Died in the Wool

“Well I don’t think you put it very nicely,” said Douglas, staring at him, and he added angrily, “What’s the matter with your face?”

“Somebody hit it. It’s very stiff and has probably turned purple.”

Douglas gaped at him. “Hit you!” he repeated.

“Yes, but it’s of the smallest consequence, now you’ve appointed yourself my guardian.”

“Who hit you?”

“It’s a secret at the moment.”

“Here!” said Douglas loudly. “Are you pulling my leg?” He looked anxiously at Alleyn. “It’s a fu

“Not a bit,” said Alleyn. “It’s always irritating to be a suspect.”

“I wish you wouldn’t keep on like that,” said Douglas fretfully. “It’s damned unpleasant. I hoped I might be allowed to help. I’d like to help.”

“We’re talking in circles. Beat me up a respectable alibi, with witnesses, for the murder of your aunt and the attack on Losse and I’ll take you to my professional bosom with alacrity.”

“By God,” said Douglas with feeling, “I wish I could.”

“In the meantime, will you, without prejudice, undertake to do three things for me?”

“Of course!” he said stiffly. “Anything at all. Naturally.”

“The first is to see I get a fair field and no interference in the wool-shed, from daybreak to-morrow until I let you know I’ve finished. I can’t do any good there at night, by the light of a farthing dip.”

“Right-o, sir. Can do.”

“The second is to tell the others in confidence that I propose to spend the night in the wool-shed. That’ll prevent any unlawful espials up there, and give me a chance to get the tag end of a night’s sleep in my room. Actually, I can’t start work until daybreak, but they’re not to know that. After daybreak we’ll keep the shed, the track and the precincts generally clear of intruders, but you need say nothing about that. Let them suppose I’m going up there now and that you oughtn’t to tell them. Let them suppose that I want them to believe I’m going to my room.”

“They won’t think that kind of thing very like me,” said Douglas solemnly. “I’m not the sort to cackle, you know.”

“You’ll have to do a bit of acting. Make them understand that you’re not supposed to tell them. That’s most important.”

“O.K. What’s the third duty?”

“Oh,” said Alleyn wearily, “to lend me an alarm clock or knock me up before the household’s astir. Unless somebody shakes me up I’ll miss the bus. I wish to heaven you’d carried your electricity over to the shed. There’s important evidence lying there for the taking, but I must have light. Are you sure you follow me? Actually I’m going to my room. They are to suppose I’m going to the wool-shed, but want to be thought in bed.”

“Yes,” said Douglas. “I’ve got that. Jolly subtle.”

“Will you give me an alarm clock, or call me?”

“I’ll call you,” said Douglas, who had begun to look portentous and tolerably happy again.

“Good. And now ask Miss Ly

“Terry? I say, couldn’t you… I mean… well she’s had a pretty rough spin to-night. Couldn’t you…”

“No,” said Alleyn very firmly. “With homicide waiting to be served up cold on a plate, I’m afraid I couldn’t. Get her, like a good chap, and deliver your illicit information. Don’t forget Markins.”

Douglas moved unhappily to the door. Here he paused and a faint glint of complacency appeared on his face.

“Markins, what?” he said. His eyes travelled to Alleyn’s jaw. “I’m not one to ask questions out of my turn,” he said, “but I bet it was Markins.”

Terence was some time coming. Alleyn built up the fire and thawed himself out. He was caught on a wave of nostalgia: for Troy, his wife; for London; for Inspector Fox with whom he was accustomed to work; for his own country and his own people. If this had been a routine case from the Yard he and Fox would, at its present stage, have gone into one of their huddles, staring at each other meditatively over their pipes. He could see old Fox, now; his large unspeaking face, his grave attentiveness, his huge passive fists. And when it was over, there would be Troy, hugging her knees on the hearthrug and bringing him a sense of peace and communion. “She is nice,” he thought. “I do like my wife,” and he felt a kind of panic that he was so far away from her. With a sigh, he dismissed his mood and returned to the house on the slopes of Mount Moon and felt again the silence of the plateau beyond the windows and the austerity of the night.

A door banged and someone crossed the hall. It was Terence Ly

She made a sedate entrance, holding herself very erect, and looking straight before her. He noticed that she had powdered her face and done her lips. Evidently she had visited her room. He wondered if the book was still tucked down between the sheets.

“All right now?” he asked and pushed a chair up to the fire.

“Quite, thank you.”

“Sit down, won’t you? We’ll get it over quickly.”

She did as he suggested, at once, stiffly, as if she obeyed an order.

“Miss Ly

He felt her hatred, as if it were something physical that she secreted and used against him. “I wasn’t mistaken after all,” she said. “I was right to think you would go back to my room. That’s what you’re like. That’s the sort of thing you do.”

“Yes, that’s the sort of thing I do. I could have taken it away with me, you know.”

“I can’t imagine why you didn’t.”

“Will you please wait here, now, while I get it?”

“I refuse to let you see it.”

“In that case I must lock your room and report to the police in the morning. They will come up with a search warrant and take the whole thing over themselves.”

Her hands trembled. She looked at them irritably and pressed them together in the folds of her gown. “Wait a minute,” she said. “There’s something I must say to you. Wait.”

“Of course,” he said and turned away.

After perhaps a minute she began to speak slowly and carefully. “What I am going to tell you is the exact truth. Until an hour ago I would have been afraid to let you see it. There is something written there that you would have misinterpreted. Now you would not misinterpret it. There is nothing in it that could help you. It is because the thought of your reading it is distasteful to me that I want to keep it from you. I swear that is all. I solemnly swear it.”

“You must know,” he said, “that I can’t act on an assurance of that sort. Surely you must know.” She leant forward, resting her forehead on her hand and pushing her hair back from it. “If it is as you say,” Alleyn continued, “you must try to think of me as something quite impersonal, as indeed I am. I have read many scores of such documents, written for one reader only, and have laid them aside and put them from my mind. But I must see it or, if I don’t, the police must do so. Which is it to be?”

“Does it matter?” she said harshly. “You then. You know where it is. Go and get it, but don’t let me see it in your hands.”

“Before I go, there is one question. Why, when we discussed the search for the brooch, did you tell us you didn’t meet Arthur Rubrick in the long walk below the te

“I still say so.”

“No, no. You’re an intelligent person. You heard what Losse and Grace said about the search. It was obvious you must have met him.” He paused, and the memory returned to him of Fabian muttering: “Terry! Oh Lord, I do wish I hadn’t got up here. Silly old man!” He sat on the wooden fender, facing Terence Ly

“Who was it? Was it Douglas? Ursula?”

“Tell me what happened.”

“If you know as much as this,” she said, “you know, unless you’re trying to trap me, that he — he put his arms about me and kissed me. There’s nothing left. Everything has been coarsened now, and made common.”