“On the charge of receiving prohibited drugs.”
“You can’t prove it.”
“Will you risk that?”
“Yes.”
“Do you hold to your statement that you did not go to the House of the Sacred Flame on Sunday afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“Are you protecting yourself — or someone else?”
Silence.
“Mr. Pringle,” said Alleyn gently, “if you are placed under arrest what will you do about your heroin then?”
“Damn your eyes!” said Maurice.
“I am now going to search your flat. Here is my warrant. Unless, of course, you prefer to show me how much dope you have on the premises?”
Maurice stared at him in silence. Suddenly his face twisted like a miserable child’s.
“Why can’t you leave me alone? I only want to be left alone! I’m not interfering with anyone else. It doesn’t matter to anyone else what I do.”
“Not to Miss Jenkins?” asked Alleyn.
“Oh, God, they haven’t sent you here to preach, have they?”
“Look here,” said Alleyn, “you won’t believe me, but I don’t particularly want to search your flat or to arrest you. I came here hoping that you’d give me a certain amount of help. You went to Knocklatchers Row on Sunday afternoon. I think you went into Garnette’s rooms. There you must either have overheard a discussion between Miss Quayne and another individual, or had a discussion with her yourself. For some reason you kept all this a secret. From our point of view that looks remarkably fishy. We must know what happened in Garnette’s rooms between two-thirty and three on Sunday afternoon. If you persist in your refusal I shall arrest you on a minor charge, and I warn you that you’ll be in a very unpleasant position.”
“What do you want to know?”
“To whom did Miss Quayne say: ‘I shall tell Father Garnette what you have done?’ ”
“You know she said that?”
“Yes. Was it to you?”
“No.”
“Was it to M. de Ravigne?”
“I won’t tell you. It wasn’t to me.”
“Had you gone there to get heroin?”
“I won’t tell you.”
Alleyn walked over to the window and looked down into the street.
“Does Mr. Garnette supply you with heroin?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Maurice suddenly. “Garnette didn’t kill Cara Quayne.”
“How do you know that, Mr. Pringle?”
“Never you mind. I do know.”
“I am afraid that sort of statement would not be welcomed by learned counsel on either side.”
“It’s all you’ll get from me.”
“—and if you happened to be in the dock, the information would be superfluous.”
“I didn’t kill her. You can’t arrest me for that. I tell you before God I didn’t kill her.”
“You may be an accessory before the fact. I’m not bluffing. Mr. Pringle. For the last time will you tell me who supplies you with heroin?”
“No.”
“Oh, come in, you two,” said Alleyn disgustedly.
Bailey and Watkins came in, their hats in their hands. Alleyn was rather particular on points of etiquette.
“Just look around, will you,” he said.
The look-round consisted of a very painstaking search of the flat. It lasted for an hour, but in the first ten minutes they found a little white packet that Alleyn commandeered. No written matter of any importance was discovered. A hypodermic syringe was their second find. Alleyn himself took six cigarettes and added them to the collection. Throughout the search Maurice remained seated by the electric radiator. He smoked continually,and maintained a sulky silence. Alleyn looked at him occasionally with something like pity in his eyes.
When it was all over he sent the two Yard men out into the landing, walked over to where Maurice sat by the heater, and stood there looking down at him.
“I’m going to tell you what I think is at the back of your obstinacy,” he said. “I wish I could say I thought you were doing the stupid but noble protection game. I don’t believe you are. Very few people go in for that sort of heroism. I think self, self-indulgence if you like, is at the back of your stupid and very churlish behaviour. I’m going to make a guess, a reprehensible thing for any criminal investigator to do. I guess that on Sunday afternoon you went to Garnette’s flat to get the packet of heroin we found in your boot-box. I think that Garnette is a receiver and disperser of such drugs, and that you knew he had this packet in his bedroom. I think you went in at the back door, through into the bedroom. While you were there someone came into the sitting-room from the hall. You were not sure who this person was, so you kept quiet, not moving for fear they should hear you and look in at the connecting door. While you stood still, listening, this unknown person came quite close to the door. You heard a faint metallic click and you knew the key had been turned in the lock of the safe. Then there was an interruption. Someone else had come into the sitting room. It was Cara Quayne. There followed a dialogue between Cara Quayne and the other person. I shall emulate the thrilling example of learned Counsel and call this other person X. Cara Quayne began to make things very awkward for X. She wanted to know about her bonds. I think perhaps she wanted to add to them on the occasion of her initiation as Chosen Vessel. It was all very difficult because the bonds were not there. X tried a line of pacifying reasonable talk, but she wasn’t having any. She was very excited and most upset. X had a certain amount of difficulty in keeping her quiet. At last she said loudly: ‘I shall tell Father Garnette what you have done,’ and a second later you heard the rattle of curtain rings and the slam of the outer door. She had gone. Now your actions after this are not perfectly clear to me. What I think, however, is this: You behaved in rather a curious manner. You did not go in to the sitting room, strike an attitude in the doorway, and say: ‘X, all is discovered,’ or: ‘X, X, can I believe my ears?’ No. You tiptoed out of the bedroom and through the back door which you did not lock and which remained unlocked all through the evening. Then you scuttled back here and proceeded to make a beast of yourself with the contents of the little white packet. Now why did you do this? Either because X was a person who had a very strong hold of some sort over you, or else because X was someone to whom you were deeply attached. There is of course, a third — damn it, why can’t one say a third alternative? — a third explanation. You may have drugged yourself into such a pitiable condition that you hadn’t the nerve to tackle a white louse, much less X.”
“God!” said Maurice Pringle. “I’ll tackle you if there’s much more of this.”
“There’s very little more. You asked me to be brief. You had to take Miss Jenkins into your confidence over this because you wanted her to tell us you’d been in her flat all the afternoon. Now if you refuse to tell me who X is you’re going to force me to do something very nasty about Miss Jenkins. She’s a secondary accessory after the fact. With you, of course. You’re going to force me to arrest you on the dope game. If you persist in your silence after your arrest you will be the direct cause of fixing the suspicion of homicide on the man who you say is innocent. There will be no more heroin. I should imagine your condition is pathological. You should go into a home and be scientifically treated. How you’ll stand up to being under lock and key in a police station is best known to yourself. Well, there you are. Is it to be a wholesale sacrifice of yourself, Miss Jenkins and — possibly — an innocent person? Or are you going to clear away the sacrificial smoke at present obscuring the features of Mr. Or Madam X?”
Alleyn stopped abruptly, made a curious self-deprecatory grimace, and lit a cigarette. In the silence that followed, Maurice stared at him piteously. His fingers trembled on the arms of the chair. He seemed scarcely to think- Suddenly his face twisted and with the shamefaced abandon of a small boy he turned and buried his eyes in the cushions.