Killer Dolphin (26 page)

“It’s not a print, by Heaven, it’s an original. It’s a Phiz original, Emmy. Oh we shall frame it so beautifully and hang it—” He stopped for a second. “Hang it,” he said, “in the best possible place. Gosh, won’t it send old Jer sky high!”

“Where is he?”

Peregrine said, “He had a thing to do. He ought to be back by now. Emily, I couldn’t have ever imagined myself telling anybody what I’m going to tell you so it’s a sort of compliment. Do you know what Jer did?”

And he told Emily about Jeremy and the glove.

“He must have been demented,” she said flatly.

“I know. And what Alleyn’s decided to do about him, who can tell? You don’t sound as flabbergasted as I expected.”

“Don’t I? No, well—I’m not altogether. When we were making the props Jeremy used to talk incessantly about the glove. He’s got a real fixation on the ownership business, hasn’t he? It really is almost a kink, don’t you feel? Harry was saying something the other day about after all the value of those kinds of jobs was purely artificial and fundamentally rather silly. If he was trying to get a rise out of Jeremy, he certainly succeeded. Jeremy was livid. I thought there’d be a punch-up before we were through. Perry, what’s the matter? Have I been beastly?”

“No, no. Of course not.”

“I
have
,” she said contritely. “He’s your great friend and I’ve been talking about him as if he’s a specimen. I
am
sorry.”

“You needn’t be. I know what he’s like. Only I do
wish
he hadn’t done this.”

Peregrine walked over to the window and stared across the river towards The Dolphin. Last night, he thought, only sixteen hours ago, in that darkened house, a grotesque overcoat had moved in and out of shadow. Last night— He looked down into the street below. There from the direction of the bridge came a ginger head, thrust forward above heavy shoulders and adorned, like a classic ewer, with a pair of outstanding ears.

“Here he comes,” Peregrine said. “They haven’t run him in as yet, it seems.”

“I’ll take myself off.”

“No, you don’t. I’ve got to drop this stuff at the Yard. Come with me. We’ll take the car and I’ll run you home.”

“Haven’t you got things you ought to do? Telephonings and fussings? What about Trevor?”

“I’ve done that. No change. Big trouble with Mum. Compensation. It’s Greenslade’s and Winty’s headache, thank God. We want to do what’s right and a tidy bit more but she’s out for the earth.”

“Oh dear.”

“Here’s Jer.”

He came in looking chilled and rather sickly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know you had—oh hullo, Em.”

“Hullo, Jer.”

“I’ve told her,” Peregrine said.

“Thank you very much.”

“There’s no need to take it grandly, is there?”

“Jeremy, you needn’t mind my knowing. Truly.”

“I don’t in the least mind,” he said in a high voice. “No doubt you’ll both be surprised to learn I’ve been released with a blackguarding that would scour the hide off an alligator.”

“Surprised and delighted,” Peregrine said. “Where’s the loot?”

“At the Yard.”

Jeremy stood with his hands in his pockets as if waiting for something irritating to occur.

“Do you want the car, Jer? I’m going to the Yard now,” Peregrine said and explained why. Jeremy remarked that Peregrine was welcome to the car and added that he was evidently quite the white-haired Trusty of the Establishment. He stood in the middle of the room and watched them go.

“He
is
in a rage?” Emily said as they went to the car.

“I don’t know what he’s in but he’s bloody lucky it’s not the lock-up. Come on.”

Alleyn put down Peregrine’s report and gave it a definitive slap. “It’s useful, Fox,” he said. “You’d better read it.”

He dropped it on the desk before his colleague, filled his pipe and strolled over to the window. Like Peregrine Jay, an hour earlier, he looked down at the Thames and he thought how closely this case clung to the river, as if it had been washed up by the incoming tide and left high-and-dry for their inspection. Henry Jobbins of Phipps Passage was a waterside character if ever there was one. Peregrine Jay and Jeremy Jones were not far east along the Embankment. Opposite them The Dolphin pushed up its stage-house and flagstaff with a traditional flourish on Bankside. Behind Tabard Lane in the Borough lurked Mrs. Blewitt while her terrible Trevor, still on the South Bank, languished in St. Terence’s. And as if to top it off, he thought idly, here
we
are at the Yard, hard by the river.

