“I don’t think,” Alleyn said, “that Miss Ancred quite explained why we are here. It’s at Mr. Thomas Ancred’s suggestion. He wants us to make fuller inquiries into the cause of Sir Henry’s death.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Some of his family believe that the diagnosis was too hastily given.”
“Quite so, sir.”
“Had you any such misgivings yourself?”,
Barker closed and unclosed his hands. “I can’t say I had, sir. Not at first.”
“Not at first?”
“Knowing what he took to eat and drink at dinner, sir, and the way he was worked up, and had been over and over again. Dr. Withers had warned him of it, sir.”
“But later? After the funeral? And now?”
“I really can’t say, sir. What with Mrs. Kentish and Mrs. Henry and Miss Desdemona asking me over and over again about a certain missing article and what with us all being very put about in the servants’ hall, I can’t really say.”
“A tin of rat-bane was the missing article?”
“Yes, sir. I understand they’ve found it now.”
“And the question they want settled is whether it was an opened or unopened tin before it was lost. Is that it?”
“I understand that’s it, sir. But we’ve had that stuff on the premises these last ten years and more. Two tins there were, sir, in one of the outside store-rooms and there was one opened and used up and thrown out. That I do know. About this one that’s turned up, I can’t say. Mrs. Henry Ancred recollects, sir, that it was there about a year ago, unopened, and Mrs. Bullivant, the cook, says it’s been partly used since then, and Mrs. Henry doesn’t fancy so, and that’s all I can say, sir.”
“Do you know if rat poison has ever been used in Miss Orrincourt’s room?”
Barker’s manner became glazed with displeasure.
“Never to my knowledge, sir,” he said.
“Are there no rats there?”
“The lady in question complained of them, I understand, to one of the housemaids, who set traps and caught several. I believe the lady said she didn’t fancy the idea of poison, and for that reason it was not employed.”
“I see. Now, Barker, if you will, I should like you to tell me exactly what this room looked like when you entered it on the morning after Sir Henry’s death.”
Barker’s sunken hand moved to his lips and covered their trembling. A film of tears spread over his eyes.
“I know it’s distressing for you,” Alleyn said, “and I’m sorry. Sit down. No, please sit down.”
Barker stooped his head a little and sat on the only high chair in the room.
“I’m sure,” Alleyn said, “that if there was anything gravely amiss you’d want to see it remedied.”
Barker seemed to struggle between his professional reticence and his personal distress. Finally, in a sudden flood of garrulity, he produced the classical reaction: “I wouldn’t want to see this house mixed up in anything scandalous, sir. My father was butler here to the former baronet, Sir Henry’s second cousin — Sir William Ancred, that was — I was knife-boy and then footman under him. He was not,” said Barker, “anything to do with theatricals, sir, the old gentleman wasn’t. This would have been a great blow to him.”
“You mean the manner of Sir Henry’s death?”
“I mean”—Barker tightened his unsteady lips—“I mean the way things were conducted lately.”
“Miss Orrincourt?”
“T’uh!” said Barker, and thus established his life-long service to the Ancreds.
“Look here,” Alleyn said suddenly, “do you know what the family have got into their heads about this business?”
There was a long pause before the old voice whispered: “I don’t like to think. I don’t encourage gossip below stairs, sir, and I don’t take part in it myself.”
“Well,” Alleyn suggested, “suppose you tell me about this room.”
It was, after all, only a slow enlargement of what he had already heard. The darkened room, the figure hunched on the bed, “as if,” Barker said fearfully, “he’d been trying to crawl down to the floor,” the stench and disorder and the broken bell-cord.
“Where was the end?” Alleyn asked. “The bell-push itself?”
“In his hand, sir. Tight clenched round it, his hand was. We didn’t discover it at first.”
“Have you still got it?”
“It’s in his dressing-table drawer, sir. I put it there, meaning to get it mended.”
“Did you unscrew it or examine it in any way?”
“Oh, no, sir. No. I just put it away and disconnected the circuit on the board.”
“Right! And now, Barker, about the night before, when Sir Henry went to bed. Did you see anything of him?”
“Oh, yes, indeed, sir. He rang for me as usual. It was midnight when the bell went, and I came up to his room. I’d valeted him, sir, since his own man left.”
“Did he ring his room bell?”
“No, sir. He always rang the bell in the hall as he went through. By the time he reached his room, you see, I had gone up the servants’ stairs and was waiting for him.”
“How did he seem?”
“Terrible. In one of his tantrums and talking very wild and angry.”
“Against his family?”
“Very hot against them.”
“Go on.”
“I got him into his pyjamas and gown and him raging all the while and troubled with his indigestion pain as well. I put out the medicine he took for it. He said he wouldn’t take it just then so I left the bottle and glass by his bed. I was offering to help him into bed when he says he must see Mr. Rattisbon. He’s the family solicitor, sir, and always comes to us for The Birthday. Well, sir, I tried to put Sir Henry off, seeing he was tired and upset, but he wouldn’t hear of it. When I took him by the arm he got quite violent. I was alarmed and tried to hold him but he broke away.”
Alleyn had a sudden vision of the two old men struggling together in this grandiose bedroom.
“Seeing there was nothing for it,” Barker went on, “I did as he ordered, and took Mr. Rattisbon up to his room. He called me back and told me to find the two extra helps we always get in for The Birthday. A Mr. and Mrs. Candy, sir, formerly on the staff here and now in a small business in the village. I understood from what Sir Henry said that he wished them to witness his Will. I showed them up, and he then told me to inform Miss Orrincourt that he would be ready for his hot drink in half an hour. He said he would not require me again. So I left him.”
“And went to give this message?”
“After I had switched over the mechanism of his bell, sir, so that if he required anything in the night it would sound in the passage outside Mrs. Henry’s door. It has been specially arranged like this, in case of an emergency, and, of course, sir, it must have broke off in his hand before it sounded, because even if Mrs. Henry had slept through it, Miss Dessy was sharing her room and must have heard. Miss Dessy sleeps very light, I understand.”
“Isn’t it strange that he didn’t call out?”
“He wouldn’t be heard, sir. The walls in this part of the house are very thick, being part of the original outer walls. The previous baronet, sir, added this wing to Ancreton.”
“I see. At this time where was Miss Orrincourt?”
“She had left the company, sir. They had all moved into the drawing-room.”
“All of them?”
“Yes, sir. Except her and Mr. Rattisbon. And Mrs. Alleyn, who was a guest. They were all there. Mrs. Kentish said the young lady had gone to her room and that’s where I found her. Mr. Rattisbon was in the hall.”