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“How the hell do I know! I didn’t pick his ghastly pockets,” said Bimbo, turning very white.
“A statement that at the moment can’t be checked. All the same, there’s this to be said for you: if you are both telling the truth about your movements this evening, you are unlikely to have chucked the paperweight at Mr. Period’s head. Although,” Alleyn said very coolly, “the amorous dog chase might well have led you into Mr. Period’s garden.”
“It might have,” Désirée remarked, “but, in point of fact, it didn’t. Bimbo was never out of my sight.”
“If that is so,” Àlleyn said, “it leads us to an inescapable conclusion.”
He waited, and across the stillness of the room there floated small inconsequent sounds: the whisper of Fox’s pencil and his rather heavy breathing, the faint rasp of Moppett’s fingernails on the arms of her chair, and from somewhere within the house a scarcely perceptible mechanical throb.
“There remains,” Alleyn said, “just one person to whom opportunity, behaviour and motive all point, inescapably. This one person presents certain characteristics: a knowledge of Mr. Cartell’s movements, the assurance that at one o’clock the Baynesholme guests would have long ago left the scene, and access to Mr. Leiss’s gloves. So much for opportunity. Behaviour. There are certain reactions. Everybody knows about Mr. Period’s propensity for writing letters of condolence: he’s famous for them. Now, suppose one of you gets a Period letter, couched in rather ambiguous terms but commiserating with you on the loss of somebody whom you saw fighting-fit the previous evening. What would you think? Either that he was dotty or that he had sent you the wrong letter. You might get an initial shock, but a few moments’ thought would reassure you. You would not, having gone to find out what it was all about and encountered a bewildered Mr. Period, turn deadly white and almost faint. But if you had murdered the supposed subject of the letter, how would you react? Suppose you had awakened in the morning with the remembrance of your deed festering in your mind and then been presented with this letter. Suppose, finally, that when you were being interviewed by the police, a second letter arrived, couched in exactly the same phrases. Wouldn’t that seem like a nightmare? Wouldn’t it seem as if Mr. Period knew what you’d done, and was torturing you with his knowledge? What would you do then?”
Co
“You can’t prove it,” she said. “You haven’t got the gloves.”
At that moment a loud and confused rumpus broke out in the garden. There was a cry of frustration and a yelp of pain. The Pekingese leapt from Co
A body crashed against the French windows. They burst open to admit Pixie, immensely overwrought and carrying some object in her mouth. She was closely followed by Alfred Belt.
Alleyn shouted: “Shut those windows.” Alfred did so and stood in front of them, panting noisily.
With an expertise borne of their early training, Alleyn and Fox seized, respectively, Pixie and Li. Alleyn thrust his thumbs into the corners of Pixie’s slavering mouth.
Her plaything dropped to the floor. Alfred, gasping for breath, stammered: “In the garden, sir. Here. Ran her to earth. Digging.”
Moppett cried out: “Le
Alleyn said to Bimbo: “Catch hold of this dog.”
“I’ll be damned if I do.”
“I do her,” said Trudi.
She dragged Pixie from the room.
Alleyn stooped to retrieve the gloves. He unrolled them. The leather in the palms had been torn, and fragments of string hung loose from the knitted backs. The thumb of the left-hand glove was discoloured with blood. He began to turn it inside out. As he did so, Co
It was a shocking sound, scarcely less animal than the canine outcry that had preceded it. Her mouth remained open and for a moment she looked like a mask for a Fury. Then she plunged forward and, when Fox seized her, screamed again.
The lining of the thumb showed a fragment of blackened and bloodstained cotton wool, and smelt quite distinctly of the black ointment used for girth-gall.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Period Piece
Mr. Pyke Period reclined on his library sofa, nibbling calf’s-foot jelly and giving audience to Alleyn, Nicola and Andrew. He had just prevailed upon Dr. Elkington to allow him downstairs. Wan though he was, he might nevertheless have been suspected of enjoying himself.
“It’s so utterly dreadful,” he said. “One ca
“She is,” Alleyn conceded, “a very stupid woman. But she has the cu
“And all for that wretched girl! I fear,” Mr. Period said, “that I may have precipitated matters, I mean, by suggesting that the girl should come and see me. The thing was, my dear fellow, I woke on that dreadful night and I heard that tune being whistled somewhere outside. And voices: hers and that appalling young man’s. And when you described what must have been done, I thought they were responsible.”
“But,” Alleyn pointed out, “you decided not to tell me about this?”
Mr. Period changed colour. “Yes — for a number of reasons. You see — if it had only been intended as a trick — the consequences — so terrible for Co
“You couldn’t face the publicity?”
“No,” Mr. Period whispered. “No — I couldn’t. Very wrong of me. There…there was a personal matter…” He stopped and waved his hands.
“I know about the baptismal register,” Alleyn said gently.
Mr. Period turned scarlet but said nothing.
Alleyn looked at Andrew and Nicola: “Perhaps,” he suggested, “I might just have a word—”
“Yes, of course,” they both said and made for the door.
“No!” Mr. Period quite shouted. They turned. His face was still red and his eyes were screwed up as if he expected a blow. “No!” he repeated. “Don’t go! I am resigned. If I have to dree my weird I may as well dree it now. My na
“Well, yes.”
“ ’Nuff said. But I felt sure that Hal was going to tell Co
“Little beast,” Nicola said heartily.
“Worse than that! I gathered they were prepared to use blackmail. And then, dear Désirée came in that evening and said, Alleyn, she’d given you that unfortunate letter, so—”
“So you felt you had nothing to lose?”
“Quite! Quite!”
“So you told the girl that unless she could explain their presence in the lane you would report it to the police.”
“Yes. I said I felt it my duty to speak, in case i
Alleyn said: “What happened was this. Constance Cartell, on the hunt for her Pekingese, came into your garden. She probably caught a glimpse of her ward coming out by the French windows. She heard your final threat. She was terribly suspicious, indeed terrified, of you.”
“Of Mr. Period?” Nicola exclaimed. “But why?”