“But with Conducis,” Alleyn muttered, “we move west and, I suspect, a good deal further away than Mayf air.”

He looked at Fox who, with eyebrows raised high above his spectacles in his stuffy reading-expression, concerned himself with Peregrine’s report.

The telephone rang and Fox reached for it “Super’s room,” he said. “Yes? I’ll just see.”

He laid his great palm across the mouthpiece. “It’s Miss Destiny Meade,” he said, “for you.”

“Is it, by gum! What’s she up to, I wonder. All right. I’d better.”

“Look,” cried Destiny when he had answered. “I know you’re a kind,
kind
man.”

“Do you?” Alleyn said. “How?”

“I have a sixth sense about people. Now, you won’t laugh at me, will you? Promise.”

“I’ve no inclination to do so, believe me.”

“And you won’t slap me back? You’ll come and have a delicious little dinky at six, or even earlier or whenever it suits, and tell me I’m being as stupid as an owl. Now, do, do, do, do, do. Please, please, please.”

“Miss Meade,” Alleyn said, “it’s extremely kind of you but I’m on duty and I’m afraid I can’t.”

“On duty! But you’ve been on duty all
day
. That’s worse than being an actor and you can’t possibly mean it.”

“Have you thought of something that may concern this case?”

“It concerns
me
,” she cried and he could imagine how widely her eyes opened at the telephone.

“Perhaps if you would just say what it is,” Alleyn suggested. He looked across at Fox who, with his spectacles halfway down his nose, blankly contemplated his superior and listened at the other telephone. Alleyn crossed his eyes and protruded his tongue.

“—I can’t really, not on the telephone. It’s too complicated. Look — I’m
sure
you’re up to your ears and not for the wide, wide world—” The lovely voice moved unexpectedly into its higher and less mellifluous register. “I’m nervous,” it said rapidly. “I’m afraid. I’m terrified. I’m being threatened.” Alleyn heard a distant bang and a male voice. Destiny Meade whispered in his ear, “
Please come. Please come
.” Her receiver clicked and the dialling tone set in.

“Now who in Melpomene’s dear name,” Alleyn said, “does that lovely lady think she’s leading down the garden path? Or is she? By gum, if she
is
,” he said, “she’s going to get such a tap on the temperament as hasn’t come her way since she hit the headlines. When are we due with Conducis? Five o’clock. It’s now half past two. Find us a car, Br’er Fox, we’re off to Cheyne Walk.”

Fifteen minutes later they were shown into Miss Destiny Meade’s drawing-room.

It was sumptuous to a degree and in maddeningly good taste: an affair of mushroom-coloured curtains, dashes of Schiaparelli pink, dull satin, Severes plaques and an unusual number of orchids. In the middle of it all was Destiny, wearing a heavy sleeveless sheath with a mink collar: and not at all pleased to see Inspector Fox.

“Kind, kind,” she said, holding out her hand at her white arm’s length for Alleyn to do what he thought best with. “Good afternoon,” she said to Mr. Fox.

“Now, Miss Meade,” Alleyn said briskly, “what’s the matter?” He reminded himself of a mature Hamlet.

“Please sit down. No, please. I’ve been so terribly distressed and I need your advice so desperately.”

Alleyn sat, as she had indicated it, in a pink velvet buttoned chair. Mr. Fox took the least luxurious of the other chairs and Miss Meade herself sank upon a couch, tucked up her feet, which were beautiful, and leaned superbly over the arm to gaze at Alleyn. Her hair, coloured raven black for the Dark Lady, hung like a curtain over her right jaw and half her cheek. She raised a hand to it and then drew the hand away as if it had hurt her. Her left ear was exposed and embellished with a massive diamond pendant.

“This is so difficult,” she said.

“Perhaps we could fire point-blank.”

“Fire? Oh, I see. Yes. Yes, I must try, mustn’t I?”

“If you please.”

Her eyes never left Alleyn’s face. “It’s about—” she began and her voice resentfully indicated the presence of Mr. Fox. “It’s about
me
?”

“Yes?”

