“I’m not a psychiatrist,” he said. “But, yes. You may be right.”
“Now, this was the picture,” Alleyn went on, “up to the time of the Festival. But when she came to write the final entry in her diary, which was last night, something had happened: something that had revived all her sense of injury and spite, something that led her to write: ‘Both — all of them — shall suffer. I’ll drag their names through the papers. Now. Tonight. I am determined. It is the end.’ ”
Another formidable onslaught roared down upon the Boy-and-Lobster and again the lights wavered and recovered.
“She doesn’t say, and we can’t tell, positively, what inflamed her. I am inclined to think that it might be put down to aesthetic humiliation.”
“What!” Patrick ejaculated.
“Yes. One has to remember that all the first-night agonies that beset a professional director are also visited upon the most ludicrously inefficient amateur. Miss Cost had produced a show and exposed it to an audience. However bad the show, she still had to undergo the classic ordeal. The reaction among some of the onlookers didn’t escape her notice.”
“Oh dear!” Jenny said. “Oh dear!”
“But this is all speculation, and a policeman is not allowed to speculate,” Alleyn said. “Let us get back to hard facts, if we can. Here are some of them: Miss Cost attended early service this morning and afterwards walked to the spring to collect a necklace. It was in her hand when we found her. We know, positively, that she encountered and spoke to three people: Mrs. Carstairs and Dr. Mayne before church; Major Barrimore afterwards.”
“Suppose I deny that?” Barrimore said thickly.
“I can’t, of course, make any threats or offer any persuasion. You might, on consideration, think it wiser, after all, to agree that you met and tell me what passed between you. Major Barrimore,” Alleyn explained generally, “has already admitted that he was spying upon Miss Pride, who had gone to the enclosure to put up a notice which he afterwards removed.”
Miss Emily gave a sharp exclamation.
“It was later replaced.” Alleyn turned to Barrimore and stood over him. “Shall I tell you what I think happened? I think hard words passed between you and Miss Cost, and that she was stung into telling you her secret. I think you parted from her in a rage, and that when you came back to the hotel this morning you bullied your wife. You had better understand, at once, that your wife has not told me this. Finally, I believe that Miss Cost may even have threatened to reveal your former relationship with herself. She suggests in her diary that she has some such intention. Now. Have you anything to say to all this?”
Patrick said: “You had better say nothing.” He walked over to his mother and put his arm about her shoulders.
“I didn’t do it,” Barrimore said. “I didn’t kill her.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. I shall move on,” Alleyn said and spoke generally. “Among her papers, we have found a typewritten list of dates. It is a carbon copy. The top copy is missing. Miss Cost had fallen into the habit of sending anonymous letters. As we know, only too well, this habit grows by indulgence. It is possible, having regard for the dates in question, that this document has been brought to the notice of the person most likely to be disturbed by it. Possibly, with a print of a photograph. Now, this individual has, in one crucial respect, given a false statement as to time and circumstance, and because of that—”
There was a tap at the door. Fox opened it. A voice in the passage shouted: “I can’t wait quietlike, mister. I got to see ’im.” It was Trehern.
Fox said: “Now then, what’s all this?” and began to move out. Trehern plunged at him, head down, and was taken in a half-nelson. Bailey appeared in the doorway. “You lay your hands off of me,” Trehern whined. “You got nothing against me.”
“Outside,” said Fox.
Trehern, struggling, looked wildly around the assembled company and fixed on Alleyn. “I got something to tell you, mister,” he said. “I got something to put before all of you. I got to speak out.”
“All right, Fox,” Alleyn said, and nodded to Bailey — who went out and shut the door. Fox relaxed his hold. “Well, Trehern, what is it?”
Trehern wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and blinked. “I been thinking,” he said.
“Yes?”
“I been thinking things over. Ever since you come at me up to my house and acted like you done and made out what you made out, which is not the case. I bean’t a quick-brained chap, mister, but the light has broke and I see me way clear. I got to speak, and speak public.”
“Very well. What do you want to say?”
“Don’t you rush me, now, mister. What I got to say is a mortal serious matter and I got to take my time.”
“Nobody’s rushing you.”
“No, nor they better not,” he said. His manner was half-truculent, half-cringing. “It concerns this-yurr half-hour in time which was the matter which you flung in my teeth. So fur so good. Now. This-yurr lady”—he ducked his head at Miss Emily—“tells you she seen my lil’ chap in the road roundabouts twenty to eight on this-yurr fatal morning. Right?”
“Certainly,” said Miss Pride.
“Much obliged. And I says, So she might of, then, for all I know to the contrariwise, me being asleep in my bed. And I says I uprose at five past eight. Correct?”
“That’s what you said, yes.”
“And God’s truth if I never speak another word. And my lil’ chap was then to home in my house. Right. Now, then. Furthermore to that, you says the Doctor saw him at that same blessed time, twenty to eight, which statement agrees with the lady.”
“Yes.”
“Yes. And you says — don’t rush me — you says the Doctor was in his launch at that mortal moment.”
Alleyn glanced at Mayne. “Agreed?” he asked.
“Yes. I saw Wally from the launch.”
Trehern moved over to Dr. Mayne. “That’s a bloody lie, Doctor,” he said. “Axcusing the expression. I face you out with it, man to man. I seen you, Doctor, clear as I see you now, moving out in thikky launch of yourn at five to ten bloody minutes past eight, and, by God, I reckon you’re not telling lies for the fun of it. I reckon as how you got half an hour on your conscience, Dr. Mayne, and if the law doesn’t face you out with it I’m the chap to do the law’s job for it.”
“I have already discussed the point with Superintendent Alleyn,” Mayne said, looking at Trehern with profound distaste. “Your story is quite unsupported.”
“Is it?” Trehern said. “Is it, then? That’s where you’re dead wrong. You mind me. And you t’other ladies and gents, and you, mister.” He turned back to Alleyn. “After you shifted off this evening, I took to thinking. And I remembered. I remembered our young Wal come up when I was looking out of my winder, and I remembered he said in his por simple fashion: ‘Thik’s Doctor’s launch, bean’t she?’ You ax him, mister. You face him up with it and he’ll tell you.”
“No doubt!” said Mayne. He looked at Alleyn. “I imagine you accept my statement,” he said.
“I haven’t said so,” Alleyn replied. “I didn’t say so at the time, if you remember.”
“By God, Alleyn!” he said angrily, and controlled himself. “This fellow’s as shifty as they come. You must see it. And the boy! Of what value is the boy’s statement — if you get one from him? He’s probably been thrashed into learning what he’s got to say.”