
‘And that’s the trouble?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Anything more specific?’
‘Look,’ Camilla said, ‘forgive my asking, but did you get on in the Force by sheer cheek or sheer charm or what?’
‘Tell me your trouble,’ Alleyn said, ‘and I’ll tell you my success story. Of course, there’s your pride, isn’t there?’
‘All right. Yes. And there’s also the certainty of the past being rehashed by the more loathsome daily newspapers in the light of this ghastly crime. I don’t know,’ Camilla burst out, ‘how I can think of Ralph and I am thinking all the time of him, after what has happened.’
‘But why shouldn’t you think of him?’
‘I’ve told you. Ralph’s a South Mardian man. His mother was a Mardian. His aunt was jilted by my papa when he ran away with my mum. My Mardian relations are the Andersen boys. If Ralph married me, there’d be hell to pay. Every way there’d be hell. He’s Dame Alice’s heir, after his aunt, and, although I agree that doesn’t matter so much – he’s a solicitor and able to make his own way – she’d undoubtedly cut him off.’
‘I wonder. Talking of wills, by the way, do you know if your grandfather made one?’
Camilla caught back her breath. ‘Oh, God!’ she whispered. ‘I hope not. Oh, I hope not.’
Alleyn waited.
‘He talked about it,’ Camilla said, ‘last time I saw him. Four days ago. We had a row about it.’
‘If you’d rather not tell me, you needn’t.’
‘I said I wouldn’t touch a penny of his money, ever, and that, if he left me any, I’d give it to the Actors’ Benevolent Fund. That rocked him.’
‘He’d spoken of leaving you something?’
‘Yes. Sort of back-handedly. I didn’t understand, at first. It was ghastly. As if I’d come here to – ugh! – to sort of worm my way into his good books. Too frightful it was.’
‘The day before yesterday,’ Alleyn said, watching her, ‘he visited his solicitors in Biddlefast.’
‘He did? Oh, my goodness me, how awful. Still, perhaps it was about something else.’
‘The solicitors are Messrs Stayne and Stayne.’
‘That’s Ralph’s office,’ Camilla said instantly. ‘How funny. Ralph didn’t say anything about it.’
‘Perhaps,’ Alleyn suggested lightly, ‘it was a secret.’
‘What do you mean?’ she said quickly.
‘A professional secret.’
‘I see.’
‘Is Mr Ralph Stayne your own solicitor, Miss Campion?’
‘Lord, no,’ Camilla said. ‘I haven’t got one.’
The door opened and a dark young man, wearing a face of thunder, strode into the room.
He said in a magnificent voice: ‘I consider it proper and appropriate for me to be present at any interviews Miss Campion may have with the police.’
‘Do you?’ Alleyn said mildly. ‘In what capacity?’
‘As her solicitor.’
‘My poorest heavenly old booby!’ Camilla ejaculated, and burst into peals of helpless laughter.
‘Mr Ralph Stayne,’ Alleyn said, ‘I presume.’
III
The five Andersens, bunched together in their cold smithy, contemplated Sergeant Obby. Chris, the belligerent brother, slightly hitched his trousers and placed himself before the sergeant. They were big men and of equal height.
‘Look yur,’ Chris said, ‘Bob Obby. Us chaps want to have a tell. Private.’
Without shifting his gaze, which was directed at some distant object above Chris’s head, Obby very slightly shook his own. Chris reddened angrily and Dan intervened:
‘No harm in that now, Bob: natural as the day, seeing what’s happened.’
‘You know us,’ the gentle Andy urged. ‘Soft as doves so long’s we’re easy-handled. Harmless.’
‘But mortal set,’ Nat added, ‘on our own ways. That’s us. Come on, now, Bob.’
Sergeant Obby pursed his lips and again shook his head.
Chris burst out: ‘If you’re afraid we’ll break one of your paltry by-laws you can watch us through the bloody winder.’
‘But out of earshot, in simple decency,’ Nat pursued, ‘for ten minutes you’re axed to shift. Now!’
After a longish pause and from behind an expressionless face, Obby said: ‘Can’t be done, souls.’
Ernie broke into aimless laughter.
‘Why, you damned fool,’ Chris shouted at Obby, ‘what’s gone with you? D’you reckon one of us done it!’
‘Not for me to say,’ Obby primly rejoined, ‘and I’m sure I hope you’re all as innocent as new-born babes. But I got my duty which is to keep observation on the whole boiling of you guilty or not, as the case may be.’
‘We got to talk PRIVATE!’ Chris shouted. ‘We got to.’ Sergeant Obby produced his notebook.
‘No got about