Overture to Death

“Good-morning,” said a voice behind him. “You must be a detective.”

Alleyn glanced up and saw Nigel Bathgate leaning over the stone fence that separated the parish hall grounds from a path on the far side.

“What a fascinating life yours must be,” continued Nigel.

Alleyn did not reply. Inadvertently he released the catch on the steel tape. It flew back into the container.

“Pop goes the weasel,” said Nigel.

“Hold your tongue,” said Alleyn, mildly, “and come here.”

Nigel vaulted over the wall.

“Take this tape for me. Don’t touch the box if you can help it.”

“It would be pleasant to know why.”

“Five-foot-three from the box to the sill,” said Alleyn. “Too far for Georgie, and in any case we know he didn’t. That’s fu

“Screamingly.”

“Go to the next window, Bathgate, and raise yourself by the sill. If you can.”

“Only if you tell me why.”

“I will in a minute. Please be quick. I want to get this over before the hosts of the godly are upon us. Can you do it?”

“Listen, Chief. This is your lucky day. Look at these biceps. Three months ago I was puny like you. By taking my self-raising course — ”

Nigel reached up to the window sill, gave a prodigious heave, and cracked the crown of his head smartly on the sill.

“Great strength rings the bell,” said Alleyn. “Now try and get a foothold.”

“Blast and damn you!” said Nigel, scraping at the wall with his shoes.

“That will do. I’m going into the hall. When I call out, I want you to repeat this performance. You needn’t crack your head again.”

Alleyn went into the hall, forced open the second window two inches, and went over to the piano.

“Now!”

The shape of Nigel’s head and shoulders rose up behind the clouded glass. His collar and tie appeared in the gap. Alleyn had a fleeting impression of his face.

“All right.”

Nigel disappeared and Alleyn rejoined him.

“Are we playing Peep Bo or what?” asked Nigel sourly.

“Something of the sort. I saw you all right. Yes,” continued Alleyn, examining the wall. “The lady used the box. We will preserve the box. Dear me.”

“At least you might say I can come down.”

“I’m so sorry. Of course. And your head?”

“Bloody.”

“But unbowed, I feel sure. Now I’ll explain.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The Top Lane Incident

i

Alleyn gave Nigel his explanation as they walked up Top Lane by the route Dinah had taken on Friday afternoon. They walked briskly, their heads bent, and a look of solemn absorption on their faces. In a few minutes they crossed a rough bridge and reached a sharp turn in the lane.

“It was here,” said Alleyn, “that Henry Jernigham met Dinah Copeland on Friday afternoon. It was here that Eleanor Prentice found them on her return from the confessional. I admit that I am curious about their encounters, Bathgate. Miss Prentice came upon them at three, yet she left the church at half-past two. Young Jernigham says he was away two hours. He left home at two-thirty. It can take little more than five minutes to come down here from Pen Cuckoo. They must have been together almost half an hour before Miss Prentice arrived.”

“Perhaps they are in love.”

“Perhaps they are. But there is something that neither Miss Prentice nor Master Henry cares to remember when one speaks of this meeting. They turn pale. Henry becomes sardonic and Miss Prentice sends out waves of sanctimonious disapproval in the ma

“What can you mean?”

“It doesn’t matter. She left the church at three. She only spent five minutes here with the others and yet she did not reach Pen Cuckoo till after four. There seems to be a lot of time to spare. Henry struck up this path to the hill-top. Miss Copeland returned by the way we have come, Miss Prentice went on to Pen Cuckoo. I have a picture of three specks of humanity ru

“There are a hundred explanations.”

“For their ma

“She’s an old maid, isn’t she? Perhaps it shocked her.”

“It may have given her a shock.”

Alleyn was searching the wet lane.

“The rain last night was the devil. This great bough must have been blown down quite recently. Master Henry told me that their telephone was dumb on Friday night. He said it was broken by a falling bough in Top Lane. There are the wires and it almost follows as the night the day that this is the bough. It’s protected the ground. Wait, I believe we’ve struck a little luck.”

They moved the still unwithered bough.

“Yes. See here, Bathgate, here is where they stood. How much more dramatic footprints can be than the prints of hands. Look, here are Dinah Copeland’s if indeed they are hers, coming round the bend into the protection of the bank. The ground was soft but not too wet. Coming downhill we pick his prints up, as they march out of the sodden lane into the lee of the bank and overlapping trees. Surface water has seeped into them but there they are. And here, where the bough afterwards fell, they met.”

“And what a meeting!” ejaculated Nigel, looking at the heavy impressions of overlapping prints.

“A long meeting. Yes, and a lover’s meeting. She looks a nice girl. I hope Master Henry — ”

He broke off.

“Here we are, by George. Don’t come too far. Eleanor Prentice must have rounded the corner, taken two steps or so, and stopped dead. There are her feet planted side by side. She stood for some time in this one place, facing the others and then — what happened? Ordinary conversation? No, I don’t think so. I’ll have to try and get it from the young ones. She won’t tell me. Yes, there are her shoes, no doubt of it. Black-calf with pointed toes and low heels. Church hen’s shoes. She was wearing them this morning.”

Alleyn squatted by the two solitary prints, reached out a long finger and touched the damp earth. Then he, looked up at Nigel.

“Well, it’s proved one thing,” he said.

“What?”

“If these are Eleanor Prentice’s prints, and I think they are, it wasn’t Eleanor Prentice who tried to see in at the window of the parish hall. Wait here, will you, Bathgate? I’m going down to the car for my stuff. We’ll have a cast of these prints.”

ii

At half-past twelve Alleyn and Nigel arrived at the Red House, Chipping. An elderly parlourmaid told them that Mr. Fox was still there, and showed them into a Victorian drawing-room which, in the language of brassware and modernish silk Japanese panels, spoke unhappily of the late General Campanula’s service in the East. It was an ugly room, over-furnished and unfriendly. Fox was seated at a writing desk in the window and before him were many neat stacks of papers. He rose and looked placidly at them over the tops of his glasses.

“Hullo, Brer Fox,” said Alleyn. “How the hell are you getting on?”

“Fairly comfortably, thank you, sir. Good-morning, Mr. Bathgate.”

“Good-morning, inspector.”

“What have you got there?” asked Alleyn.

“A number of letters, sir, none of them very helpful.”

“What about that ominous wad of foolscap, you old devil? Come on, now; it’s the will, isn’t it?”

“Well, it is,” said Fox.

He handed it to Alleyn and waited placidly while he read it.

“This was a wealthy woman,” said Alleyn.

“How wealthy?” demanded Nigel, “and what has she done with it?”

“Nothing that’s for publication.”

“All right, all right.”

“She’s left fifty thousand. Thirty of them go to the Reverend Walter Copeland of Winton St. Giles in recognition of his work as a parish priest and in deep gratitude for his spiritual guidance and unfailing wisdom. Lummy! He is to use this money as he thinks best but she hopes that he will not give it all away to other people. Fifteen thousand to her dear friend, Eleanor Jernigham Prentice, four thousand to Eric Campanula, son of William Campanula, and second cousin to the testatrix. Last heard of in Nairobi, Kenya. A stipulation that the said four thousand be invested by Miss Campanula’s lawyers, Messrs. Waterworth, Waterworth and Biggs, and the beneficiary to receive the interest at their hands. The testatrix adds the hope that the beneficiary will not spend the said interest on alcoholic beverages or women, and will think of her and mend his ways. One thousand to be divided among the servants. Dated May 21st, 1938.”