Overture to Death

“Yes, I suppose so. Let me see, that’s all the cast of the play, isn’t it? Except Miss Copeland.”

“Miss Dinah? She’ll be in a taking-on, I make no doubt. After all the work she’s given to this performance for it to go up, as you might say, in a cloud of dust. Still, she’s courting, that’ll be a kind of comfort to the maid. Mr. Henry was watching over her after the tragedy, holding her hand for all to see. They’re well-matched and we’re hoping to hear it’s a settled matter any time now. My missus says it’ll be one in the eye for Miss Prentice.”

“Why on earth?”

“She won’t be fancying another lady at Pen Cuckoo. I saw her looking blue murder at them even while deceased was lying, you might say, a corpse at their feet. She’s lucky it wasn’t her. Should be thanking her Creator she’s still here to make trouble.”

“Miss Prentice,” said Nigel, “seems to be a very unpleasant cup of tea. Perhaps her sore finger was all a bluff and she rigged the tackle for the girl-friend.”

“Dr. Templett said it was no bluff, Mr. Bathgate,” said Fox. “He said she held out till the last moment that she was going to play.”

“That’s right enough, sir,” said Roper. “I went round to the back to see Miss Dinah just after it had happened and there was Miss Prentice crying her eyes out, with her finger looking that unwholesome it’d turn your stomach, and Miss Dinah telling her she was ruining the paint on her face and the doctor saying, ‘I absolutely forbid it. Your finger’s in a very nasty state and if you weren’t playing this part tonight,’ he said, ‘I’d open it up.’ Yes, he threatened her with the knife, did doctor. Mr. Henry says, ‘You’ll make a mess of Mr. Nevin’s ecstasies.’ Her piece was composed by a chap of that name as you’ll see in the programme. ‘You’ll never stay the course, Cousin Eleanor,’ says Mr. Henry. ‘I know it’s hurting you like stink,’ says Mr. Henry, ‘because you’re crying,’ he says. But no, she wouldn’t give in till Miss Dinah fetched her father. ‘Come,’ he says, ‘we all know how you feel about it, but there are times when generosity is better than heroism.’ She looked up at rector, then, and she said, ‘If you say so, Father,’ and with that Miss Campanula says, ‘Now, who’ll go and get my music? Where’s Gibson?’ Which is the name of her chauffeur. So she give in, but very reluctant.”

“A vivid enough picture of the rival performances, isn’t it?” said Alleyn. “Well, there’s the history of the case. It’s getting on for three o’clock. I think, on second thoughts, Fox, we won’t wait for the light of day. We’ll make a night of it. This place must be overhauled sometime and it looks as though we’ll have a busy day tomorrow. You can turn in if you like, Roper. Some one can relieve us at seven.”

“Are you going to search the premises, sir?”

“Yes.”

“Reckon I’d like to give a hand if it’s agreeable to you.”

“Certainly. Fox, you and Thompson make sure we’ve missed nothing in the dressing-rooms and supper-room. Bailey, you can take Roper with you on the stage. Go over every inch of it. I’ll tackle the hall and join you if I finish first.”

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” asked Nigel.

“The usual unconsidered trifles. Spare bits of Twiddletoy, for instance. Even a water-pistol.”

“Not forgetting any kid’s a

“Poor things!” said Nigel. “Back to childhood’s day, I see. Is there a telephone here?”

“In a dressing-room,” said Alleyn. “But it’s only an extension.”

“I’ll ring up the office from a pub, then. In the meantime, I may as well write up a pretty story.”

He took out his pad and settled himself at a table on the stage.

Police investigation is for the most part a dull business. Nothing could be more tedious than searching for things. Half a detective’s life is spent in turning over dreary objects, finding nothing, and replacing them. Alleyn started in the entrance porch of the parish hall and began a meticulous crawl over dusty surfaces. He moved like a snail, across and across, between the rows of benches. He felt cold and dirty and he smelt nothing but dust. He could not allow his thoughts to dwell pleasantly on his own affairs, his coming marriage, and the happiness that kept him company nowadays; because it is when his thoughts are abstracted from the business in hand that the detective misses the one small sign events have set in his path. Sometimes the men on the stage heard a thin whistling down in the hall. Sergeant Roper’s voice droned interminably. At intervals the church clock sweetly recorded the journey of the hours. Miss Campanula lay stealthily stiffening behind a red baize screen, and Nigel Bathgate recorded her departure in efficient journalese.

Alleyn had passed the benches and chairs and was grovelling about in the corner with an electric torch. Presently he uttered a soft exclamation. Nigel looked up from his writing and Bailey, who had the loose seat of a chair in his hands, shaded his eyes and peered down into the corner.

Alleyn stood by the stage, on the audience’s left. He held a small shining object between finger and thumb.

His hand was gloved. One of his eyebrows was raised and his lips were pursed in a soundless whistle.

“Struck a patch, sir?” asked Bailey.

“Yes, I rather think so, Bailey.”

He walked over to the piano.

“Look.”

Bailey and Nigel came to the footlights.

The shining object Alleyn held in his hands was a boy’s water-pistol.

ii

“As you said yourself, Bathgate, back to childhood days.”

“What’s the idea, sir?” asked Bailey.

“It seems to be a recurrent idea,” said Alleyn. “I found this thing stuffed away in a sort of locker under the stage over there. It was poked in a dark corner, but there’s little or no dust on it. The rest of the stuff in the locker’s smothered in dirt. Look at the butt, Bailey. Do you see that shiny scratch? It’s rather a super sort of water pistol, isn’t it? None of your rubber bulbs that you squeeze — but a proper trigger action. Fox!”

Fox and Thompson appeared from the direction of the supper-room.

Alleyn went to the small table where Bailey had placed the rest of the exhibits, lifted the covering cloth and laid his find beside the Colt automatic.

“The length is the same to within a fraction of an inch,” he said; “and there’s a mark on the butt of the Colt very much like the mark on the butt of the water-pistol. That, I believe, is where it was rammed in the piano, between the steel pegs where the strings are fastened.”

“But what the devil,” asked Nigel, “is the explanation?”

Alleyn pulled off his gloves and fished in his pockets for his ciearette-case.

“Where’s Roper?”

“Out at the back, sir,” said Bailey. “He’ll be back shortly with a new set of reminiscences. His super ought to issue a gag to that chap.”

“This is a rum go,” said Fox profoundly.

“ ‘Jones Minor’ all over it,” said Alleyn. “You were right, Bailey, I believe, when you suggested the deathtrap in the piano was too elaborate to be true. It is only in books that murder is quite as fancy as all this. The whole thing carries the hall-mark of the booby-trap and the signature of the practical joker. It is somehow difficult to believe that a man or woman would, as Bailey has said, think up murder on these lines. But what if a man with murder in his heart came upon this booby-trap, this water-pistol aimed through a hole in the torn silk bib? What if this potential murderer thought of substituting a Colt for the water-pistol? It becomes less farfetched, then, doesn’t it? What’s more, there are certain advantages. The murderer can separate himself from his victim and from the corpus delicti. The spade-work has been done. All the murderer has to do is remove the water-pistol, jam in the Colt and tie the loose end of twine round the butt. It’s not his idea, it’s Jones Minor’s.”