Overture to Death

“Yes.”

“I’m all to blazes. Think what to do in the morning. Just wanted to say I appreciate the way you’ve handled things. Considerate.”

“I would have avoided the final scene, sir, if I had seen any other way.”

“I know that. Mustn’t ask questions, of course.

There are some things I don’t understand — Alleyn, you see she’s out of her mind?”

“Dr. Templett, I’m sure, will advise you about an alienist, sir.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

The squire blinked up at him and then suddenly held out his hand.

“Good-night.”

“Good-night, sir.”

Henry said, “I’ll come out with you.”

As they walked to the door, Alleyn thought there were points about being a Jernigham of Pen Cuckoo.

“It’s queer,” said Henry. “I suppose this must be a great shock to us; but at the moment I feel nothing at all. Nothing. I don’t realise that she’s— Where is she?”

“The Yard car is on the way to Great Chipping. She’ll need things from Pen Cuckoo. We’ll let you know what they are.”

Henry stopped dead at the rectory door. His voice turned to ice.

“Is she frightened?”

Alleyn remembered that face with the lips drawn back from the projecting teeth, the tearless bulging eyes, the hands that opened and closed as if they had let something fall.

“I don’t think she is conscious of fear,” he said. “She was quite composed. She didn’t weep.”

“She can’t. Father’s often said she never cried as a child.”

“I remembered your father told me that.”

“I hated her,” said Henry. “But that’s nothing now; she’s insane. It’s strange, because there’s no insanity in the family. What happens? I mean, when will they begin to try her. We — what ought we to do?”

Alleyn told him what they should do. It was the first time he had ever advised the relatives of a person accused of murder, and he said, “But you must ask your lawyer’s advice first of all. That is really all I may tell you.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. Thank you, sir.” Henry peered at Alleyn. He saw him against rods of rain that glinted in the light from the open door.

“It’s fu

“Did you think seriously of this?”

“Yes. I want a job. Hardly suitable for the cousin of the accused.”

“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t try for the police.”

“I’ve read your book. Good Lord, it’s pretty queer to stand here and talk like this.”

“You’re more shocked than you realise. If I were you I should take your father home.”

“Ever since yesterday, sir, I’ve had the impression I’d seen you before. I’ve just remembered. Agatha Troy did a portrait of you, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“It was very good, wasn’t it? Rather a compliment to be painted by Troy. Is she pleasant or peculiar?”

“I think her very pleasant indeed,” said Alleyn. “I have persuaded her to say she will marry me. Goodnight.”

He smiled, waved his hand and went out into the rain.

ii

Nigel had driven his own car over to the rectory, and he took Alleyn to Great Chipping.

“The others have only just got away,” said Nigel. “She fainted after you left, and Fox had to get Templett to deal with her. They’re picking the wardress up at the sub-station.”

“Fainted, did she?”

“Yes. She’s completely dotty, isn’t she?”

“I shouldn’t say so. Not completely.”

“Not?”

“The dottiness has only appeared since Saturday night. She’s probably extremely neurotic. Unbalanced, hysterical, all that. In law, insanity is very closely defined. Her counsel will probably go for moral depravity, delusion, or hallucination. If he can prove a history of disturbance of the higher levels of thought, he may get away with it. I’m afraid poor old Copeland will have to relate his experiences. They’ll give me fits for your performance on the piano, but I’ve covered myself by warning the listeners. I don’t mind betting that even if lunacy is not proved, there’ll be a recommendation for mercy. Of course, they may go all out for ‘not guilty’ and get it.”

“You might give me an outline, Alleyn.”

“All right. Where are we? It’s as dark as hell.”

“Just coming into Chipping. There’s the police car ahead.”

