Vintage Murder (21 page)

“Unless he’s fixing an alibi for her, or for Hambledon.”

“We’ll have to check his statement, of course. But if all these people remember talking to him it’ll be good enough. Personally, I was favourably impressed with him.”

Wade stared solemnly at Alleyn and then swore violently.

“Good heavens, Wade, what’s the matter?”

“Here!” said Wade. “If all he said is right, it— Look here, Mr. Alleyn, don’t you see what it means?”

“Oh, rather, yes. It washes out the whole bang lot of ’em at one fell swoop. Tiresome for you. Unless of course the little window—”

“We’ll go right along and have a look at the little window. By gosh, talk about eliminating! This is a bit too sudden. What about Liversidge?”

“Bang he goes,” said Alleyn.

“Liversidge — with everything pointing that way!

“Not only that. Liversidge, Broadhead, the wife and Hambledon. Mason tied up with enough alibis to blow holes in a cast-iron case! Come on, sir. Come on. We’ll have a damn’ good look at this little window.

But the little window at the back of the dressing-room passage turned out to be exactly as Bob had described it — dirty and gummed up with cobwebs — and Wade turned to Alleyn with an air of disgruntled incredulity.

“It’s a case of ‘where do we go for honey,’ isn’t it, Wade?” asked Alleyn smiling.

“I’ll see this Bob Parsons as soon as we get out of this,” said Wade. “If anyone’s squared him I’ll shake it out of him if I have to go at it all night.”

“It’s possible, of course,” agreed Alleyn, “but look at it for a minute. Suppose Liversidge is the murderer. Liversidge plans to take off the weight. Instead of slipping round, unseen, to the back ladder after the last curtain, which would have been comparatively easy, he goes first to his dressing-room, knowing that he must come out again almost immediately into the brightly-lit narrow passage, where any of the others may be hanging about. Well, he risks that and comes out to find Parsons directly in his way. He knows that Parsons will see him go up to the back of the stage — knows, in short, that he is a man who can hang him. He decides to risk all this on the chance of bribing or corrupting the man. Do you think he’d do it? I don’t. And the same argument applies to Miss Dacres. To all the rest of the cast for that matter. I think when you see Parsons you will agree that he is not a corruptible type. Check his statement by all means, my dear chap, but I feel certain he is speaking the truth. And now let us have a look at the back of the theatre.”

“The
back
of the theatre, sir?”

“Yes. When I chased round on the trail of Master Palmer, I thought of something that may be of interest. Come across the stage, will you?”

He led the way out of the dressing-room passage to the stage. They had turned on the working-lights, two desolate yellow bulbs up in the dusty proscenium, that cast a little dreary light on the tops of the box-set. Nothing had been moved. The door into the set stood open and through it they could see the white cloth, the chairs pushed back from the table, curiously eloquent, the huddle of broken glass and dead flowers, and the enormous bottle lying on the table.

“That can all be cleared away,” said Wade. “We’ve gone over every inch of it to-day.”

“Come round behind the set,” said Alleyn.

They groped their way round. The stage smelt of old glue and dead paint. Alleyn switched on his torch and led Wade to the back wall.

“Here’s the back ladder up to the grid. That, I feel sure, is the one that was used. Have you tried it for prints?”

“Yes. It’s a fair muck of prints — so far, nothing that’s any good to us. The stage-hands used it over and over again.”

“Of course. Well now, see here.”

In the back wall, a little to the left of the ladder, was a door.

“We noticed this on the plan,” said Alleyn, “and discussed it as a possible entrance for — say Mason.”

“That’s right, sir. But it won’t wash as far as he is concerned. If Mason had gone through the audience, out at the front, and round the block, he’d have had to come in here. He would have to go aloft, do the job, come down, and sprint round the block again.”

“Ten minutes at the very least and the risk of being seen running like a madman by any number of people on the pavement outside,” said Alleyn. “No. That cat won’t jump. I saw the door last night when your P.C. was so suspicious of my movements. Have you got a torch? Let’s have a good look at it.”

By the light of both their torches they inspected the door.

“Yale lock, with the key inside,” said Alleyn.

