Overture to Death

“Size eight,” he murmured. “The left foot looks as if it’s slipped on the soft pedal. Now, I wonder. Well, we’ll soon find out. Got gloves on, all of you? Good. Go carefully, I should, and keep away from the front. Will you, sergeant — what is your name, by the way?”

“Roper, sir.”

“Right. Will you clear the stuff off the top?”

Roper shifted the aspidistras and began to unpin the bunting. Alleyn went up to the stage and squatted over the footlights like a sort of presiding deity.

“Gently does it, the thing’s tottering. Look at that!”

He pointed at the inside of the top lid, which was turned back.

“Wood-rot. No wonder they wanted a new one. Good Lord!”

“What, sir?”

“Come and look at this, Fox.”

Alleyn shone his torch in at the top. The light glinted on a steel barrel. He slipped in his gloved fingers. There was a sharp click.

“I’ve just snicked over the safety-catch on a perfectly good automatic. Now, then.”

Roper pulled away the bunting.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” said Fox.

ii

“Very fancy, isn’t it?” said Alleyn. “A bit too fancy for me, sir. How does it work?”

“It’s a Colt. The butt’s jammed between the pegs, where the wires are made fast, and the front of the piano. The nozzle fits into a hole in this fretwork horror in front of the silk bib. The bib’s rotten with age and bulging. It could be tweaked in front of the nozzle. Anyway, the music would hide it. Of course the top was smothered in bunting and vegetables.”

“But what pulled the trigger?”

“Half a second. There’s a loop of string round the butt and over the trigger. The string goes on to an absurd little pulley in the back of the i

“I think so, Mr. Alleyn.”

“It looks like a practical joke,” said Fox.

Alleyn looked up quickly.

“Fu

“D’you reckon some kid’s gone wild and rigged this for the old girl?” asked Fox.

“A child with a Colt.32?”

“Hardly. Still, he might have got hold of one.”

Alleyn swore softly.

“What’s up, sir?” asked Fox.

“It’s the whole damn lay-out of the thing! It’s exactly like a contraption they give in the book of the words of these toys. ‘Fig. i. Signal.’ It’s no more like a signal than your nose. Less, if anything. But you build it on this principle. I made the thing for my godson. The cord goes up in three steps to pulleys that are fixed to a couple of uprights. At the bottom it’s tied to a little arm and at the top to a bigger one. When you push down the lower arm, the upper one waggles. I’ll swear it inspired this job. You see how there’s just room for the pulley in the waist of the Colt at the back? They’re fiddling little brutes, those pulleys, as I know to my cost. Not much bigger than the end of a cigarette. Hole through the middle. Once you’ve threaded the twine it can’t slip out. It’s guarded by the curved lips of the groove. You see, the top one’s anchored to the wires above that strip of steel. The bottom one’s tied to a strut in the fretwork. All right, Thompson, your witness.”

Thompson manœuvred his camera.

A car drew up outside the hall. A door slammed.

“That’ll be the doctor, sir,” said Roper.

“Ah, yes. Let him in, will you?”

Dr. Templett came in. He had removed his make-up and his beard and had changed the striped trousers and morning coat proper to a French Ambassador, for a tweed suit and sweater.

“Hullo,” he said. “Sorry if I kept you waiting. Car wouldn’t start.”

“Dr. Templett?”

“Yes, and you’re from Scotland Yard, aren’t you? Didn’t lose much time. This is a nasty business.”

“Beastly,” said Alleyn. “I think we might move her now.”

They brought a long table from the back of the hall and on it they laid Miss Campanula. She had been shot between the eyes.

“Smell of eucalyptus,” said Alleyn.

“She had a cold.”

Dr. Templett examined the wounds while the others looked on. At last he straightened up, took a bottle of ether from his pocket, and used a little to clean his hands.

“There’s a sheet in one of the dressing-rooms, Roper,” he said. Roper went off to get it.

“What’ve you got there?” Templett asked Alleyn.

Alleyn had found Miss Prentice’s Venetian Suite behind the piano. He turned it over in his hands. Like the Prelude, it was a very jaded affair. The red back of the cover had a discoloured circular patch in the centre. Alleyn touched it. It was damp. Roper returned with the sheet.

“Can’t make her look very presentable, I’m afraid,” said Dr. Templett. “Rigor’s fairly well advanced in the jaw and neck. Rather quick after five hours. She fell at an odd angle. I didn’t do more than look at her. The exit wound showed clearly enough what had happened. Of course, I assured myself she was dead.”

“Did you realise at once that it was a wound of exit?”

“What? Yes. Well, after a second or two I did. Thought at first she’d been shot through the back of the head and then I noticed characteristics of an exit wound, direction of the matted hair and so on. I bent down and tried to see the face. I could just see the blood. Then I noticed the hole in the music. The frilling round the edge of the hole showed clearly enough which way the bullet had come.”

“Very sound observation,” said Alleyn. “You knew, then, what had happened?”

“I was damn’ puzzled and still am. When we’d rigged up the screen I had another look and spotted the nozzle of the revolver or whatever it is, behind the silk trimmings. I told Blandish, the local superintendent, and he had a look too. How the devil was it done?”

“A mechanical device that she worked herself.”

“Not suicide?”

“No, murder. You’ll see when we open the piano.”

“Extraordinary business.”

“Very,” agreed Alleyn. “Bailey, you might get along with your department now. When Thompson’s finished, you can go over the whole thing for prints and then dismantle it. In the meantime, I’d better produce my note-book and get a few hard facts.”

They carried the table into a corner and put the screen round it. Roper came down with a sheet and covered the body.

“Let’s sit down somewhere,” suggested Dr. Templett. “I want a pipe. It’s given me a shock, this business.”

They sat in the front row of stalls. Alleyn raised an eyebrow at Fox who came and joined them. Roper stood in the offing. Dr. Templett filled his pipe, Alleyn and Fox opened their note-books.

“To begin with,” said Alleyn, “who was this lady?”

“Idris Campanula,” said Templett. “Spinster of this parish.”

“Address?”

“The Red House, Chipping. You passed it on your way up.”

“Have the right people been told about this?”

“Yes. The rector did that. Only the three maids. I don’t know about the next-of-kin. Somebody said it was a second cousin in Kenya. We’ll have to find that out. Look here, shall I tell you the story in my own words?”