“Yes. I’m afraid I must be terribly frank. Or no. Why do I say that? To you of all people who, of course, understand—” she executed a circular movement of her arm—“everything. I know you do. I wouldn’t have asked you if I hadn’t known. And you see I have Nowhere to Turn.”

“Oh, surely!”

“No. I mean that,” she said with great intensity. “I mean it. Nowhere. No one. It’s all so utterly unexpected. Everything seemed to be going along quite naturally and taking the inevitable course. Because—I know you’ll agree with this—one shouldn’t—indeed one can’t resist the inevitable. One is fated and when this new thing came into our lives we both faced up to it, he and I, oh, over and over again. It’s like,” she rather surprisingly added, “Anthony and Cleopatra. I forget the exact line. I think, actually, that in the production it was cut but it puts the whole thing in a nutshell, and I told him so. Ah, Cleopatra,” she mused, and such was her beauty and professional expertise that, there and then, lying (advantageously of course) on her sofa she became for a fleeting moment the Serpent of the old Nile. “But now,” she added crossly as she indicated a box of cigarettes that was not quite within her reach, “now, with him turning peculiar and violent like this I feel I simply don’t
know
him. I can’t cope. As I told you on the telephone, I’m terrified.”

When Alleyn leaned forward to light her cigarette he fancied that he caught a glint of appraisal and of wariness, but she blinked, moved her face nearer to his and gave him a look that was a masterpiece.

“Can you,” Alleyn said, “perhaps come to the point and tell us precisely why and of whom you are frightened. Miss Meade?”

“Wouldn’t one be? It was so utterly beyond the bounds of anything one could possibly anticipate. To come in almost without warning and I must tell you that of course he has his own key and by a hideous chance my married couple are out this afternoon. And then, after all that has passed between us to—to—”

She turned her head aside, swept back the heavy wing of her hair and superbly presented herself to Alleyn’s gaze.

“Look,” she said.

Unmistakably someone had slapped Miss Meade very smartly indeed across the right-hand rearward aspect of her face. She had removed the diamond earring on this side but its pendant had cut her skin behind the point of the jaw, and the red beginnings of a bruise showed across the cheek.

“What do you think of that?” she said.

“Did Grove do this!” Alleyn ejaculated.

She stared at him. An indescribable look of—what: pity? contempt? mere astonishment?—broke across her face. Her mouth twisted and she began to laugh.

“Oh you poor darling,” said Destiny Meade. “Harry? He wouldn’t hurt a fly. No, no, no, my dear, this is Mr. Marcus Knight. His Mark.”

Alleyn digested this information and Miss Meade watched him apparently with some relish.

“Do you mind telling me,” he said at length, “why all this blew up? I mean,
specifically
why. If, as I understand, you have finally broken with Knight.”

“
I
had,” she said, “but you see
he
hadn’t. Which made things so very tricky. And then he wouldn’t give me back the key. He has, now. He threw it at me.” She looked vaguely round the drawing-room. “It’s somewhere about,” she said. “It might have gone anywhere or broken anything. He so
egotistic
.”

“What had precipitated this final explosion, do you think?”

“Well—” She dropped the raven wing over her cheek again. “This and that. Harry, of course, has driven him quite frantic. It’s very bad of Harry and I never cease telling him so. And then it really was
too
unfortunate last night about the orchids.”

“The orchids?” Alleyn’s gaze travelled to a magnificent stand of them in a Venetian goblet.

“Yes, those,” she said. “Vass had them sent round during the show. I tucked his card in my décolletage like a sort of Victorian courtesan, you know, and in the big love scene Marco spotted it and whipped it out before I could do a thing. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t had that flare-up in the yacht a thousand years ago. He hadn’t realized before that I knew Vass so well. Personally, I mean. Vassy has got this thing about no publicity and of course I
respect
it. I understand. We just see each other quietly from time to time. He has a wonderful brain.”

“ ‘Vassy’? ‘Vass’?”

“Vassily, really. I call him Vass. Mr. Conducis.”

As Fox and Alleyn left the flat in Cheyne Walk they encountered in the downstairs entrance a little old man in a fusty overcoat and decrepit bowler. He seemed to be consulting a large envelope.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, touching the brim of the bowler, “but can you tell me if a lady be-the-namer Meade resides in these apartments? It seems to be the number but I can’t discover a name board or indication of any sort.”