“We noted this door last night, Mr. Alleyn. It wasn’t overlooked.”

“My dear chap, I’m sure it wasn’t. What did you make of it?”

“Well, seeing it was locked on the inside it doesn’t look as though anyone could have used it for an entrance. And seeing that there’s no exit from the dressing-rooms except to the stage, none of them could have used it for a getaway.”

“None of the cast, no.”

“You’re still thinking of Mason. It’s no go, sir. I wish to hell I could say otherwise, but it’s no go. We’ve thrashed it over — every minute of it — every second of it. He was in the office at the end of the show, and was seen there by the men from the box-office. He ran along to the stage-door and gave old Singleton — the doorkeeper — the message about not letting in uninvited people. Singleton watched him go back to the office and a minute or two later joined him there. Then Dr. Te Pokiha looked in. About two minutes later you overtook him yourself, on the way to the stage-door with the doctor.”

“Not with Dr. Te Pokiha. He was at the party when Mr. Mason and I got in.”

“Makes no odds, as far as Mason is concerned, sir.”

“That’s true. Have you tried this key for prints?”

“Can’t say we have.”

“It’s early days yet,” murmured Alleyn, “and you’ve had a lot of stuff to get through. I think if you don’t mind—”

He produced an insufflater and a packet of chalk from his overcoat pocket, and by the light of their torches, tested the key for prints.

“None. It’s as clean as a whistle.”

“That’s funny,” said Wade, reluctantly. “You’d have thought it would be used fairly frequently.”

“There’s no dust,” said Alleyn, “so presumably it has been wiped clean.”

Wade muttered something under his breath. Alleyn turned the key and opened the door. Outside was a dingy strip of yard, and a low tin fence with a rickety gate.

“This is where I came out on my chase after Master Palmer,” explained Alleyn. “I met the P.C. in the street there. This door moves very sweetly.”

He flashed his torch on the hinges.

“Nicely oiled. Commendable attention to detail on the part of the staff — what?”

“Look here, Mr. Alleyn, what
are
you getting at?”

“I think we should concentrate on this door, Wade. When we’ve done here, we’ll go and have a look at the plan in the office and I shall propound my unlikely theory.”

He squatted on his heels and peered at the threshold.

“Not much chance here. Fine night and all that. I think it might be profitable to find out who oiled the hinges. Could you try? And the doorkeeper — Singleton is it? I suppose none of the guests went in twice? No, not Mason — anyone else.”

“Went in twice?
”

“Yes. In at the stage-door. Out by this one. In again at the stage-door. Nothing in it, I dare say.”

“None of the guests has got a motive, though,” said Wade with a certain air of desperate reluctance.

“Not so far as we know. One might advance something rather fantastic. Young Palmer, mad for love, for instance. Far-fetched.”

“Well then—”

“And Gascoigne. He didn’t go to the dressing-rooms. He was on the stage. Have you dwelt on Gascoigne, Wade?”

“Thrashed him to death. We can’t get it down to what you might call a cast-iron alibi, sir, because he was mucking round on the stage here, but the hands say he never went off the set and we’ve found out he was there to welcome each of the guests as they came. No motive, far as we know.”

“And he would have no occasion to use this door.”

“This ‘in again, out again, gone again’ stuff with the door. Is it probable do you think, Mr. Alleyn? Is it possible?”

“Let’s consider. Take any one of the guests — young Palmer or Dr. Te Pokiha, for instance.”

“Go ahead, sir.”

“Young Palmer comes to the party, passes Singleton, gives his name, and instead of joining the party on the stage, slips round to the back and up the ladder. He takes off the weight, comes down, lets himself out by this door, shins round to the front, comes in again and joins the party.”

“I’m sure Singleton would have noticed it, Mr. Alleyn. You see, Mason had warned him about gatecrashing. He was on the look-out. He had the list of guests and he ticked each one off.”

“Yes, that’s the great objection,” agreed Alleyn. “Still, I’d ask him.”

“Certainly, we’ll ask him. The other objection is that the deceased was a stranger here, and most of the guests wouldn’t have the ghost of a motive. What about Mason, now? Could he have done this door business, after he went in with you?”

