Hand in Glove (13 page)

“I’m sorry. I suppose you’re right. But in this instance — about Lady Bantling, I mean — it’s nothing. It’ll sound disproportionate.”

“So will lots of other things that turn out to be of no consequence. Come on. What happened? What did she do?”

Nicola, it transpired, had a gift for reportage. She gave a clear account of what had happened. Alleyn could see the car turn in the lane and stop. After a pause the driver got out, her flaming hair haloed momentarily in the light of the lantern as she crossed the planks, walking carefully in her high heels. She had gone through Mr. Period’s garden gate and disappeared. There had been a light in an upper window. Andrew Bantling had said: “Hullo, what’s my incalculable mama up to?” They had heard quite distinctly the spatter of pebbles against the upper window. A figure in a dark gown had opened it, “Great grief!” Andrew had ejaculated. “That’s Harold! She’s doing a balcony scene in reverse! She must be tight.”

And indeed, Lady Bantling had, surprisingly, quoted from the play. “What light,” she had shouted, “from yonder window breaks?” and Mr. Cartell had replied irritably, “Good God, Désirée, what are you doing down there?”

Her next remark was in a lower tone and they had only caught the word “warpath,” to which he had rejoined: “Utter nonsense!”

“And then,” Nicola told Alleyn, “another light popped up and another window opened and Mr. Period looked out. It was like a Punch-and-Judy show. He said something rather plaintive that sounded like: ‘Is anything the matter?’ and Lady Bantling shouted: ‘Not a thing, go to bed, darling,’ and he said: ‘Well, really! How odd!’ and pulled down his blind. And then Mr. Cartell said something inaudible and Lady Bantling quite yelled: ‘Ha! Ha! You jolly well watch your step!’ And then
he
pulled
his
blind down and we saw her come out, cross the ditch, and get into the car. She drove past us and leant out of the driving window and said: ‘That was a tuppeny one. Don’t be too late, darlings!’ and went on. And Andrew said he wished he knew what the hell she was up to and soon after that we went back to the party. Leonard and Moppett had arrived.”

“Was Désirée Bantling, in fact, tight?”

“It’s hard to say. She was perfectly in order afterwards and acted with the greatest expedition, I must say, in the Pixie affair. She’s obviously,” Nicola said, “a law unto herself.”

“I believe you. You’ve drifted into rather exotic and dubious waters, haven’t you?”

“It was all right,” Nicola said quickly. “And Andrew’s not a bit exotic or dubious. He’s a quiet character. Honestly. You’ll see.”

“Yes,” Alleyn said. “I’ll see. Thank you, Nicola.” Upon which the door of Mr. Period’s drawing-room burst open and Andrew, scarlet in the face, stormed in.

“Look here!” he shouted. “What the hell goes on? Are you grilling my girl?”

Alleyn, with one eyebrow cocked at Nicola, was crisp with Andrew. Nicola herself, struggling between exasperation and a maddening tendency to giggle, invited Andrew not to be an ass and he calmed down and presently apologized.

“I’m inclined to be quick-tempered,” he said with an air of self-discovery and an anxious glance at Nicola.

She cast her eyes up and, on Alleyn’s suggestion, left Andrew with him and went to the study. There she found Mr. Period in a dreadful state of perturbation, writing a letter.

“About poor old Hal,” he explained distractedly. “To his partner. One scarcely knows what to say.”

He implored Nicola to stay, and as she still had a mass of unassembled notes to attend to, she set to work on them in a strange condition of emotional uncertainty.

Alleyn had little difficulty with Andrew Bantling. He readily outlined his own problems, telling Alleyn about the Grantham Gallery and how Mr. Cartell had refused to let him anticipate his inheritance. He also confirmed Nicola’s account of their vigil in the car. “You don’t,” he said, “want to take any notice of my mama. She was probably a thought high. It would amuse her to bait Harold. She always does that sort of thing.”

“She was annoyed with him, I take it?”

“Well, of course she was. Livid. We both were.”

“Mr. Bantling,” Alleyn said, “your stepfather has been murdered.”

“So I feared,” Andrew rejoined. “Beastly, isn’t it? I can’t get used to the idea at all.”

