At last he said: “You’ve guessed, of course, why I wanted you to let me come?”
“Thomas came in last night and told me he’d seen you and that you’d gone down to Ancreton. This is an extremely unpleasant development, isn’t it?”
“I’d very much like to hear your views.”
“Mine?” she said, with an air of distaste. “They can’t possibly be of the smallest help, I’m afraid. I’m always a complete onlooker at Ancreton. And please don’t tell me the onlooker sees most of the game. In this instance she sees as little as possible.”
“Well,” said Alleyn cheerfully, “what does she think?”
She waited for a moment, looking past him to the great window. “I think,” she murmured, “that it’s almost certain to be a tarradiddle. The whole story.”
“Convince us of that,” Alleyn said, “and we’re your slaves for ever in the C.I.D.”
“No, but really. They’re so absurd, you know, my in-laws. I’m very attracted to them, but you can’t imagine how absurd they can be.” Her voice died away. After a moment’s reflection she said: “But Mrs. Alleyn saw them. She must have told you.”
“A little.”
“At one time it was fifth columnists. Pauline suspected such a nice little Austrian doctor who’s since taken a very important job at a big clinic. At that time he was helping with the children. She said something told her. And then it was poor Miss Able who was supposed to be undermining her influence with Panty. I wonder if, having left the stage, Pauline’s obliged to find some channel for her histrionic instincts. They all do it. Naturally, they resented Miss Orrincourt, and resentment and suspicion are inseparable with the Ancreds.”
“What did you think of Miss Orrincourt?”
“I? She’s too lovely, isn’t she? In her way, quite flawless.”
“Apart from her beauty?”
“There didn’t seem to be anything else. Except a very robust vulgarity.”
“But does she really think as objectively as all that?” Alleyn wondered. “Her daughter stood to lose a good deal through Sonia Orrincourt. Could she have achieved such complete detachment?” He said: “You were there, weren’t you, when the book on embalming appeared in the cheese-dish?”
She made a slight grimace. “Oh, yes.”
“Have you any idea who could have put it there?”
“I’m afraid I rather suspected Cedric. Though why… For no reason except that I can’t believe any of the others would do it. It was quite horrible.”
“And the anonymous letters?”
“I feel it must have been the same person. I can’t imagine how any of the Ancreds — After all they’re not — However.”
She had a trick of letting her voice fade out as if she had lost faith in the virtue of her sentences. Alleyn felt that she pushed the suggestion of murder away from her, with both hands, not so much for its dreadfulness as for its offence against taste.
“You think, then,” he said, “that their suspicion of Miss Orrincourt is unfounded and that Sir Henry died naturally?”
“That’s it. I’m quite sure it’s all a make-up. They think it’s true. They’ve just got one of their ‘things’ about it.”
“That explanation doesn’t quite cover the discovery of a tin of rat-bane in her suitcase, does it?”
“Then there must be some other explanation.”
“The only one that occurs to me,” Alleyn said, “is that the tin was deliberately planted, and if you accept that you accept something equally serious: an attempt to place suspicion of murder upon an innocent person. That in itself constitutes—”
“No, no,” she cried out. “No, you don’t understand the Ancreds. They plunge into fantasies of their own making, without thinking of the consequences. This wretched tin must have been put in the suitcase by a maid or have got there by some other freakish accident. It may have been in the attic for years. None of their alarms ever means anything. Mr. Alleyn, may I implore you to dismiss the whole thing as nonsense? Dangerous and idiotic nonsense, but, believe me, utter nonsense.”
She had leant forward, and her hands were pressed together. There was a vehemence and an intensity in her manner that had not appeared before.
“If it’s nonsense,” he said, “it’s malevolent nonsense.”
“Stupid,” she insisted, “spiteful, too, perhaps, but only childishly so.”
“I shall be very glad if it turns out to be no more.”
“Yes, but you don’t think it will.”
“I’m wide open to conviction,” he said lightly.
“If I could convince you!”
“You can at least help by filling in some of the gaps. For instance, can you tell me anything about the party in the drawing-room when you all returned from the little theatre? What happened?”
Instead of answering him directly she said, with a return to her earlier manner, “Please forgive me for being so insistent. It’s silly to try and ram one’s convictions down other people’s throats. They merely feel that one protests too much. But, you see, I know my Ancreds.”
“And I’m learning mine. About the aftermath of the Birthday Party?”
“Well, two of our visitors, the rector and a local squire, said good night in the hall. Very thankfully, poor darlings, I’m sure. Miss Orrincourt had already gone up. Mrs. Alleyn had stayed behind in the theatre with Paul and Fenella. The rest of us went into the drawing-room and there the usual family arguments started, this time on the subject of that abominable disfigurement of the portrait. Paul and Fenella came in and told us that no damage had been done. Naturally, they were very angry. I may tell you that my daughter, who has not quite grown out of the hero-worship state-of-affairs, admires your wife enormously. These two children planned what they fondly imagined to be a piece of detective work. Did Mrs. Alleyn tell you?”
Troy had told Alleyn, but he listened again to the tale of the paint-brush and finger-prints. She dwelt at some length on this, inviting his laughter, making, he thought, a little too much of a slight incident. When he asked her for further details of the discussion in the drawing-room she became vague. They had talked about Sir Henry’s fury, about his indiscretions at dinner. Mr. Rattisbon had been sent for by Sir Henry. “It was just one more of the interminable emotional parties,” she said. “Everyone, except Cedric and Milly, terrifically hurt and grand because of the Will he told us about at dinner.”
“Every one? Your daughter and Mr. Paul Ancred too?”
She said much too lightly: “My poor Fen does go in a little for the Ancred temperament, but not, I’m glad to say, to excess. Paul, thank goodness, seems to have escaped it, which is such a very good thing, as it appears he’s to be my son-in-law.”
“Would you say that during this discussion any of them displayed singular vindictiveness against Miss Orrincourt?”
“They were all perfectly livid about her. Except Cedric. But they’re lividly angry with somebody or another a dozen times a month. It means nothing.”
“Mrs. Ancred,” Alleyn said, “if you’ve been suddenly done out of a very pretty fortune your anger isn’t altogether meaningless. You yourself must surely have resented a little your daughter’s position.”
“No,” she said quickly. “I knew, as soon as she told me of her engagement to Paul, that her grandfather would disapprove, Marriage between cousins was one of his bugbears. I knew he’d take it out of them both. He was a vindictive old man. And Fen hadn’t bothered to hide her dislike of Miss Orrincourt. She’d said…” She stopped short. He saw her hands move convulsively.