“Unfortunately, I know he couldn’t,” said Alleyn, “He came on to the stage with me and we were together until he went to fetch Miss Dacres.”

“Anyway, sir. Think of the risk a man would run, tearing round the block in his evening duds. It’d look pretty crook if anyone saw him, now, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t think he would tear round the block, Wade.”

“What’s that?”

“Why not follow the Palmer route, in reverse, and come out in the yard?”

“By cripey, yes. Yes, that’s so. But he’d have to know about the path behind the sheds, wouldn’t he? Which young Palmer seems to have done, seeing the way he took to it afterwards. Is there anything in this business of young Palmer, do you reckon?”

“Not a damn’ thing, I should say.”

“Aw Geeze!” said Wade disgustedly. “What a case! It’s all cockeyed. Did you ever hear anything like this business of Miss Dacres! Owning up she fixed that weight to protect a man that, as far as we can see, couldn’t have done it.”

“At least she’s saved us the trouble of accounting for everybody’s movements after the murder.”

“She’s in a nasty hole. Messing about on the scene of the crime,” muttered Wade. “She’s going to find herself in a very, very uncomfortable little pozzy, is Miss Caroline Dacres Meyer, widow of deceased.”

“I hope not,” said Alleyn. “I may even try to corrupt the New Zealand force on her behalf. You never know.”

Wade looked doubtfully at him, decided he was attempting to amuse, and broke out into a guffaw.

“Aw dikkon, Mr. Alleyn!” said Wade.

“What did you say?”

“Haven’t you heard that one, sir? I suppose it’s N.Z. digger slang. ‘Dikkon.’ It’s the same as if you’d say ‘Come off it.’ Hangover from the first world war, they reckon.”

“On Gallipoli? You were in the second show, were you, Wade?”

“Too right. Saw it through from start to finish.”

“What ages ago it seems. And is.”

Passing Sergeant Packer, who was on duty at the stage-door, they strolled back to the office, talking returned soldier’s shop.

“What do you think, Mr. Alleyn? If there’s another war will the young chaps come at it, same as we did, thinking it’s great? And get the same jolt? What do you reckon?”

“I’m afraid to speculate,” said Alleyn.

“Same here. And yet you know I often think: well, it was bloody but it wasn’t too bad. As long as you didn’t think too much it wasn’t too bad. There was a kind of feeling among the chaps that was all right. Know what I mean?”

“I do. One has to take that into account. The pacifists won’t succeed until they do. You can’t overstate the stupidity and squalid frightfulness, but equally you must recognise that there was a sort of — what? — a sort of emotional compensation; comradeship, I suppose, though it’s an ill-used word.”

“I often wonder if crooks feel the same.”

“That’s a thought.”

“Know what I mean?” continued Wade, encouraged. “As if they kind of forgot they were crooks and anti-social, and got a kick out of being all together on the same old game.”

“I should think it was quite likely. All the same they’re a hopeless lot — the rank and file. Not much honour among thieves in my experience. Don’t you agree? That’s why homicide cases are specialised work, Wade. We’re not dealing with the class we’ve been trained to understand.”

“Too right. Look at this case, now.”

“Yes. Look at the damn’ thing. We’re wandering, Wade. We’ll have to get back to business. Come into the office and look at this plan. Have a cigarette.”

“Thanks, I don’t mind,” said Wade, taking one. They went into the office, more than ever subfusc in the late afternoon light, with dust already lying thick on Alfred Meyer’s old desk, and last night’s fire dead in the grate. Wade switched on the lamp and Alleyn walked over to the plan on the wall.

“Taking another look at the old lay-out, Mr. Alleyn?”

“Yes. I’ve got together a sort of theory about the case,” said Alleyn, with his usual air of diffidence. “If I may, I’ll go over it with you. It’s the result of this rather wholesale elimination of suspects. You’ll probably find a gap in it as wide as a church door. I’d be not altogether sorry if you did.”

“Well, sir, let’s have it.”

“Right you are. It begins about five minutes after the final curtain last night.”

Wade glanced up at Alleyn who still stood with his hands in his pockets contemplating the plan.

“How about taking the easy chair, sir?” asked Wade. “You’ll be seeing that thing in your sleep.”