“Ah, yes. Well, here’s the order of events as we see it. On Friday, by 2.40, Georgie had set the booby-trap. Miss Campanula tried to get into the hall before he left it. He hid while the chauffeur looked through the window. When the chauffeur had gone, Georgie re-pi

“Apparently she had taken half an hour to walk a quarter of a mile. We did it yesterday in five minutes. Our case is that she’d gone into the hall in a great state of upset because the rector had ticked her off at confession. She must have sat at the piano, worked the booby-trap and got the jet of water full in the face. She removed the pistol, and probably the first vague idea of her crime came into her head, because she kept quiet about the booby-trap. Perhaps she remembered the Colt and wondered if it would fit. We don’t know. We only know that at three o’clock she had the scene in Top Lane with Henry and Dinah, the scene that was watched and overheard by that old stinker, Tranter. Tranter and Dinah noticed that the bosom of her dress was wet. That, with the lapse in time, are the only scraps of evidence we’ve got so far to give colour to this bit of our theory, but I’d like to know how else the front of her bodice got wet, if not from the pistol. It wasn’t raining, and anyhow rain wouldn’t behave like that. And I’d like to know how else you can account for her arrival, as late as three, at a spot five minutes away.”

“Yes, it’ll certainly take a bit of explaining.”

“The butler remembered she got back at four. At five Henry explained the mechanism of the Colt to the assembled company, stressing and illustrating the action of the safety-catch. Miss P. had told the rector she wanted to see him that evening. Of course, she wanted to give him a distorted and poisonous version of the meeting between Henry and his Dinah. She was to come to the rectory after Reading Circle activities. About ten o’clock, that would be. Now, soon after ten, Miss C. flung herself into the rector’s arms in the rectory study.”

“Christopher!”

“Yes. I hope for his sake we won’t have to bring this out; but it’s a faint hope. The curtains were not drawn, and anybody on the path to the hall could have seen. Round about 10.15, Miss Dinah heard the gate into the wood give its customary piercing shriek. She thought somebody had gone out that way and believed it was Miss C. We contend it was Miss P. coming in for her appointment. We contend she stood inside the gate transfixed by the tableau beyond the window, that she put the obvious interpretation on what she saw, and fell a prey to whatever furies visit a woman whose ageing heart is set on one man and whose nerves, desires and thoughts have been concentrated on the achievement of her hope. We think she turned, passed through the post-stile and returned to Church Lane. To help this theory we’ve got two blurred heel-prints, the statements that nobody else used the gate that night, and the fact that Miss P. rang up shortly afterwards from the hall.”

“How the devil d’you get that?”

“The telephone operator is prepared to swear nobody rang up the rectory. But Miss P. rang up and the old housemaid called Dinah Copeland, who went to the telephone. She evidently didn’t notice it was an extension call. Miss P. said she was speaking from Pen Cuckoo. Miss P. has admitted she rang up. The hall telephone is an extension and doesn’t register at the exchange. Mrs. Ross saw a light in the hall telephone room, at the right moment. It’s the only explanation. Miss P. didn’t know the Pen Cuckoo telephone was out of order and thought she was safe enough to establish a false alibi. She probably got the water-pistol that night and took it away with her to see if the Colt was the same length. It was an eleventh of an inch shorter which meant that the nozzle would fit in the hole without projecting. Now we come to Saturday afternoon. She told me she was in her room. Mrs. Ross recognised her through the hall window, and we’ve got the scraps of rubber to prove that she handled the box. She looked through the hall window to see if the coast was clear. I imagine Templett was embracing his dubious love, who saw the onlooker over his shoulder. Miss P. took to cover, leaving the box. When they’d gone, she crept into the hall and put the Colt in position. She’d had four emotional shocks in twenty-six hours. The rector had given her fits. She’d seen Henry making ardent love to Dinah. She’d seen Idris Campanula, apparently victoriously happy, in the rector’s arms, and she’d watched Templett and Mrs. Ross in what I imagine must have been an even more passionate encounter. And though I do not consider her insane in law, I do consider that these experiences drove her into an ecstasy of fury. Since it is the rector with whom she herself is madly and overwhelmingly in love, Idris Campanula was the object of her hatred. It was Idris who had robbed her of her hopes. Incidentally, it is Idris who left her a fortune. Georgie Biggins had shown her the way. It’s worth noting here that she won a badge for tying knots, and taught the local Guides in this art. At half-past four she was back at Pen Cuckoo and waked the squire in time for tea. This account, too, sounds like conjecture, but the finger-stall proves she lied once, the telephone proves she lied twice, and the fingerprints in the teapot prove she lied three times.”