Fox told him and he was much obliged.

When they were in the street Alleyn said: “Did you recognize him?”

“I had a sort of notion,” Fox said, “that I ought to. Who is he? He looks like a bum.”

“Which is what he is. He’s a Mr. Grimball who, twenty years ago and more, was the man in possession at the Lampreys.”

“God bless my soul!” Fox said. “Your memory!”

“Peregrine Jay did tell us that the Meade’s a compulsive gambler, didn’t he?”

“Well, I’ll be blowed! Fancy that! On top of all the other lot—in Queer Street. Wonder if Mr. Conducis—”

Fox continued in a series of scandalized ejaculations.

“We’re not due with Conducis for another hour and a half,” Alleyn said. “Stop clucking and get into the car. We’ll drive to the nearest box and ring the Yard in case there’s anything.”

“About the boy?”

“Yes. Yes. About the boy. Come on.”

Fox returned from the telephone box in measured haste.

“Hospital’s just rung through,” he said. “They think he’s coming round.”

“Quick as we can,” Alleyn said to the driver, and in fifteen minutes, with the sister and house-surgeon in attendance, they walked round the screens that hid Trevor’s bed in the children’s casualty ward at St Terence’s.

P.C. Grantley had returned to duty. When he saw Alleyn he hurriedly vacated his chair and Alleyn slipped into it.

“Anything?”

Grantley showed his notebook.

“
It’s a pretty glove
,” Alleyn read,
but it doesn’t warm my hand. Take it off
.”

“He said that?”

“Yes, sir. Nothing else, sir. Just that.”

“It’s a quotation from his part.”

Trevor’s eyes were closed and he breathed evenly. The sister brushed back his curls.

“He’s asleep,” the doctor said. “We must let him waken in his own time. He’ll probably be normal when he does.”

“Except for the blackout period?”

“Quite.”

Ten minutes slipped by in near silence.

“Mum,” Trevor said. “Hey, Mum.”

He opened his eyes and stared at Alleyn. “What’s up?” he asked and then saw Grantley’s tunic. “That’s a rozzer,” he said. “I haven’t done a thing.”

“You’re all right,” said the doctor. “You had a nasty fall and we’re looking after you.”

“Oh,” Trevor said profoundly and shut his eyes.

“Gawd, he’s off again,” Grantley whispered, distractedly. “Innit marvellous.”

“Now then,” Fox said austerely.

“Pardon, Mr. Fox.”

Alleyn said, “May he be spoken to?”

“He shouldn’t be worried. If it’s important—”

“It could hardly be more so.”

“
Nosey Super
,” Trevor said, and Alleyn turned back to find himself being stared at.

“That’s right,” he said. “We’ve met before.”

“Yeah. Where though?”

“In The Dolphin. Upstairs in the circle.”

“Yeah,” Trevor said, wanly tough. A look of doubt came into his eyes. He frowned. “In the circle,” he repeated uneasily.

“Things happen up there in the circle, don’t they?”

Complacency and still that look of uncertainty.

“Yon can say that again,” said Trevor. “All over the house.”

“
Slash
?”

“Yeah.
Slash
,” he agreed and grinned.

“You had old Jobbins guessing?”

“And that’s no error.”

“What did you do?”

Trevor stretched his mouth and produced a wailing sound: “
Wheeeee
.”

“Make like spooks,” he said. “See?”

“Anything else?”

There was a longish pause. Grantley lifted his head. Somewhere beyond the screens a trolley jingled down the ward.

“
Ping
.”

“That must have rocked them.” Alleyn said.

“ ’Can say that again. What a turn-up! Oh, dear!”

“How did you do it? Just like that? With your mouth?”

The house-surgeon stirred restively. The sister gave a starched little cough.

“Do you
mind
,” Trevor said. “My mum plays the old steely,” he added, and then, with a puzzled look: “Hey! Was that when I got knocked out or something! Was it?”

“That was a bit later. You had a fall. Can you remember where you went after you banged the stage-door?”

“No,” he said impatiently. He sighed and shut his eyes. “Do me a favour and pack it up, will you?” he said and went to sleep again.

“I’m afraid that’s it,” said the house-surgeon.