“I dare say I shall. You see my whole theory is based on this plan. Come over here and I’ll tell you why.”

Wade got up and joined him. Alleyn pointed a long finger at the plan and began to explain.

When Alleyn got back to the hotel he found Dr. Te Pokiha waiting for him.

“Had you forgotten that you were to dine with me this evening, Mr. Alleyn?”

“My dear Te Pokiha, no, I hadn’t forgotten, but I had no idea it was so late. Please forgive me. I do hope you haven’t been waiting very long.”

“I’ve only just arrived. Don’t worry, we’ve plenty of time.”

“Then if I may rush up and change—?”

“If you want to. Not a dinner-jacket, please. We shall be alone.”

“Right. I shan’t be five minutes.”

He was as good as his word. They had a cocktail together and then took the road in Te Pokiha’s car.

“We take the north-east road towards Mount Ruapehu,” said Te Pokiha. “I expect you are tired of hearing about our mountains and thermal districts. I am afraid New Zealanders are too eager to thrust these wonders at visitors, and to demand admiration.”

“I should like very much indeed to hear a Maori speak of them.”

“Really? You mean a real Maori — not a
pakeha-
Maori?”

“Yes.”

“We, too, are strangers in New Zealand, you know. We have only been here for about thirty generations. We brought our culture with us and applied it to the things we found here. Our religion too, and our science, if we may be allowed to call it science.”

Alleyn looked at the magnificent head. Te Pokiha was a pale Maori, straight-nosed, not very full-lipped. He might have been a Greek or an Egyptian. There was an aristocratic flavour about him, a complete absence of anything vulgar or tentative in his voice or his movements. His speech, gravely formal, carefully phrased, suited him and did not seem at all pedantic or affected.

“Where did you come from?” asked Alleyn.

“From Polynesia, and before that perhaps from Easter Island. Perhaps from South East Asia. The tohunga and rangitira say that in the beginning it was from Assyria, but I think the
pakeha
anthopologists do not follow us there. Our teaching was not given to everybody. Only the learned and noble classes were permitted to know the history of their race. It was learnt orally and through the medium of the carvings and hieroglyphics. My grandfather was a deeply-instructed rangitira and I learned much from him. He was a survival of the old order and his kind will not be seen much longer.”

“Do you regret the passing of the old order?”

“In some ways. I have a kind of pride of race — shall we say a savage pride? The
pakeha
has altered everything, of course. We have been unable to survive intact the fierce white light of his civilisation. In trying to follow his example we have forgotten many of our own customs and have been unable wisely to assimilate all of his. Hygiene and eugenics for example. We have become spiritually and physically obese. That is only my own view. Most of my people are well content, but I see the passing of the old things with a kind of nostalgia. The
pakeha
give their children Maori Christian names because they sound pretty. They call their ships and their houses by Maori names. It is perhaps a charming compliment, but to me it seems a little strange. We have become a side-show in the tourist bureau — our dances — our art — everything.”

“Such as the little green tiki? I understand what you mean.”

“Ah — the tiki.”

He paused and Alleyn had the impression that he had been going to say more about the tiki but had stopped himself. It was growing dark. Te Pokiha’s head was silhouetted against a background of green hills and very dark blue mountains.

“To the north are Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe,” he said. “My grandfather would have told you that the volcanic fires of Ngauruhoe were caused by the youngest son of the Earth Mother who lay deep underground with her child at her breast. The fire was given him for comfort by Rakahore, the rock-god.”

They drove on in silence until the mountains were black against the fading sky.

“My house is not very far off now,” said Te Pokiha quietly. And in a minute or two they crossed a clanking cattle-stop and plunged into a dark tunnel where the head-lights shone on the stems of tree-ferns.

“I like the smell of the bush,” said Alleyn.

“Yes? Do you know I once did a very foolish thing. It was when I was at the House — my first year at Oxford, and my first year in England. I became very homesick and wrote in my letters of my homesickness. I said that I longed for the smell of burning bush-wood and begged them to send me some. So my father sent me a case of logs. It was a very expensive business as you may imagine, but I burnt them in my fireplace at the House and the smoke of Te-Ika-a-Maui hung over the famous Dreaming Spires.” He burst out laughing. “Ridiculous, wasn’t it?”

