“Might she be all that keen on the present baronet?”
“Not she,” said Alleyn. “Not she.”
“Hard to imagine, I must say. Suppose, though, that Miss O. is not the party we’ll be after, and suppose we know the old gentleman was done away with. Who’s left? Not Sir Cedric, because he knew about the second Will.”
“Unless,” said Alleyn, “he gambled on marrying the heiress.”
“By gum, yes, there’s that, but what a gamble! With that fortune she could have hoped for better, wouldn’t you say?”
“She could hardly hope for worse, in my opinion.”
“Well, then,” Fox reasoned, “suppose we count those two out. Look at the rest of the field.”
“I do so without enthusiasm. They all thought the Will announced at the Birthday Dinner was valid. Desdemona, Millamant, Dr. Withers and the servants expected to do moderately well; Thomas’s expectations were handsome. The Kentish family and the Claude Ancreds got damn all. In the ‘haves’ the only motive is cupidity, in the ‘have-nots,’ revenge.”
“Opportunity?” Fox speculated.
“If an analysis of the medicine bottle proves negative, we’re left with the Thermos flask, now sterilised, and as far as we can see, Miss O. Unless you entertain a notion of delayed action with Barker inserting arsenic in the crayfish.”
“You will have your joke, Mr. Alleyn.”
“You should have heard me trifling with Miss Able,” Alleyn grunted. “That was pretty ghastly, if you like.”
“And the exhumation’s on” Fox ruminated after another long silence. “When?”
“As soon as we’ve got the order and Dr. Curtis can manage it. By the way, Ancreton Church is above the village over there. We’ll have a look at the churchyard while the light still holds.”
And presently they climbed a gentle lane, now deep in shadow, and pushed open a lych-gate into the churchyard of St. Stephen’s, Ancreton.
It was pleasant after the dubious grandeurs of the manor house to encircle this church, tranquil, ancient, and steadfastly built. Their feet crunched loudly on the gravelled path, and from the hedges came a faint stir of sleepy birds. The grass was well kept. When they came upon a quiet company of headstones and crosses they found that the mounds and plots before them were also carefully tended. It was possible in the fading light to read inscriptions. “Susan Gascoigne of this parish. Here rests one who in her life rested not in well-doing.”
“To the Memory of Miles Chitty Bream who for fifty years tended this churchyard and now sleeps with those he faithfully served.” Presently they came upon Ancred graves. “Henry Gaisbrook Ancreton Ancred, fourth baronet, and Margaret Mirabel, his wife.”
“Percival Gaisbrook Ancred,” and many others, decently and properly bestowed. But such plain harbourage was not for the later generations, and towering over this sober company of stone rose a marble tomb topped by three angels. Here, immortalized in gold inscriptions, rested Sir Henry’s predecessor, his wife, his son Henry Irving Ancred, and himself. The tomb, Alleyn read, had been erected by Sir Henry. It had a teak and iron door, emblazoned in the Ancred arms, and with a great keyhole.
“It’ll be one of these affairs with shelves,” Fox speculated. “Not room enough for the doctor, and no light. It’ll have to be a canvas enclosure, don’t you reckon, Mr. Alleyn?”
“Yes.”
The lid of Fox’s large silver watch clicked. “It’s five o’clock, sir,” he said. “Time we moved on if you’re to have tea at the pub and catch that train.”
“Come along, then,” said Alleyn quietly, and they retraced their steps to the village.
CHAPTER XV
New System
i
As Troy waited for Alleyn’s return her thoughts moved back through the brief period of their reunion. She examined one event, then another; a phrase, a gesture, an emotion. She was astonished by the simplicity of her happiness; amused to find herself expectant, even a little sleek. She was desired, she was loved, and she loved again. That there were hazards ahead she made no doubt, but for the moment all was well; she could relax and find a perspective.
Yet, like a rough strand in the texture of her happiness, there was an imperfection. Her thoughts, questing fingers, continually and reluctantly sought it out. This was Alleyn’s refusal to allow his work a place in their relationship. It was founded, she knew, in her own attitude during their earliest encounters which had taken place against a terrible background; in her shrinking from the part he played at that time and in her expressed horror of capital punishment.
Troy knew very well that Alleyn accepted these reactions as fundamental and implicit in her nature. She knew he did not believe that for her, in love, an ethic unrelated to that love could not impede it. It seemed to him that if his work occasionally brought murderers to execution, then surely, to her, he must at those times be of the same company as the hangman. Only by some miracle of love, he thought, did she overcome her repulsion.
But the bald truth, she told herself helplessly, was that her ideas were remote from her emotions. “I’m less sensitive than he thinks,” she said. “What he does is of no importance. I love him.” And although she disliked such generalities, she added: “I am a woman.”
It seemed to her that while this withdrawal existed they could not be completely happy. “Perhaps,” she thought, “this business with the Ancreds will, after all, change everything. Perhaps it’s a kind of beastly object lesson. I’m in it. He can’t keep me out. I’m in on a homicide case.” And with a sensation of panic she realized that she had been taking it for granted that the old man she had painted was murdered.
As soon as Alleyn came in and stood before her she knew that she had made no mistake. “Well, Rory,” she said, going to him, “we’re for it, aren’t we, darling?”
“It looks a bit like it.” He walked past her, saying quickly: “I’ll see the A.C. in the morning. He’ll let me hand over to someone else. Much better.”
“No,” Troy said, and he turned quickly and looked at her. She was aware, as if she had never before fully appreciated it, of the difference in their heights. She thought: “That’s how he looks when he’s taking statements,” and became nervous.
“No?” he said. “Why not?”
“Because it would be high-falutin, because it would make me feel an ass.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I look upon this case,” Troy said, and wished her voice would sound more normal, “as a sort of test. Perhaps it’s been sent to larn us like acts-of-God; only I must say I always think it’s so unfair to call earthquakes and tidal-waves acts-of-God and not bumper harvests and people like Leonardo and Cézanne.”
“What the devil,” Alleyn asked in a mild voice, “are you talking about?”
“Don’t snap at me,” said Troy. He made a quick movement towards her. “No. Please listen. I want, I really do want you to take this case as long as the A.C. lets you. I really want you to keep me with you this time. We’ve got in a muddle about me and your job. When I say I don’t mind your job you think I’m not telling the truth, and if I ask you questions about these kinds of cases you think I’m being a brave little woman and biting on the bullet.”
She saw his mouth twist in an involuntary smile.
“Whereas,” she hurried on, “I’m not. I know I didn’t relish having our courtship all muddled up with murder on the premises, and I know I don’t think people ought to hang other people. But you do, and you’re the policeman, not me. And it doesn’t do any good trying to pretend you’re dodging out to pinch a petty larcener when I know jolly well what you are up to, and, to be perfectly honest, am often dying to hear about it.”