Alleyn said : “May I have a word with you?”

“Oh, certainly. Yes, of course. Carry on, Sister, will you? He’s quite all right”

Alleyn said, “Stick it out, Grantley.”

The house-surgeon led him into an office at the entrance to the ward. He was a young man and, although he observed a markedly professional attitude, he was clearly intrigued by the situation.

“Look here,” Alleyn said, “I want you to give me your cold-blooded, considered opinion. You tell me the boy is unlikely to remember what happened just before he went overboard. I gather he may recall events up to within a few minutes of the fall?”

“He may, yes. The length of the ‘lost’ period can vary.”

“Did you think he was on the edge of remembering a little further just now?”

“One can’t say. One got the impression that he hadn’t the energy to try and remember.”

“Do you think that if he were faced with the person whom he saw attacking the caretaker, he would recognize him and remember what he saw?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a specialist in amnesia or the after-effects of cranial injury. You should ask someone who is.” The doctor hesitated and then said slowly: “You mean would the shock of seeing the assailant stimulate the boy’s memory?”

“Not of the assault upon himself but of the earlier assault upon Jobbins which may be on the fringe of his recollection—which may lie just this side of the blackout.”

“I can’t give you an answer to that one.”

“Will you move the boy into a separate room—say tomorrow—and allow him to see three—perhaps four—visitors: one after another? For five minutes each.”

“No. I’m sorry. Not yet.”

“Look,” Alleyn said, “can it really do any harm?
Really
?”

“I have not the authority.”

“Who has?”

The house-surgeon breathed an Olympian name.

“Is he in the hospital? Now?”

The house-surgeon looked at his watch.

“There’s been a board meeting. He may be in his room.”

“I’ll beard him there. Where is it?”

“Yes, but look here—”

“God bless my soul,” Alleyn ejaculated. “I’ll rant as well as he. Lead me to him.”

“Ten past four,” Alleyn said, checking with Big Ben. “Let’s do a bit of stocktaking.” They had returned to the car.

“You got it fixed up for this show with the boy, Mr. Alleyn?”

“Oh, yes. The great panjandrum turned out to be very mild and a former acquaintance. An instance, I’m afraid, of Harry Grove’s detested old-boymanship. I must say I see Harry’s point. We went to the ward and he inspected young Trevor who was awake, as bright as a button, extremely full of himself and demanding a nice dinner. The expert decided in our favour. We may arrange the visits for tomorrow at noon.
Out
of visiting hours. We’ll get Peregrine Jay to call the actors and arrange the timetable. I don’t want us to come into it at this juncture. We’ll just occur at the event. Jay is to tell them the truth: that the boy can’t remember what happened and that it’s hoped the encounters with the rest of the cast may set up some chain of association that could lead to a recovery of memory.”

“One of them won’t fancy
that
idea.”

“No. But it wouldn’t do to refuse.”

“The nerve might crack. There might be a bolt. With that sort of temperament,” Fox said, “you can’t tell what may happen. Still, we’re well provided.”

“If anybody’s nerve cracks it won’t be Miss Destiny Meade’s. What did you make of that scene in her flat, Fox?”

“Well: to begin with, the lady was very much put out by my being there. In my view, Mr. Alleyn, she didn’t fancy police protection within the meaning of the code to anything like the extent that she fancied it coming in a personal way from yourself. Talk about the go-ahead signal! It was hung out like the week’s wash,” said Mr. Fox.

“Control yourself, Fox.”

“Now, on what she said we only missed Mr. Knight by seconds. She makes out he rang up and abused her to such an extent that she decided to call you and that he walked in while she was still talking to you.”

“Yes. And they went bang off into a roaring row which culminated in him handing her a tuppenny one to the jaw after which he flung out and we, within a couple of minutes minced in.”

“No thought in her mind, it appears,” Fox suggested, “of ringing Mr. Grove up to come and protect her. Only you.”

“I daresay she’s doing that very thing at this moment. I must say, I hope he knows how to cope with her.”

“Only one thing to do with that type of lady,” Fox said, “and I don’t mean a tuppenny one on the jaw. He’ll cope.”

“We’ll be talking to Conducis in half an hour, Fox, and it’s going to be tricky.”