“Did you take your medical degree at home?”

“Yes, at Thomas’s. I was a thorough
pakeha
by that time — almost. Here we are.”

They pulled up in a wide open space before the dark shape of a long one-storied house. From the centre of the front wall projected a porch with a gable roof, and Alleyn saw that this porch was decorated with Maori carvings.

“An affectation on my part,” said Te Pokiha. “You may question the taste of joining an old-time porch on to a modern bungalow. At least the carving is genuine.”

“I like it.”

“You must see it by daylight. Come in.”

They dined in a pleasant room, waited on by an enormous and elderly Maori woman, who showed a tendency to join in the laughter when Alleyn cracked a modest joke. After dinner they moved into a comfortable living-room with an open fireplace where an aromatic log fire reminded Alleyn of Te Pokiha’s story. The furniture was of the solid smoking-room type — very English and non-committal. A mezzotint of Christ Church, Oxford, an undergraduate group or two, and a magnificent feather cloak decorated the walls.

When, after some excellent brandy, they had lit their pipes, Alleyn asked Te Pokiha if his practice was a general one.

“Oh, yes. When I first came back I had some idea of specialising in gynaecology, but I think it is the one branch of my profession in which my race would tell against me. And then, as I settled down, I began to see the terrible inroads made by civilisation in the health of my own people. Tuberculosis, syphilis, typhoid — none of them known in our savage days when ritual and health-giving dances, as well as strict hygienic habits, were enforced. So I came down to earth — brown earth — and decided that I would become a doctor to my own people.”

“I’m sure you do not regret your choice.”

“No. Though it is depressing to see how quickly a healthy race can degenerate. I am very busy — consulting-room hours in town, and a wide country beat. I am re-learning some of my own race history.”

And he related several stories about his Maori patients, telling them well, without too much emphasis. The time passed pleasantly in this fashion.

At last Alleyn put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the tiki. He put it on the arm of Te Pokiha’s chair.

“May we talk about the tiki?” he asked.

Te Pokiha looked at it with surprise.

“Does Miss Dacres not wish to accept it? Has she returned it to you?”

“No. I hope she will still accept it, though she may not wish to do so. At the moment it is by way of being used in evidence.”

“The tiki? What do you mean?”

“It was found in the gallery above the stage on the spot where the murderer must have stood.”

Te Pokiha gazed at him with something like horror in his eyes.

“That is — is most extraordinary. Do you know how it got there?”

“Yes. I believe I do.”

“I see.”

There was relief and something else — could it be disappointment? — in Te Pokiha’s voice. Then, suddenly, he leant forward:

“But it’s impossible — that lovely creature! No, there must be some mistake. I cannot believe it of her.”

“Of Miss Dacres? Why should you suspect Miss Dacres?”

“Why because I saw — but I do not suspect her.”

“Because you saw her slip it into her dress?”

“There is something very strange in this,” said Te Pokiha, staring at the tiki. “May I ask one question, Mr. Alleyn. Do you suspect Miss Dacres of murder?”

“No. I believe her to be innocent.”

“Then how did the tiki get there?”

“I’ll tell you presently,” said Alleyn. “It
was
strange, wasn’t it? Almost as though the tiki itself had taken a hand, don’t you think?”

“You ask a leading question,” said Te Pokiha, smiling. He had regained his poise completely, it seemed. “Remember I am a materialistic general practitioner.”

“You are also a rangitira,” answered Alleyn. “What would your grandfather have thought?”

Te Pokiha put out his thin dark hand as though to take up the tiki. Then he paused and drew back his hand.

“The demi-god Tiki was the father of mankind. These little symbols are named after him. They do not actually represent him but rather the human embryo and the fructifying force in mankind. The ornament and carving is purely phallic. I know something of the history of this tiki. It was
tapu
. Do you know what that means?”

“Sacred? Untouchable?”

