“Yes,” whispered Janey.
“Mr. Garnette is responsible for all this, I suppose.”
“Yes.” She hesitated, oddly, and then with a lift of her chin repeated: “Yes.”
“Now,” Alleyn continued, “please will you tell me when Mr. Pringle left here on Sunday afternoon?”
She still looked very earnestly at him. Suddenly she knelt on the rug and held her hands to the heater, her head turned towards him. The movement was singularly expressive. It was as though she had come to a definite decision and had relaxed.
“I will tell you,” she said. “He went away from here at about half-past two. I’m not sure of the exact time. He was very restless and — and difficult. He had smoked three of those cigarettes and had got no more with him. We had a scene.”
“May I know what it was about?”
“I’ll tell you. Mr. Alleyn, I’m sorry I was so rude just now. I must have caught my poor Maurice’s manners, I think. I do trust you. Perhaps that’s not the right word because you haven’t said you think him innocent. But I know he’s innocent and I trust you to find out.”
“You are very brave,” said Alleyn.
“The scene was about — me. When he’s had much of that stuff he wants to make love. Not as if it’s me, but simply because I’m there. I’m not posing as an ingenue of eighteen — and they’re not so ‘ingenue’ nowadays either. I’m not frightened of passion and I can look after myself, but there’s something about him then that horrifies me. It’s like a nightmare. Sometimes he seems to focus his — his senses on one tiny little thing — my wrist or just one spot on my arm. It’s morbid and rather terrifying.”
She spoke rapidly now as though it was a relief to speak and without any embarrassment or hesitation.
“It was like that on Sunday. He held my arm tight and kissed the inside. Just one place over and over again. When I told him to stop he wouldn’t. It was horrible. I can give you no idea. I struggled and when he still went on, I hit his face. Then there was the real scene. I told him he was ruining himself and degrading me and all because of the drugs. Then we quarreled about Father Garnette, desperately. I said he was to blame and that he was rotten all through. I spoke about Cara.” She stopped short.
“That made him very angry?”
“Terribly angry. Hatefully angry. For a moment I was frightened. He said if that was what they did — You understand?”
“Yes,” said Alleyn.
“Then he suddenly let me go. He had been almost screaming, but now he began to speak very quietly. He simply told me he would go to the church flat and get more of — more heroin. ‘A damn’ big shot of it,’ he said. He told me quite slowly and distinctly that Father Garnette had some in the bedroom and that he would take it. Then he laughed, gently, and went away. And then in the evening, when he’d had more of that stuff, I suppose, he met me as though nothing had happened. That’s a pretty good sample of the happy wooing we enjoy together.”
She still knelt on the rug at Alleyn’s feet. She had gone very white and now she began to tremble violently.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “It’s silly. I don’t know why — I can’t help it.”
“Don’t mind!” said Alleyn. “It’s shock, and thinking about it again.”
She laid her hand on his knee and after a second he put his lightly over it.
“Thank you,” said Janey. “I didn’t see him again until the evening. After you had finished with us I walked back with him to his door. He told me I was to say he had been here all the afternoon. I promised. I promised: that’s what is so awful.
He said: ‘If they go for the wrong man—’ and then he stopped. I came on here by myself. That’s all.”
“I see,” said Alleyn. “Have you got any brandy on the premises?”
“There’s some — over there.”
He got a rug off the couch and dropped it over her shoulders. Then he found the brandy and brought her a stiff nip.
“Down with it,” he ordered.
“All right,” answered Janey shakily. “Don’t bully.” She drank the brandy and presently a little colour came back into her face.
“I have made a fool of myself. I suppose it’s because I’d kept it all bottled up inside me.”
“Another argument in favour of confiding in the police,” said Alleyn.
She laughed and again put her hand on his knee.
“—who are only human,” Alleyn added and stood up.
“You’re a very aloof sort of person to confide in, aren’t you?” said Janey abruptly. “Still, I suppose you must be human or I wouldn’t have done it. Is it time we went to the inquest?”
“Yes. May I drive you there or do you dislike the idea of arriving in a police car?”
“No, but I think I’d better collect Maurice.”
“In that case I shall go. Are you all right?”
“I’m not looking forward to it. Mr. Alleyn, shall I have to repeat all — this — to the coroner?”
“The conduct of an inquest is on the knees of the coroner. Sometimes he has housemaid’s knees and then it’s all rather trying. This gentleman is not of that type, however. I think we shall have a quick show and an adjournment.”
“An adjournment? For what?”
“Oh,” said Alleyn vaguely, “for me to earn my wages, you know.”
CHAPTER XXII
Sidelight on Mrs. Candour
The inquest was as Alleyn had said it would be. Only the barest bones of the case were exhibited to the jury. Owing, no doubt, to Nigel’s handling of a “scoop” the public interest was terrific. Alleyn himself had by this time become a big draw. It would be a diverting pastime to discuss how far homicide cases have gone to cater for the public that used to patronise stock “blood-and-thunder” at Drury Lane. In the days when women of breeding did not stand in queues to get a front seat at a coroner’s inquest or a murder trial, melodrama provided an authentic thrill. Nowadays melodrama is not good enough when with a little inconvenience one can watch a real murderer turn green round the gills, while an old gentleman in a black cap, himself rather pale, mumbles actor-proof lines about hanging by the neck until you are dead and may God have mercy on your soul. No curtain ever came down on a better tag. The inquest is a sort of curtain-raiser to the murder trial, and, in cases such as that of Cara Quayne, provides an additional kick. Which of these people did it? Which of these men or women will hang by the neck until he or she is dead? That priest, Jasper Garnette. Darling, such an incredible name, but rather compelling, don’t you think? A definite thrill? Or don’t you? He seems to have been… Can anyone go to the temple?… Chosen Vessel… My sweet, you have got a mind like a sink, haven’t you! The American?… Too hearty and wholesome…Still, one never knows, I must say… De Ravigne? My dear, I know him. Not frightfully well. His cousin…No, it was his sister… Of course one never knows. That Candour female… God, what a mess! The boy? Pringle? Wasn’t he one of the Essterhaugh, Browne-White lot? Of course one knows what they’re like. He looks as if he might be rather fun. Darling, did you ever see anything to approach Claude and Lionel? Still, one never knows. One never knows until the big show comes on. One never knows.
In all this undercurrent of conjecture Alleyn, little as he heeded it, played a star part. His was as popular a name as that of the learned pathologist, or the famous counsel who would be briefed if Alleyn did his bit and produced an accused to stand trial. Chief Inspector Alleyn himself, as he assembled the bare bones of the case before the coroner, glanced once round the court and thought vaguely: “All the harpies, as usual.”