“I should damn well think so,” Fox warmly agreed. “What with orchids and her just seeing him quietly from time to time. Hi!” he ejaculated. “Would Mr. Grove know about Mr. Conducis and would Mr. Conducis know about Mr. Grove?”

“Who is, remember, his distant relation. Search me, Fox. The thing at the moment seems to be that Knight knows about them both and acts accordingly. Big stuff.”

“How a gang like this hangs together beats me. You’d think the resignations’d be falling in like autumn leaves. What they always tell you, I suppose,” Fox said. “The Show Must Go On.”

“And it happens to be a highly successful show with fat parts and much prestige. But I should think that even they won’t be able to sustain the racket indefinitely at this pitch.”

“Why are we going to see Mr. Conducis, I ask myself. How do we shape up to him? Does he matter, as far as the case is concerned?”

“In so far as he was in the theatre and knows the combination, yes.”

“I suppose so.”

“I thought him an exceedingly rum personage, Fox. A cold fish and yet a far from insensitive fish. No indication of any background other than wealth, or of any particular race. He carries a British passport. He inherited one fortune and made Lord knows how many more, each about a hundred per cent fatter than the last. He’s spent most of his time abroad and a lot of it in the
Kalliope
, until she was cut in half in a heavy fog under his feet. That was six years ago. What did you make of Jay’s account of the menu card?”

“Rather surprising if he’s right. Rather a coincidence, two of our names cropping up in that direction.”

“We can check the passenger list with the records; But if s not really a coincidence. People in Conducis’s world tend to move about expensively in a tight group. There was, of course, an inquiry after the disaster and Conducis was reported to be unable to appear. He was in a nursing home on the Cote d’Azur suffering from exhaustion, exposure and severe shock.”

“Bluff?”

“Perhaps. He certainly is a rum ’un and no mistake. Jay’s account of his behaviour that morning—by
George
,” Alleyn said suddenly. “Hell’s boots and gaiters!”

“What’s all this, now?” Fox asked placidly.

“So much hokum I daresay, but listen, all the same.”

Fox listened.

“Well,” he said. “You always say don’t conjecture but personally, Mr. Alleyn, when you get one of your hunches in this sort of way I reckon it’s safe to go nap on it. Not that this one really gets us any nearer an arrest.”

“I wonder if you’re right about that. I wonder.”

They talked for another five minutes, going over Peregrine’s notes, and then Alleyn looked at his watch and said they must be off. When they were halfway to Park Lane he said: “You went over all the properties in the theatre, didn’t you? No musical instruments?”

“None.”

“He might have had Will singing ‘Take, oh take those lips away’ to the Dark Lady. Accompanying himself on a lute. But he didn’t.”

“Perhaps Mr. Knight can’t sing.”

“You may be right at that”

They drove into Park Lane and turned into Drury Place.

“I’m going,” Alleyn said, “to cling to Peregrine Jay’s notes as Mr. Conducis was reported to have clung to his raft.”

“I still don’t know
exactly
what line we take,” Fox objected.

“We let him dictate it,” Alleyn rejoined. “At first. Come on.”

Mawson admitted them to that so arrogantly unobtrusive interior, and a pale young man advanced to meet them. Alleyn remembered him from his former visit. The secretary.

“Mr. Alleyn. And — er?”

“Inspector Fox.”

“Yes. How do you do? Mr. Conducis is in the library. He’s been very much distressed by this business. Awfully upset. Particularly about the boy. We’ve sent flowers and all that nonsense, of course, and we’re in touch with the theatre people. Mr. Conducis is most anxious that everything possible should be done. Well — shall we? You’ll find him, perhaps, rather nervous, Mr. Alleyn. He has been so very distressed.”

They walked soundlessly to the library door. A clock mellifluously struck five.

“Here is Superintendent Alleyn, sir, and Inspector Fox.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Mr. Conducis was standing at the far end of the library. He had been looking out of the window, it seemed. In the evening light the long room resembled an interior by some defunct academician: Orchardson, perhaps, or the Hon. John Collier. The details were of an undated excellence but the general effect was strangely Edwardian and so was Mr. Conducis. He might have been a deliberately understated monument to Affluence.