Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 2: Death in Ecstasy, Vintage Murder, Artists in Crime. Ngaio Marsh
Mrs Candour, who had been waiting for a cue from somebody, uttered a lamentable bellow and surged forward, saying: ‘Yes – yes – yes.’
Garnette pulled himself together and cast upon both ladies a sort of languishing glare.
He said: ‘Faithful! Faithful unto –’ and then, disliking the sound of the phrase, hurriedly abandoned it.
Ogden let them all go and then walked up to Alleyn.
‘Can I have a word with you, Chief?’ he asked.
‘Certainly, Mr Ogden.’
‘What are you going to say?’ demanded Garnette.
‘That’s nobody’s business, Garnette,’ said Ogden. ‘C’m on, Chief!’
He led the way out into the hall, followed by Alleyn, Nigel and Fox. When they were down in the aisle, he jerked his thumb at Nigel.
‘I ain’t giving interviews this trip, Mr Bathgate,’ he said, ‘and something seems to tell me you’re a Pressman.’
‘Mr Bathgate is not here in his official capacity,’ said Alleyn. ‘I think we can trust him.’
‘Seems like I’m doing a helluva lot of trusting. Well – if you say so, Chief, that’s OK by me.’
Nigel returned to his old perch in the front pews, and Mr Ogden paid no further attention to him. He addressed himself to Alleyn.
‘Listen, Chief. I’ve spent quite a lot of my time in this little old island, but right now is the first occasion I’ve come into contact with the Law. Back home in God’s Own Country I’d say a guy was crazy to do what I’m doing. But listen, Chief. I guess you’re on the level, and I guess you ain’t so darned polite you can’t do your stuff.’
Here Mr Ogden paused, drew out a large silk handkerchief and wiped his neck with it.
‘Hell,’ he said. ‘This has got me all shot to bits.’
‘What’s on your mind, Mr Ogden?’ asked Alleyn.
‘Hell,’ repeated Mr Ogden. ‘Well, listen. They opine that in this country you don’t get the hot squat, not without you earn it good and plenty.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Alleyn, gazing at him. ‘Oh! I see. I think you’re quite right. There are no miscarriages of justice in capital charges on the conviction side. Only, we hang them over here, you know.’
‘That’s so,’ agreed Mr Ogden, ‘but the principle’s the same.’
‘True,’ said Alleyn.
Mr Ogden seemed to find extreme difficulty in coming to the point. He rolled his eyes and goggled solemnly at Alleyn.
‘Listen, Chief,’ he said again. ‘I guess that you’ve got it figured out that whoever owns the book of the words and songs did the murder.’
‘You mean the book on chemistry?’
‘Yup.’
‘It certainly looks rather like that.’
‘Then it looks all cock-eyed,’ said Mr Ogden violently. ‘It looks all to – Hell! Do you know why?’
‘I think I can guess,’ said Alleyn smiling.
‘You can! Well I’d be –’
‘I rather fancied the book belonged to you.’
‘Chief, you said it,’ said Mr Ogden.
CHAPTER 17 Mr Ogden Grows Less Trustful
You said it,’ repeated Mr Ogden and collapsed into a pew.
‘Cheer up, Mr Ogden,’ said Alleyn.
Mr Ogden passed his handkerchief across his brow and contemplated the inspector with a certain expression of low cunning that reminded Nigel of a precocious baby.
‘Maybe I seemed a mite too eager about that book,’ he said. ‘Maybe I kinda gave you the works.’
‘My inspiration dates a little further back than that,’ said Alleyn. ‘You told us last night that you were interested in gold-refining. A letter which we found in your pockets referred rather fully to a new process. It assumed a certain knowledge of chemistry on your part. The book is an American publication. It was a little suggestive, you see.’
‘Yup,’ said Mr Ogden, ‘I see. Now listen. I bought that book years ago, way back in the pre-war period when I first began to sit up and take notice. I was a junior clurk at the time in the offices of a gold-refining company. Junior clurk is a swell name for office-boy. I lit on that book laying out in the rain on a five-cent stall, and I was ambitious to educate myself. It’s kinda stayed around ever since. The book, I mean. When I came over here it was laying in one of my grips, and I let it lay. I know a bit more than I useter, and some of them antique recipes tickled me. Well, anyhow, it stuck and, and when I got fixed where I am now I packed it in the bookshelves along with the Van Dines and National Geographics and the Saturday Evening Posts. I never opened it. And get this, chief, I never missed it till last night.’
‘Last night? At what time?’
‘After I got home. I got to thinking about Cara, and I figured it out that she passed in her checks very, very sudden, and that the suddenest poison I knew was prussic acid. Hydrocyanic acid if you want to talk Ritzy. I thought maybe I’d refresh my memory and I looked for the old book. Nothing doing. It was gone. What do you know about that?’
‘What do you know about it?’ rejoined Alleyn.
‘Listen,’ said Mr Ogden for about the twentieth time that afternoon. ‘I know this far. It was there four weeks back. Four weeks back from tonight I threw a party. All the Sacred Flame crowd was there. Garnette was there. And Raveenje. And Cara Quayne. All the gang, even Miss Wade, who has a habit of getting mislaid or overlooked: she was there and cracking hardy. Well, Raveenje, he’s enthusiastic about literature. First editions are all published by Pep and Kick as he sees it. I saw him looking along the shelves and yanked down the old Curiosities for him to have a slant at. Well, maybe it hadn’t enough whiskers on it, but it seemed to excite him about as much as a raspberry drink at a departmental store. He gave a polite once-over and lost interest. But that’s how I remember it was there. From that night till last evening I never gave it a thought.’
‘Did anyone take it away that night?’
‘How should I know? I never missed the blamed thing.’
‘You can’t remember anything that would help? The next time you looked at your bookshelves?’
‘Nope. Wait a while. Wait a while.’
Mr Ogden clapped a plump hand on top of his head as if to prevent an elusive thought from escaping him.
‘The next day or maybe the day after – it was around that time – Claude stopped in and he took Garnette’s books away with him. I was out at the time.’
‘Mr Garnette’s books? What books?’
Mr Ogden looked remarkably sheepish.
‘Aw Gee!’ he said. ‘Just something for a rainy day. He loaned ’em to me. He said they were classics. Classics. And how? Boy, they were central-heated.’
‘Are they among the lot in brown paper covers, behind the others?’
‘You said it.’
‘And Claude Wheatley took them away?’
‘Sure. He told the maid Garnette had sent him for them. He wanted to keep hold of them because they were rare. I’ll say they were rare! Anyhow, that’s when I last remember anything about books. I suppose Garnette told Claude