Hand in Glove

Désirée disregarded him. She said to Alleyn: “I ought to know. I gave it to P.P. yesterday morning. He’s dotty about pikes and this thing looked like one. He put it in the library.…Could I have an answer to my question?”

“I think the murderer and the paperweight thrower are one and the same person.”

“Good,” said Désirée. “That lets us out, Bimbo.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Bimbo said with a short laugh. “Why?”

“Well, because neither of us has the slightest motive for hurling anything at P.P.”

“Isn’t he one of the trustees for Andrew Bantling’s estate?” Leonard asked of nobody in particular.

She turned her head and looked very steadily at him. “Certainly,” she said. “What of it?”

“I was just wondering, Lady Bantling. You might have discussed business with Mr. Period when you called on him this evening?”

Bimbo said angrily: “I’m afraid I fail entirely to see why you should wonder anything of the sort, or how you can possibly know the smallest thing about it.”

“Yes, but I do, as it happens. I heard you talking things over with your dashing stepson at the party.”

“Good God!” Bimbo said, and turned up his eyes.

Désirée said to Alleyn: “I told you. I called to own up that I’d given you his letter. I felt shabby about it and wanted to get it off my chest.”

“What’s his attitude about the Grantham Gallery proposal, do you know?”

“Oh,” Désirée said easily, “he waffles.”

“He’ll be all right,” Bimbo said.

“Just a moment,” Leonard intervened. He still lay back in his chair and looked at the ceiling but there was a new edge in his voice. “If you’re talking about this proposition to buy an art gallery,” he said, “I happen to know P.P. was all against it.”

Bimbo said: “You met Mr. Period for the first time when you got yourself asked to lunch in his house. I fail to see how that gives you any insight into his views on anything.”

“You don’t,” Leonard observed, “have to know people all their lives to find out some of the bits and pieces. The same might apply to you, chum. How about that affair over a certain club?”

“You bloody little pipsqueak—”

“All right, darling,” Désirée said easily. “Pipe down. It couldn’t matter less.”

“Not when you marry money, it couldn’t,” Leonard agreed offensively.

Bimbo strode down the room towards him: “By God, if the police don’t do something about you, I will.”

Fox rose from obscurity. “Now, then, sir,” he said blandly. “We mustn’t get too hot, must we?”

“Get out of my way.”

Leonard was on his feet. Moppett snatched his arm. He jabbed at her with his elbow, side-stepped, and backed down the room, his hand in his jacket pocket. Alleyn took him from behind by the arms.

“You’ve forgotten,” he said. “I’ve got your knife.”

Leonard uttered an elaborate obscenity, and at the same time Fox, with the greatest economy, caused Bimbo to drop backwards into the nearest chair. “That’s right, sir,” he said. “We don’t want to get too warm. It wouldn’t look well, in the circumstances, would it?”

Bimbo swore at him. “I demand,” he said, pointing a bandaged hand at Alleyn, “I demand an explanation. You’re keeping us here without authority. You’re listening to a lot of bloody, damaging, malicious lies. If you suspect one of us, I demand to know who and why. Now then!”

“Fair enough,” said Désirée. “You stick out for your rights, duckie. All the same,” she added, looking Alleyn full in the face, “I don’t believe he knows. He’s letting us cut up rough and hoping something will come out of it. Aren’t you, Rory?”

She was inviting Alleyn, as he very well knew, to acknowledge, however slightly, that he and she spoke the same language: that alone, of all this assembly, they could understand each other without elaboration. He released the now quiescent Leonard and answered her directly.

“No,” he said. “It isn’t quite like that. It’s true that I believe I know who murdered Harold Cartell. I believe that there is only one of you who fills the bill. Naturally, I’m looking for all the corroborative evidence I can find.”

“I demand—” Bimbo reiterated, but his wife cut him short.

“All right, darling,” she said. “So you’ve told us. You demand an explanation and I rather fancy you’re going to get it. So do pipe down.” She returned to Alleyn. “Are you going to tell us,” she asked, “that we all had red-hot motives for getting rid of Hal? Because I feel sure we did.”

“Contrary to popular belief,” he said, “the police are concerned less with motive than with opportunity and behaviour. But, yes. As it happens you all had motives of a sort. Yours, for instance, could be thought to come under the heading of maternal love.”

“Could it, indeed?” said Désirée.

“By God!” Bimbo shouted, but Alleyn cut him short.

“And you,” he said, “wanted to invest in this project that Cartell wouldn’t countenance. Judging from the unopened bills on your desk and your past history, this could be a formidable motive.”

“And that,” Leonard observed, smirking at Bimbo, “takes the silly grin off your face, Jack, doesn’t it?”

“Whereas,” Alleyn continued, “you, Mr. Leiss, and Miss Ralston were directly threatened, both by Mr. Cartell and, I think, Mr. Period, with criminal proceedings which would almost certainly land you in jail.”

“No!” Co

“A threat,” Alleyn said, “that may be said to provide your motive as well, I’m afraid, Miss Cartell. As for Alfred Belt and Mrs. Mitchell, who are not present, they were both greatly concerned to end Mr. Cartell’s tenancy, which they found intolerable. Murder has been done for less.”

It was not pleasant, he thought, to see the veiled eagerness with which they welcomed this departure. Leonard actually said: “Well, of course. Now you’re talking,” and Moppett flicked the tip of her tongue over her lips.

“But I repeat,” Alleyn went on, “that it is circumstance, opportunity and behaviour that must concern us. Opportunity, after a fashion, you all had. Miss Ralston and Mr. Leiss were on the premises late that night; they had stolen the cigarette case and the case was found by the body. The trap was laid by somebody wearing leather-and-string gloves, and Mr. Leiss has lost such a pair of gloves.”

Leonard and Moppett began to talk together, but Alleyn held up his hand and they stopped dead.

“Their behaviour, however, doesn’t make sense. If they were pla

Moppett gave a strangulated sob, presumably of relief.

“Lady Bantling had opportunity, and she knew the lay of the land. She could have set the trap; but it’s obvious that she didn’t do so, as she was seen, by Mr. Bantling and Miss Maitland-Mayne, returning across the planks to her car. She, too, had publicized her visit by serenading Mr. Cartell from the garden. Her behaviour does not commend itself as that of an obsession maternal murderess.”

“Too kind of you to say so,” Désirée murmured.

“Moreover, I fancy she is very well aware that her son could anticipate his inheritance by borrowing upon his expectations and insuring his life as security for the loan. This reduces her motive to one of mere exasperation, and the same may be said of Mr. Bantling himself.”

“And of me,” said Bimbo quickly.

Alleyn said: “In your case, there might well be something we haven’t yet winkled out. Which is what I mean about the secondary importance of motive. However, I was coming to you. You had ample opportunity. You retired to a bathroom, where you tell me you spent a long time bandaging your hand. You could equally well have spent it driving back to the ditch and arranging the trap. No, please don’t interrupt. I know you were bitten. That proves nothing. You may also say that you took Mr. Leiss’s overcoat to him. Were his gloves in the pocket?”