“Yes. Long ago it was dropped from the breast of a woman in a very
tapu
place, a meeting-house, and remained there, unnoticed, for a long time. It therefore became
tapu
itself. The meeting-house was burned to the ground and a
pakeha
found and kept the tiki, afterwards telling where he had found it. My grandfather would have said that this in itself was a desecration, a pollution. The
pakeha
, not long afterwards, was drowned in attempting to ford a river. The tiki was found in his pocket and given, by his son, to the father of the man from whom you have bought it. Your man was once a very prosperous run-holder, but lost almost everything during the depression. Hence his desire to sell the tiki.”

“Miss Gaynes has repeatedly expressed her opinion that the tiki is unlucky,” said Alleyn dryly. “It seems that she is right. What would your grandfather have thought of the reception they gave it last night? Poor little Meyer was very facetious, wasn’t he, pretending to say his prayers to it?”

“Not only facetious but ill-bred,” said Te Pokiha quietly.

“I felt rather ashamed of my compatriots, Dr. Te Pokiha, and, as I told you at the time, I regretted my impulse.”

“You need not regret it. The tiki is revenged.”

“Very much so. I shall ask Miss Dacres to return it to me, I think.”

Te Pokiha looked at him, hesitated a moment and then said: “I do not think she need fear it.”

“Tell me,” said Alleyn, “if it’s not an impertinent question, do you yourself feel anything of — well, anything of what your ancestors would have felt in regard to this coincidence?”

There was a long pause.

“Naturally,” said Te Pokiha, at last, “I do not feel exactly as a European would feel about the tiki. What do your gipsies say? ‘You have to dig deep to bury your daddy’.”

“Yes,” murmured Alleyn, “I suppose you do.”

“I hear you are working personally on the case,” said Te Pokiha after another silence. “May one ask if you feel confident that the murderer will be found?”

“Yes, I am confident.”

“That is excellent,” said Te Pokiha, tranquilly.

“It is simply a question of eliminating the impossible. And, by the way, you can help us there.”

“Can I? In what way?”

“We are trying to establish alibis for all these people. Mr. Mason’s movements are a little more difficult to trace than those of the cast, because he was in his office before the supper-party. Wade says you saw him there.”

“Yes. I did. At the end of the play I made for the exit at the back of the stalls. I noticed that the office door into the box-office was open, and thought I would look in on Mr. Mason before going behind the scenes. He came in just as I did.”

“From the yard?”

“Yes. He had been out to speak to the stage-doorkeeper, he said.”

“That tallies with what we have. How long did you stay in the office? By the way I hope you don’t mind me hauling in shop like this?”

“Not in the least. I hoped that we might discuss the case. Let me see. We stayed there for about ten minutes, I think. Mr. Mason said that they would not be ready behind the scenes for some little time and suggested we should have a drink. We took off our overcoats and sat down by the fire. I refused the drink, but he had one, and we both smoked. The men from the box-office came in and Mason dealt with them. Someone came in from the bank to take the cash, and the stage-doorkeeper looked in too, I remember. Oh, yes, and Ackroyd, the little comic fellow, you know — he looked in.”

“Did he, now? What for?”

“As far as I remember it was to tell Mason the guests were beginning to arrive. It struck me he was looking for a free drink, but he didn’t get it. Mason packed him off in no time.”

“Did you see him go?”

“How do you mean? I saw him go out into the yard. Then someone else looked in, I think. People were going in and out all the time.”

“Yes, I see.”

“I suppose that was a crucial time,” said Te Pokiha. “I heard about the counterweight from Gascoigne and Mason, last night. They both insisted that there had been interference. Of course there must have been interference. That sort of thing couldn’t happen accidentally.”

“Hardly, one would think. Yes, it’s an important period that, when you were in the office. You left Mason there?”

“Yes. He was there when I returned, too; still in his chair by the fire.

“You returned to the office? Why did you return?”

“Didn’t I tell you? How stupid of me. When I got to the stage-door I found I had taken Mason’s overcoat instead of my own. We had taken them off at the same time and put them down together. I took my own coat, said a word or two more, and left him locking things up in the office. I remember that I had only just gone on to the stage when you and Mason arrived.”

“I met him at the door of the office as I went down the yard.”

“Well, I suppose I have established Mason’s alibi for him,” said Te Pokiha, with a smile, “and my own too I hope if I needed one.”