Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 8: Death at the Dolphin, Hand in Glove, Dead Water. Ngaio Marsh
too difficult and disturbing,’ said Mr Period.
‘And I’m afraid I’m not going to make it any easier,’ Alleyn rejoined. He waited for a moment and decided to fire point-blank. ‘Mr Period,’ he said, ‘will you tell me why you wrote two letters of condolence to Miss Cartell, why they are almost exactly the same and why the first was written and sent to her before either of you had been informed of her brother’s death?’
There was nothing to be learnt from Mr Period’s face. Shock, guilt, astonishment, lack of comprehension or mere deafness might have caused his jaw to drop and his eyes to glaze. When he did speak it was politely and conventionally. ‘I beg your pardon? What did you say?’
Alleyn repeated his question. Mr Period seemed to think it over. After a considerable pause he said flatly: ‘But I didn’t.’
‘You didn’t what?’
‘Write twice. The thing’s ridiculous.’
Alleyn drew the two letters from his pocket and laid them before Mr Period who screwed his glass in his eye and stooped over them. When he straightened up, his face was the colour of beetroot. ‘There has been a stupid mistake,’ he said.
‘I’m afraid I must ask you to explain it.’
‘There’s nothing to explain.’
‘My dear Period!’ Alleyn ejaculated.
‘Nothing! My man must have made a nonsense.’
‘Your man didn’t, by some act of clairvoyance, anticipate a letter of condolence, and forge a copy and deliver it to a lady before anyone knew she was bereaved.’
‘There’s no need to be facetious,’ said Mr Period.
‘I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s an extremely serious matter.’
‘Very well,’ Mr Period said angrily. ‘Very well! I ah – I – ah – I had occasion to write to Connie Cartell about something else. Something entirely different and extremely private.’
Astonishingly he broke into a crazy little laugh which seemed immediately to horrify him. He stared wildly at Alleyn. ‘I – ah – I must have –’ He stopped short. Alleyn would have thought it impossible for him to become redder in the face but he now did so. ‘The wrong letter,’ he said, ‘was put in the envelope. Obviously.’
‘But that doesn’t explain – Wait a bit!’ Alleyn exclaimed. ‘Come!’ he said after a moment. ‘Perhaps sense does begin to dawn after all. Tell me, and I promise I’ll be as discreet as may be, has anybody else of your acquaintance been bereaved of a brother?’
Mr Period’s eyeglass dropped with a click. ‘In point of fact,’ he said unhappily, ‘yes.’
‘When?’
‘It was in yesterday’s – ah! I heard of it yesterday.’
‘And wrote?’
Mr Period inclined his head.
‘And the letter was –’ Alleyn wondered how on earth his victim’s discomfiture could be reduced and decided there was nothing much to be done about it. ‘The letters were identical?’ he suggested. ‘After all, why not? One can’t go on forever inventing consolatory phrases.’
Mr Period bowed and was silent. Alleyn hurried on. ‘Do you mind giving me, in confidence, the name of the’ – it was difficult to avoid a touch of grotesquery – ‘the other bereaved sister?’
‘Forgive me. I prefer not.’
Remembering there was always Nicola and the Daily Press, Alleyn didn’t press the point.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘you wouldn’t mind telling me what the missing letter was about: I mean, the one that you intended for Miss Cartell?’
‘Again,’ Mr Period said with miserable dignity, ‘I regret.’ He really looked as if he might cry.
‘Presumably it has gone to the other bereaved sister? The wrong letter in the right envelope as it were.’
Mr Period momentarily closed his eyes as if overtaken by nausea and said nothing.
‘You know,’ Alleyn went on very gently, ‘I have to ask about these things. If they’re irrelevant to the case I can’t tell you how completely and thankfully one puts them out of mind.’
‘They are irrelevant,’ Mr Period assured him with vehemence. ‘Believe me, believe me, they are. Entirely irrelevant! My dear Alleyn – really – I promise you. There now!’ Mr Period concluded with crackpot gaiety. ‘’Nuff said! Tell me, my dear fellow, you did have luncheon? I meant to suggest – but this frightful business puts everything out of one’s head – not, I hope, at our rather baleful little pub?’
He babbled on distractedly. Alleyn listened in the hope of hearing something useful and this not being the case brought him up with a round turn.
He said: ‘There’s one other thing. I understand that Lady Bantling drove you home last night?’
Mr Period gaped at him. ‘But of course,’ he said at last. ‘Dear Desirée! So kind! Of course! Why?’
‘And I believe,’ Alleyn plodded on, ‘that after you had left her, she didn’t at once return to Baynesholme but went into your garden and from there conducted a dialogue with Mr Cartell who was looking out of his bedroom window. Why didn’t you tell me about this?’
‘I don’t – really, I don’t know –’
‘But I think you do. You looked through your own bedroom window and asked if anything was the matter.’
‘And nothing was!’ Mr Period ejaculated with a kind of pale triumph. ‘Nothing! She said so! She said –’
‘She said: “Nothing in the wide world. Go to bed, darling.”’
‘Precisely! So exuberant always!’
‘Did you hear anything of the conversation?’
‘Nothing!’ Mr Period ejaculated. ‘Nothing at all! But nothing! I simply heard their voices. And in my opinion she was just being naughty and teasing poor old Hal.’
As Mr Period could not be dislodged from this position Alleyn made his excuses and sought out Nicola in the study.
She was able to find a copy of yesterday’s Press. He read through the obituary notices.
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘your employer is in a great taking-on about his correspondence. Did you happen to notice what mail was ready to go out yesterday evening?’
‘Yes,’ Nicola said. ‘Two letters.’
‘Local addresses?’
‘That’s right,’ she said uneasily.
‘Mind telling me what they were?’
‘Well – I mean …’
‘All right. Were they to Miss Cartell and Desirée, Lady Bantling?’
‘Why ask me,’ Nicola said rather crossly, ‘if you already know?’
‘I was tricking you, my pretty one, oiled Hawkshaw the detective.’
‘Ha-ha, very funny, I suppose,’ Nicola sourly remarked.
‘Well, only fairly funny.’ Alleyn had wandered over to the corner of the room that bore Mr Period’s illuminated genealogy. ‘He seems woundily keen on begatteries,’ he muttered. ‘Look at all this. Hung up in a dark spot for modesty’s sake, but framed and hung up, all the same. It’s not an old one. Done at his cost, I’ll be bound.’
‘How do you know?’
‘If