“A trap was laid for him and when, literally, he fell into it, his murderer lowered an eight-hundred-pound drainpipe on him. It crushed his skull and drove him, face down, into the mud.”

The colour drained out of Andrew’s cheeks. “All right,” he said. “You needn’t go on. It’s loathsome. It’s too grotesque to think about.”

“I’m afraid we have to think about it. That’s all for the moment. Thank you.”

“Well, yes, All right, I see. Thank you.” Andrew fidgeted with his tie and then said: “Look: I daresay you think I’m being pretty callous about all this, but the fact is I just can’t assimilate it. It’s so unreal and beastly.”

“Murder is beastly. Unfortunately, it’s not unreal.”

“So it seems. Is it in order for me to go up to London? I’m meant to be on guard tomorrow. As a matter of fact I had thought of going up on business.”

“Important business?”

“Well — to me. I wanted to ask them to give me a few days’ grace over the Gallery.” He stared at Alleyn. “I suppose this will make a difference,” he said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“And now you have thought of it…?”

“I don’t know,” Andrew said slowly. “It seems a bit low to think of it at all. I’d like to talk it over with Nicola. As a matter of fact—” He looked sideways at Alleyn. “I rather thought of coming back and then going up with her. After I’ve telephoned my mama, I suppose. I can’t imagine what she’ll make of all this, I must say.”

“Where are you going to be on guard?”

“The Tower,” Andrew said dismally.

“All right. We’ll get in touch if we want you.”

Leaving Andrew where he was, Alleyn had a discussion with Fox and Williams in Mr. Period’s garden, and checked the story of the cigarette case with Alfred. Then he crossed the Green to interview Miss Cartell.

She received him in her den. He found it a depressing room. Everything seemed to be the colour of mud.…Faded snapshots of meets, of foxhounds and of other canines covered the walls. On the desk, which was a shambles, were several framed photographs of a cagey-looking girl whom he supposed to be Moppett. The room smelt of dog, damp tweed and raw liver, this last being explained by a dish labeled Fido in which a Pekingese was noisily snuffling. It broke off to bare its needlelike teeth at Alleyn and make the noise of a toy kettledrum.

Miss Cartell sat with her hands on her knees, staring dolefully at him. Her left thumb was decorated with dirty, bloodstained cotton wool and stamp paper. She had evidently been crying.

“It’s pretty ghastly,” she said. “Poor old Boysie! I can’t take it in. He was a bit of an old maid, but a brother’s a brother. We didn’t see eye-to-eye over a lot of things, but still …”

Alleyn was visited by the fleeting wish that he could run into somebody who at least pretended to have liked Mr. Cartell.

“When,” he asked her, “did you last see him?”

“I don’t know. Yes, I do. Last evening. He came over here with that ghastly bitch. It upset Li-chi. They’re very highly strung animals, Pekes. He’s still nervous. Eat up, my poppet,” said Miss Cartell to the Pekingese. “Lovely livvy!”

She poked her finger temptingly in the raw liver.

“Eat up,” she said and wiped her finger on the Pekingese. Alleyn noticed that her hand was unsteady.

“Was it just a casual, friendly visit?” he asked.

Miss Cartell’s rather prominent blue eyes, slightly bloodshot, seemed to film over.

“He was taking the bitch for a walk,” she said, after a pause. “Brought it into the house, like a fool, and of course Li became hysterical and bit me, poor little chap. I’ve fixed it up with girth-gall stuff,” she added, “it smells a bit, but it’s good.”

“Did Mr. Cartell meet anybody else during his call, do you remember?”

With a manner that was at once furtive and anxious she said: “Not that I know. I mean I didn’t see anything.” She might have been a great elderly schoolgirl caught on the hop. “He was here when I came in,” she added. “I don’t know
who
he’d seen.”

“Miss Cartell,” Alleyn said, “I’m anxious to find out if your brother had any enemies. I expect that sounds rather melodramatic, but I’m afraid it’s unavoidable. Is there, do you know, anyone who had cause, for any reason, however trivial, to dislike or fear him?”

She waited much too long before she said: “No one in particular,” and then after a pause: “He wasn’t awfully popular, I suppose. I mean he didn’t make friends with people all that easily.” She reached down her blunt ill-kept hand to the Pekingese and fondled it. “He was a dry old stick,” she said. “You know. Typical solicitor: I used to tell him he had ink instead of blood in his veins.”

