When he rejoined Fox in the parlour he was grinning broadly.
“What’s he up to?” asked Fox.
“Being one too many for the infamous police,” said Alleyn. “He’s polishing his car.”
“Well, I’ll be blooming well blowed,” said Fox.
“He must have nearly finished. Switch off the light, Fox. It’d be a pity to keep him waiting.”
Fox switched off the light. He and Alleyn sat like shadows in the parlour. The Ottercombe town clock struck twelve and a moment later, the same dragging footsteps sounded in the yard. The side door was shut and the steps went past the parlour. The staircase light clicked and a faint glow showed underneath the door.
“Up he goes,” whispered Alleyn.
Legge went slowly upstairs, turned the light off, and moved along the passage above their heads. A door closed.
“Now then,” said Alleyn.
They went upstairs in the dark and slipped into Alleyn’s room, the first on the top landing. The upstairs passage was bright with moonlight.
“His is the end one,” murmured Alleyn. “He’s got his light on. Do you suppose he’ll set to work and wipe all the utensils in his room?”
“The thing’s silly,” whispered Fox. “I’ve never known anything like it. What’s the good of it? We’ll get his blasted dabs.”
“What do you bet me he won’t come down to breakfast in gloves?”
“He’s capable of anything,” snorted Fox.
“Sssh! He’s coming out.”
“Lavatory?”
“Possibly.”
Alleyn groped for the door and unlatched it.
“What are you doing, sir?” asked Fox rather peevishly.
“Squinting through the crack,” Alleyn whispered. “Now he’s come out of the lavatory.”
“I can hear that.”
“He’s in his pyjamas. He doesn’t look very delicious. Good Lord.”
“What?”
“He’s crossed the passage,” breathed Alleyn, “and he’s stooping down at another door.”
“What’s he up to?”
“Can’t see — shadow. Now he’s off again. Back to his own room. Shuts the door. Light out. Mr. Legge, finished for the night.”
“And not before it was time,” grumbled Fox. “They’ve got a nice sort of chap as Secretary and Treasurer for their society. How long’ll we give him, Mr. Alleyn? I’d like to have a look what he’s been up to.”
“I’ll give him ten minutes and then go along the passage.”
“Openly?”
“Yes. Quickly, but not stealthily, Fox. It’s the room on the right at the end. It looked almost as if he was shoving a note under the door. Very odd.”
“What age,” asked Fox, “is the Honourable Violet Darragh?”
“What a mind you have! It was probably young Pomeroy’s door.”
“I hadn’t thought of that, sir. Probably.”
Alleyn switched on the light and began to unpack his suit-case. Whistling soundlessly, he set his room in order, undressed, and put on his pyjamas and dressing-gown.
“Now then,” he said. He picked up his towel and spongebag and went out.
Fox waited, his hands on his knees. He heard a tap turned on. Water-pipes gurgled. In a distant room, someone began to snore in two keys. Presently Fox heard the pad of feet in the passage and Alleyn returned.
His towel was round his neck. His hair was rumpled and damp and hung comically over his eyes. He looked like a rather distinguished faun who had chosen to disguise himself in pyjamas and a dressing-gown. Between thumb and forefinger he held a piece of folded paper.
“Crikey, Fox!” said Alleyn.
“What have you got there, sir?”
“Lord knows! A threat? A billet-doux? Find my case, please, Fox, and get out a couple of tweezers. We’ll open it carefully. At least it may have his prints. Thank the Lord I brought that camera.”
Fox produced the tweezers. Alleyn dropped his paper on the glass top of the wash-stand. Using the tweezers, he opened it delicately. Fox looked over his shoulder and read ten words written in pencil.
Implore you usual place immediately. Most important. Destroy at once.
“Crikey again!” said Alleyn. “An assignation.”
“Where did you get it, Mr. Alleyn?”
“Under the door. I fished for it with a hairpin I found in the bathroom. Luckily there was a good gap”
“Will Pomeroy’s door?”
“Does Will Pomeroy wear high-heeled shoes, size four-and-a-half, made by Rafferty, Belfast?”
“Lor’!” said Fox. “The Honourable Violet.”
Chapter XIII
Miss Darragh Stands Firm
i
The summer sun shines early on the Coombe, and when Alleyn looked out of his window at half-past five, it was at a crinkled and sparkling sea. The roofs of Fish Lane were cleanly pale. A column of wood-smoke rose delicately from a chimney-pot. Someone walked, whistling, down Ottercombe Steps.
Alleyn had been dressed for an hour. He was waiting for Mr. Robert Legge. He supposed that the word “immediately” in the note for Miss Darragh might be interpreted as “the moment you read this,” which no doubt would be soon after Miss Darragh awoke.
Fox and Alleyn had been very industrious before they went to bed. They had poured iodine into a flat dish and they had put Mr. Legge’s letter into the dish but not into the iodine. They had covered the dish and left it for five minutes, and then set up an extremely expensive camera, by whose aid they could photograph the note by lamplight. They might have spared themselves the trouble. There were no fingerprints on Mr. Legge’s note. Fox had gone to bed in high dudgeon. Alleyn had refolded the note and pushed it under Miss Darragh’s door. Four minutes later he had slipped peacefully into sleep.
The morning smelt freshly. Alleyn leant over the window-sill and glanced to his left. At the same moment, three feet away, Fox leant over his window-sill and glanced to his right. He was fully dressed and looked solidly prepared to take up his bowler hat and go anywhere.
“Good morning, sir,” said Fox in a whisper, “pleasant morning. He’s just stirring, I fancy.”
“Good morning to you, Br’er Fox,” rejoined Alleyn. “A very pleasant morning. I’ll meet you on the stairs.”
He stole to the door of his room and listened. Presently the now familiar footsteps sounded in the passage. Alleyn waited for a few seconds and then slipped through the door. Fox performed a similar movement at the same time.
“Simultaneous comedians,” whispered Alleyn. “Come on.”
Keeping observation is one of the most tedious of a detective officer’s duties. Laymen talk of “shadowing.” It is a poetic term for a specialized drudgery. In his early days at Scotland Yard, Alleyn had hated keeping observation and had excelled at it, a circumstance which casts some light on his progress as a detective. There are two kinds of observation, in the police sense. You may tail a man in such a manner that you are within his range of vision but unrecognized or unremarked by him. You may also be obliged to tail a man in circumstances that forbid his seeing you at all. In a deserted hamlet, at half-past five on a summer’s morning, Mr. Legge could scarcely fail to recognize his tormentors of the previous evening. Alleyn and Fox wished to follow him without being seen.
They reached the entrance lobby of the pub as Mr. Legge stepped into the street. Alleyn moved into the private tap and Fox into a sort of office on the other side of the front entrance. Alleyn watched Mr. Legge go past the window of the private tap and signalled to Fox. They hurried down the side passage in time to see Mr. Legge pass the garage and make for the South Steps. Alleyn nodded to Fox who strolled across the yard, and placed himself in a position where he could see the South Steps, reflected handily in a cottage window. When the figure of Mr. Legge had descended the steps and turned to the left, Fox made decent haste to follow his example. Alleyn opened the garage and backed the police Ford into the yard. He then removed his coat and hat, let a good deal of air out of his spare tyre and began, in a leisurely manner, to pump it up again. He had inflated and replaced the spare tyre, and was peering into the engine, when Miss Darragh came out of the pub.