Hand in Glove (12 page)

Mr. Period gave a stifled ejaculation and got to his feet.

At the same moment there was a tap on the door, which at once opened to admit a girl and a tall young man.

“I’m so sorry,” Nicola said, “the front door was open and we thought — I’m awfully sorry.” She stopped short, catching sight of the gold case lying on the handkerchief. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “I
am
glad. Your lovely cigarette case! You’ve found it!”

“Ah — yes,” Mr. Period said with a little gasp. “Yes. It — it would appear so.” He pulled himself’ together. “Nicola, my dear,” he said, “may I introduce—”

“But we’ve met!” Nicola cried. “Often. Haven’t we? I was talking about you only yesterday. Bless my soul,” she added gaily. “Who, to coin a phrase, would have thought of meeting you?”

“To coin another,” Alleyn said mildly, “it’s quite coincidence, isn’t it? Hullo, Nicola.”

“Put it like this,” Alleyn said. “I don’t say you’ll ever have to, but suppose you were asked to swear on oath that the window was shut during the luncheon-Pixie episode, would you do it?”

Nicola said: “I’d have to, wouldn’t I? Because it was.”

“Not a shadow of doubt?”

“Not one. Alfred will say the same.”

“I dare say.”

“I wish I knew what you were up to,” Nicola said, staring out into the garden.

“I? I’m on my job.”

“Yes, but are you peering into petty larceny or mucking into a — I’m sure I don’t know why I’m trying to be facetious — into a murder? Or do they tie in together? Or what?”

“I don’t know. No more than you do.”

“I suppose,” Nicola said with some penetration, “you’re not very pleased to find me here.”

“Not as enchanted as I would be to find you elsewhere.”

“It’s funny. Because, before this blew up, I was thinking of Troy. I’m coming in tomorrow evening and I wondered if I could bring a young man with me.”

“My dear child, she’ll be delighted. Do I detect—”

“No!” Nicola said in a hurry. “You don’t detect anything. He paints.”

“Ah. Mr. Andrew Bantling?”

“I suppose you spotted the paint under his fingernail.”

“So I did. It reminded me of my wife.”

“That sounds human, anyway.”

Alleyn said: “Look here, Nicola, we’ll have to keep all this on an aseptically impersonal basis, you know. I’ve got to look into a case that may well involve something that is generally called a serious charge. You, unfortunately, may be a relevant witness. I wish it wasn’t like that, but it is. O.K.?”

“Do I have to call you Superintendent?”

“You needn’t call me anything. Now, let’s press on, shall we? I’m bringing Mr. Fox in to take notes.”

“Lor!” Nicola looked at him for a moment and then said: “Yes, O.K. I won’t be tiresome. I do see.”

“Of course you do.”

Fox came in and was introduced.

In great detail Alleyn led her through the events of the past twenty-four hours, and as he did so it seemed to Nicola that she grew physically colder. Her relationship with the Alleyns was something that she had taken for granted. Without realizing that she did so, she had depended upon them, as the young do with established friends, for a sort of anchorage. They were old enough to give her a feeling of security and young enough, she felt, to “understand.” She had been free to turn up at their London house when she felt like it and was one of the few people that Alleyn’s wife could endure in the studio when she was working. With Alleyn himself, Nicola had progressed by way of a schoolgirl crush, from which she had soon managed to recover, into solid affection. She called him “Le Cid,” shortened it into “Cid,” and by this time had forgotten the origin of the pun.

Now, here he was, C.I.D. in action, being friendly enough: considerate and impersonal, but she had to face it, quietly panic-striking. She began to see him in headline terms. “Superintendent Alleyn interviews Society Secretary.”

“Don’t,” Alleyn’s voice said, “go fussing yourself with unnecessary complications. Be as objective as you can and it’ll all pass off very quietly. Where had we got to? Ah, yes. You’ve arrived. You’ve started on your job. You’re assisting at the pre-luncheon-drinks party. This consists of Mr. Cartell; his sister, Miss Constance Cartell; his former wife, the
soi-disante
Lady Bantling; her present husband, Mr. Bimbo Dodds; her son by her first marriage, Mr. Andrew Bantling; Miss Cartell’s adopted niece or what-not, what’s she called — Miss Mary or Moppett — what?”

“Ralston, I think.”

“That’s right. And the Moppett’s boyfriend, Mr. Leonard Leiss. And of course, Mr. Period. So we have the piquant situation of a lady with two husbands, a young man with two stepfathers, and a brother and sister with a courtesy niece. How did the party go?”

