Overture to Death

“Tell me about it. You must have been pretty smart for them not to see what you were up to.”

Georgie, it seemed, had slipped into a dark corner as the Friendly Young People left at about a quarter-past two. His idea had been to shoot at them with his water-pistol as they passed; but at the last moment a more amusing notion occurred to him. He remembered the diverting tale of a piano booby-trap which he had read with the greatest enjoyment in the last number of Bingo Bink’s Weekly. He had some odds and ends of Twiddletoy in his pockets, and as soon as the front door slammed he got to work. First he silently examined the piano and made himself familiar with the action of the pedals. At this juncture his mother told Alleyn that Georgie was of a markedly mechanical turn of mind and had made many astonishing models from Twiddletoy all of which could be made to revolve or even propel. Georgie had gone solidly to work. Stimulated by Alleyn’s ardent attention, he described his handiwork. When it was finished he played a triumphant stanza or two of chop-sticks, taking care to use the loud pedal only.

“And nobody came?”

The devilish child turned white again.

“Nobody saw,” he muttered. “They never saw nuthun. Only banged at door and shouted.”

“And you didn’t answer? I see. Know who it was?”

“I never seen ’em.”

“All right. How did you leave?”

“By front door. I shut ’un behind me.”

There was a brief silence. Georgie’s face suddenly twisted into a painful grimace, his lip trembled again, and he looked piteously at Alleyn.

“I never meant no harm,” he said. “I never meant it to kill her.”

“That’s all right,” said Alleyn. He reached out a hand and took the child by the shoulder.

“It’s nothing to do with you, young Biggins,” said Alleyn.

But over the boy’s head he saw the mother’s stricken face and knew he could not help her so easily.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

According to the Jernighams

i

Alleyn went alone to Pen Cuckoo. He left Fox to visit Miss Campanula’s servants, find out the name of her lawyers, and pick up any grain of information that might be the fruit of his well-known way with female domestics.

The Biggins’s car chugged doggedly up the Vale Road in second gear. It was a stiff grade. The Vale rises steeply above Chipping, mounting past Winton to Pen Cuckoo Manor and turning into Cloudyfold Rise at the head of the valley. It is not an obviously picturesque valley, but it has a charm that transcends mere prettiness. The lower slopes of Cloudyfold make an agreeable pattern, the groups of trees are beautifully disposed about the flanks of the hills, and the scattered houses, being simple, seem to have grown out of the country, as indeed they have, since they are built of Dorset stone. It is not a tame landscape, either. The four winds meet on Cloudyfold, and in winter the small lake in Pen Cuckoo grounds holds its mask of ice for days together.

Alleyn noticed that several lanes came down into the Vale Road. He could see that at least one of them led crookedly up to the Manor, and one seemed to be a sort of bridle path from the Manor down to the church. He drove on through the double gates, up the climbing avenue and out on the wide sweep before Pen Cuckoo house.

A flood of thin sunshine had escaped the heavy clouds, and Pen Cuckoo looked its wintry best, an ancient and gracious house, not so very big, not at all forbidding, but tranquil. “A happy house,” thought Alleyn, “with a certain dignity.”

He gave his card to Taylor.

“I should like to see Mr. Jernigham, if I may.”

“If you will come this way, sir.”

As he followed Taylor through the west wing, he thought: “With any luck, it’ll be the study.”

It was, and the study was empty.

As soon as the door had shut behind Taylor, Alleyn looked for the box described by Sergeant Roper. He found it on a table underneath one of the windows. He lifted the lid and saw that the box was empty. He looked closely at the notice “LOADED,” which was printed in block capitals. Alleyn gently let fall the lid and walked over to the french window. It was not locked. It looked across the end of the gravelled sweep and over the tops of the park trees right down Pea Cuckoo Vale to Chipping and beyond.

Alleyn was still tracing the course of the Vale Road as it wound through the valley when the squire walked in.

Jocelyn looked fresh and composed. Perhaps his eyes were a little more prominent than usual and his face a little less red, but he had the look of a man who has come to a decision and there was a certain dignity and resolution in his ma

“I’m glad to see you,” he said as he shook hands. “Sit down, won’t you? This is a terrible affair.”

“Yes,” said Alleyn. “It’s both terrible and bewildering.”

“Good God, I should think it was bewildering! It’s the most damned complicated, incomprehensible business I ever want to come up against. I suppose Blandish has told you that in Dillington’s absence I’ve got his job?”

“As Chief Constable? Yes, sir, he told me. That’s partly my reason for calling on you.”

The squire stared solemnly into the fire and said, “Quite.”

“Blandish says you were present when the thing happened.”

“Good God, yes. I don’t know why it happened, though, or exactly how. As soon as we decided to call you in, Blandish was all for leaving things severely alone. Be damn’ glad if you’d explain.”

Alleyn explained. Jocelyn listened with his eyes very wide open and his mouth not quite closed.

“Beastly, underhand, ingenious sort of thing,” he said. “Sounds more like a woman’s work to me. I don’t mean to say I think women are particularly underhand, you know; but when they do turn nasty, in my opinion they are inclined to turn crooked-nasty.”

He laughed unexpectedly and uncomfortably.

“Yes,” agreed Alleyn.

“Sort of inverse ratio or something, what?” added the squire dimly.

“That’s it, sir. Now, the first thing we’ve got to tackle is the ownership of the Colt. I don’t know — ”

“Wait a bit,” said Jocelyn. He stood up, drove his hands into his breeches pockets and walked over to the french windows.

“It’s mine,” he said.

Alleyn did not answer. The squire turned and looked at him. Seeing nothing but polite attention in Alleyn’s face, he made a slight inarticulate noise, strode to the table under the window and opened the box.

“See for yourself,” he said. “It’s been in that box for the last twenty years. It was there last week. Now it’s gone.”

Alleyn joined him.

“Hellish unpleasant,” said Jocelyn, “isn’t it? I only found out this morning. My son was thinking about the business, it seems, and suddenly remembered that the Colt is always lying there, loaded. He came downstairs and looked, and then he came to my room and told me. I’m wondering if I ought not to resign my position as C.C.”

“I shouldn’t do that, sir,” said Alleyn. “With any luck, we ought to be able to clear up the disappearance of the automatic.”

“I feel pretty shaken up about it, I don’t mind telling you.”

“Of course you do. As a matter of fact, I’ve brought the Colt up here to show you. May I just fetch it? I can slip out to the car this way.”

He went straight through the french windows and returned with his case, from which he took the automatic wrapped in a silk handkerchief.

“There’s really no need for all these precautions,” said Alleyn as he unwrapped it. “We’ve been all over it for prints and found none. My fingerprint man travels with half a laboratory in his kit. This thing’s been dusted, peered at and photographed. It was evidently very thoroughly cleaned after it was put in position.”

He laid the automatic in the box. It exactly fitted the indentation in the green baize lining.