She broke into one of her ungainly laughs and blew her nose on a man’s handkerchief.

“There was a luncheon party,” Alleyn said, “wasn’t there? Yesterday, at Mr. Pyke Period’s house?”

Instead of answering him she suddenly blurted out: “But I thought it was an accident! The way they told me, it sounded like an accident.”

“Who told you?”

“P.P.” she said. “Alfred told him and he told me. He made it sound like an accident.”

“The odds against,” Alleyn said, “are considerable.”

“Why?”

Everything about her was dull: her face, her manner, her voice. He wondered if she was really attending to him.

“Because,” he said, “accident would imply at least two lots of people behaving independently like dangerous hoodlums at the same spot and with different objectives.”

“I don’t follow that,” said Miss Cartell.

“Never mind. Just tell me about the luncheon party. There were you and your adopted niece and Miss Nicola Maitland-Mayne and Mr. Leonard Leiss. And of course, your brother and Mr. Period. Is that right?”

“That’s right.”

“What did you talk about?”

Nicola had given him a pretty full account of the luncheon party. Miss Cartell was much less explicit. She described the Pixie incident with one or two dismal hoots of retrospective laughter and she dwelt, disjointedly, upon Mr. Period’s references to blue blood and polite behaviour. She was clearly very ill-at-ease.

“He’s got a bee in his bonnet over that sort of thing,” she said. “My brother ragged him about it, and he got jolly ratty. You could see. Can’t take a joke.”

“What sort of joke?” Alleyn ventured.

“Well — I dunno. Some story about a baptismal register in a vestry. I didn’t listen.”

Alleyn asked her about the cigarette case and she at once exhibited all the classic signs of a clumsy and unaccustomed liar. She changed colour, avoided his glance and again fondled the unenthusiastic Pekingese.

“I didn’t notice anything about that,” she said. “He’d
got
the case. I didn’t know he’d lost it. He’s an old fuss-pot anyway.” The colour started out in blotches on her flattish cheeks. “He probably lost it himself,” she said, “muddling about.”

Alleyn said: “Miss Cartell, I’m sorry to badger you when you’ve had such a shock, but I’m sure you want to get this wretched business cleared up, don’t you?”

“Don’t know,” she countered. “Not if it’s going to lead to a lot of unpleasantness. Won’t bring poor old Boysie back, will it?”

Alleyn disregarded this. “Your adopted niece and a friend of hers, called Mr. Leiss, were at the luncheon, weren’t they?”

“Yes,” she said, staring at him. She seemed to be in two minds whether to go on. Then she said: “You don’t want to pay any attention to what P.P. says about them. He’s out of touch with the young. Expects them to behave like his generation: and a lot of pie-faced little humbugs
they
were, if you like.”

“Was there some talk of Mr. Leiss buying a car?”

She bent over the dog. “That’s enough,” she said to it. “You’ve had enough.” And then to Alleyn: “It all petered out. He didn’t buy it.”

The door opened and her Austrian maid came in with a letter.

“From Mr. Period, please,” she said. “The man left it.”

Miss Cartell seemed unwilling to take the letter. The maid put it on the desk at her elbow.

“All right, Trudi,” Miss Cartell mumbled. “Thank you,” and the maid went out.

“Pay no attention to me,” Alleyn said.

“It’ll wait.”

“Don’t you think, perhaps, you should look at it?”

She opened the letter unhandily, and as she read it turned white to the lips.

“What is it?” he asked. “Miss Cartell, what’s the matter?”

The letter was still quivering in her hands.

“He must be mad,” she said. “Mad!”

“May I see it?”

She seemed to consider this, but in an aimless sort of way as if she only gave him half her attention. When he took the sheet of paper from her fingers she suffered him to do so as if they were inanimate.

Alleyn read the letter.

Alleyn folded the paper and looked at Miss Cartell. “But why,” he said, “do you say that? Why do you say he must be mad?”

She waited so long, gaping at him like a fish, that he thought she would never answer. Then she made a fumbling inelegant gesture towards the letter.

“Because he must be,” she said. “Because it’s all happening twice. Because he’s written it before. The lot. Just the same.”