“Not with a swing,” Nicola said.

“Because of the muddled relationships, would you say?”

“No. They seem to take those in their stride.”

“Because of what, then?”

“Well — Moppett and Leonard, principally. Leonard really is a monster.”

“What sort? Beatnik? Smart-alec? Bounder? Straight-out cad? Or just plain nasty?”

“All except the beatnik. He’s as clean as a whistle and smells dreadfully of lilies.”

“Not Period’s cup of tea. Or, I should have thought, Cartell’s.”

“Indeed not. He and Moppett were self-invited. Or rather, I think Moppett had bludgeoned poor Miss Cartell into getting them there.”

“Why ‘poor’?”

“Did I say ‘poor’?” Nicola exclaimed, surprised at herself. “I suppose because I sort of felt she was vulnerable.”

“Go on.”

“Well — she’s one of those clumsy women who sound arrogant but probably hoot and roar their way through life to cover up their shyness. I expect she’s tried to compensate for her loneliness by pouring all her affection into Moppett. What a hope, poor darling!”

“
O wise young judge
,” Alleyn murmured and Nicola wondered how much he was laughing at her.

“Can you remember,” he asked, “any of the conversation?”

“At lunch it was about Pixie and Miss Cartell saying she was a mongrel and Mr. Cartell turning huffy and about a car Leonard had seen in the local garage — I don’t remember—”

“We know about the car. What else?”

“Well: about poor Mr. Period’s favourite thing: family grandeur and blue blood and
noblesse oblige
. I’m sure he didn’t mean to have digs at Leonard and Moppett, but it came over like that. And then Mr. Cartell told a story about someone who cooked a baptismal record to pretend he was blue-blooded when he wasn’t, and that didn’t exactly ring out like a peal of joybells, although Leonard seemed quite interested. And then there was the Pixie episode and then the cigarette-case thing.” She elaborated on these themes.

“Plenty of incident throughout. What about the pre-luncheon party? Young Bantling, for instance? How did he fit in? Did he seem to get on quite well with his senior stepfather?”

Nicola was aware of silence: the silence of Mr. Period’s drawing-room, which had been given over to Alleyn. There was the alleged Cotman water colour in its brown paper wrappings. There were the unexceptionable chairs and curtains. Outside the windows was the drive, down which Andrew had walked so angrily, swinging his hat. And upstairs, somewhere, was dead Mr. Cartell’s room, where Andrew’s voice had shouted yesterday morning.

“What’s the matter?” Alleyn said.

“Nothing. He didn’t stay for lunch. He lunched at Baynesholme.”

“But he came here, with you, from the station, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And stayed here until his mother and her husband called for him?”

“Yes. At least—”

“Yes?”

“He went out for a bit. I saw him go down the drive.”

“What did he do while he was here?”

“I think he saw Mr. Cartell. Mr. Cartell’s his guardian and a trustee for his inheritance as well as his stepfather. And Mr. Period’s the other trustee.”

“Did you gather that it was a business call?”

“Something of the sort. He talked to both of them.”

“About what, do you know?”

Could Nicola hear or did she only feel, the thud of her heart?

“Do you know?” Alleyn repeated.

“Only roughly. He’d tell you himself.”

“You think he would?”

“Why not?”

“He told you about it?”

“A bit. But it was — it was sort of confidential. In a way.”

“Why are you frightened, Nicola?” Alleyn asked gently.

“I’m not. It’s just that…well, the whole thing’s rather a facer. What’s happened, I suppose I’ve got a bit of a delayed shock or something.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “It might, of course, be that.”

He rose and looked down at her from his immoderate height. “As my maiden aunt said to her cat: ‘I can accept the urge and I can deal with the outcome: what I cannot endure are these pointless preliminaries!’ She ought to have been in the C.I.D.”

“What am I supposed to make of that?”

“Don’t have kittens before they’re hatched. And for pity’s sake don’t hedge or shuffle: that never did anybody any good. Least of all your young man.”

“He is
not
my young man. I only met him yesterday.”

“Even so quickly may one catch the plague. Did you stay here last night?”

“No. I was at Baynesholme for a party.”

“Not Désirée Bantling’s party!” Alleyn ejaculated.

“Yes, but it wasn’t the sort you mean. It was a lovely party,” said Nicola, looking mistily at him. She described it.

“Any unforeseen incidents?”

“Only Moppett and Leonard, who practically gatecrashed. And Pixie, of course.”

“What? What about Pixie?”

Nicola told him. “Pixie,” she added, “bit Bimbo. He had to go and have his hand bandaged.”

“You wouldn’t,” Alleyn asked, “know what time it was when Pixie staged this show?”

“Yes, I would,” Nicola said promptly and blushed. “It was a little after one o’clock.”

“How do you know?”

“We got back at half-past twelve from the treasure hunt. It was not much more than half an hour after that.”

“We?”

“Andrew and I. We hunted in pairs.”

“I thought you said you all had to be in by midnight?”

“All right. Yes, we were meant to. But Andrew thought the treasure hunt was pretty tiresome, so we talked instead. He told me about his painting and somehow we didn’t notice.”

Nicola looked squarely at Alleyn. “It couldn’t matter less,” she said, “but I would like to mention that I did
not
have a casual affair with Andrew. We talked — and talked …”

Her voice faded on an indeterminate note. She was back at the end of Mr. Period’s lane, in Andrew’s draughty car, tucked up in Andrew’s old duffel coat that smelt of paint. The tips of their cigarettes glowed and waned. Every now and then a treasure hunter’s car would go hooting past and they would see the occupants get out and poke about the drainpipes and heaps of spoil, flicking their torches and giggling. And Andrew talked — and didn’t initiate any of the usual driver’s seat techniques but was nevertheless very close to her. And the moon had gone down and the stars were bright and everything in the world seemed brand-new and shining. She gave Alleyn the factual details of this experience.

“Do you remember,” he asked, “how many cars stopped by the drain or who any of the people were?”

“Not really. They were all new to me: lots of Nigels and Michaels and Sarahs and Davids and Gileses.”

“You could see them fairly clearly?”

“Fairly. There was a hurricane lantern shining on two planks across the ditch and they all had torches.”

“Any of them walk across the planks?”

“I think most of them. But the clue was under one of the drainpipes on the road side of the ditch. We’d see them find it and giggle over it and put it back and then go zooming off.”

“Anyone touch the planks? Look under the ends for the clue?”

“I don’t think so.” Nicola hesitated and then said: “I remember Leonard and Moppett. They were the last, and they hadn’t got a torch. He crossed the plank and stooped over as if he was looking in the ditch. I got the impression that they stared at us. There was something, I don’t know what, kind of furtive about him. I can see him now,” Nicola said, surprised at the vivid memory. “I think he had his hand inside his overcoat. The lamplight was on him. He turned his back to us. He stooped and straightened up. Then he recrossed the bridge and found the clue. They looked at it by the light of the lantern and he put it back and they drove away.”

“Was he wearing gloves?”

“Yes, he was. Light-coloured ones. Tight-fitting, wash leather, I should think: a bit too svelte — like everything else about Leonard.”

“Anything more?”

“No. At least — well, they didn’t sort of talk and laugh like the others. I don’t suppose any of this matters.”

“Don’t you, indeed? And then, you good, observant child?”

“Well, Andrew said: ‘Funny how ghastly they look even at this distance!’ And I said: ‘Like—’ No, it doesn’t matter.”

“Like what?”

“ ‘Like Grand Opera assassins’ was what I said, but it was a silly remark. Actually, they looked more like sneak thieves, but I can’t tell you why. It’s nothing.”

“And then?”

“Well, they were the last couple. You see, Andrew kept count, vaguely, because he thought it would be all right to continue our conversation as long as there were still hunters to come. But, before them, Lady Bantling and Mr. Period came past. She was driving him home. She stopped the car by the planks and I fancy she called out to a hunting couple that were just leaving. Mr. Period got out and said good night with his hat off, looking rather touching, poor sweet, and crossed the planks and went in by his side gate. And she turned the car.” Nicola stopped.

“What is it?”

“Well, you see, I–I don’t want—”

“All right. Don’t bother to tell me. You’re afraid of putting ideas into my head. How can I persuade you, Nicola, that it’s only by a process of elimination that I can get anywhere with this case? Incidents that look as fishy as hell to you may well turn out to be the means of clearing the very character you’re fussing about.”

“May they?”

“Now, look here. An old boy of, as far as we know, exemplary character, has been brutally and cunningly murdered. You think you can’t bring yourself to say anything that might lead to an arrest and its possible consequences. I understand and sympathize. But, my poor girl, will you consider for a moment the possible consequences of withholding information? They can be disastrous. They have led to terrible miscarriages of justice. You see, Nicola, the beastly truth is that if you are involved, however accidentally, in a crime of this sort, you can’t avoid responsibility.”