“And Dessy,” Paul continued, “said that to her certain knowledge Milly and Pauline were holding back some tins of whitebait.”
“Everybody began talking at once, and Sonia said: ‘Pardon me, but how does the chorus go?’ Cedric tittered and got up and wandered to the sideboard.”
“And this is our point, sir,” Paul cut in with determination. “The cheese was found by my cousin Cedric. He went to the sideboard and came back with a book, and dropped it over my mother’s shoulder on to her plate. It gave her a shock as you can imagine.”
“She gave a screech and fainted, actually,” Fenella added.
“My Mama,” said Paul unhappily, “was a bit wrought up by the funeral and so on. She really fainted, Aunt Jen.”
“My dear boy, I’m sure she did.”
“It gave her a fright.”
“Naturally,” Alleyn murmured, “books on embalming don’t fall out of cheese-dishes every day in the week.”
“We’d all,” Paul went on, “just about had Cedric. Nobody paid any attention to the book itself. We merely suggested that it wasn’t amazingly funny to frighten people, and that anyway he stank.”
“I was watching Cedric, then,” Fenella said. “There was something queer about him. He never took his eyes off Sonia. And then, just as we were all herding Aunt Pauline out of the room, he gave one of his yelps and said he’d remembered something in the book. He ran to the door and began reading out of it about arsenic.”
“And then somebody remembered that Sonia had been seen looking at the book.”
“And I’ll swear,” Fenella cut in, “she didn’t know what he was driving at. I don’t believe she ever really understood. Aunt Dessy did her stuff and wailed and said: ‘No, no, don’t go on! I can’t bear it!’ and Cedric purred: ‘But, Dessy, my sweet, what have I said? Why shouldn’t darling Sonia read about her fiancé’s coming embalment?’ and Sonia burst into tears and said we were all plotting against her and rushed out of the room.”
“The point is, sir, if Cedric hadn’t behaved as he did, nobody would have thought of connecting the book with the suggestion in the letters. You see?”
Alleyn said: “It’s a point.”
“There’s something else,” Paul added, again with that tinge of satisfaction in his voice. “Why did Cedric look in the cheese-dish?”
“Presumably because he wanted some cheese?”
“No!” Paul said triumphantly. “That’s just where we’ve got him, sir. He never touches cheese. He detests it.”
“So you see,” said Fenella.
ii
When Alleyn left, Paul showed him into the hall, and, after some hesitation, asked if he might walk with him a little way. They went together, head-down against a blustering wind, along Cheyne Walk. Ragged clouds scurried across the sky, and the sounds of river traffic were blown intermittently against their chilled ears. Paul, using his stick, limped along at a round pace, and for some minutes in silence.
At last he said: “I suppose it’s true that you can’t escape your heredity.” And as Alleyn turned his head to look at him, he went on slowly: “I meant to tell you that story quite differently. Without any build-up. Fen did, too. But somehow when we got going something happened to us. Perhaps it was Aunt Jen’s opposition. Or perhaps when there’s anything like a crisis we can’t escape a sense of audience. I heard myself doing the same sort of thing over there.” He jerked his head vaguely towards the east. “The gay young officer rallying his men. It went down quite well with them, too, but it makes me feel pretty hot under the collar when I think about it now. And about the way we strutted our stuff back there at Aunt Jen’s.”
“You made your points very neatly,” said Alleyn.
“A damn’ sight too neatly.” Paul rejoined, grimly. “That’s why I did think I’d like to try and say without any flourishes that we do honestly believe that all this stuff about poison has simply been concocted by Cedric to try and upset the Will. And we think it would be a pretty poor show to let him get away with it. On all counts.”
Alleyn didn’t reply immediately, and Paul said, nervously: “I suppose it’d be quite out of order for me to ask whether you think we’re right.”
“Ethically,” said Alleyn, “yes. But I don’t think you realised the implications. Your aunt did.”
“I know, Aunt Jen’s very fastidious. It’s the dirty linen in public that she hates.”
“And with reason,” said Alleyn.
“Well, we’ll all have to lump it. But what I meant really was, were we right in our deductions?”
“I ought to return an official and ambiguous answer to that,” Alleyn said. “But I won’t. I may be wrong, but on the evidence that we’ve got up to date I should say your deductions were ingenious and almost entirely wrong.”
A sharp gust carried away the sound of his voice.
“What?” said Paul, distantly and without emphasis. “I didn’t quite hear—”
“Wrong,” Alleyn repeated, strongly. “As far as I can judge, you know, quite wrong.”
Paul stopped short, and, dipping his head to meet the wind, stared at Alleyn with an expression not of dismay, but of doubt, as if he still thought he must have misunderstood.
“But I don’t see… we thought… it all hangs together—”
“As an isolated group of facts, perhaps it does.”
They resumed their walk, and Alleyn heard him say fretfully: “I wish you’d explain.” And after another pause he peered rather anxiously at Alleyn. “Perhaps it wouldn’t do, though,” he added.
Alleyn thought for a moment, and then, taking Paul by the elbow, steered him into the shelter of a side street. “We can’t go on bawling at each other in a gale,” he said, “but I don’t see that it can do any harm to explain this much. It’s quite possible that if all this dust had not been raised after your grandfather’s death, Miss Orrincourt might still have become Lady Ancred.”
Paul’s jaw dropped. “I don’t get that.”
“You don’t?”
“Good God,” Paul roared out suddenly, “you can’t mean Cedric?”
“Sir Cedric,” said Alleyn, dryly, “is my authority. He tells me he has seriously considered marrying her.”
After a long silence Paul said slowly: “They’re as thick as thieves, of course. But I never guessed… No, it’d be too much… I’m sorry, sir, but you’re sure—?”
“Unless he invented the story.”
“To cover up his tracks,” said Paul instantly.
“Extremely elaborate and she could deny it. As a matter of fact her manner suggested some sort of understanding between them.”
Paul raised his clasped hands to his mouth and thoughtfully blew into them. “Suppose,” he said, “he suspected her, and wanted to make sure?”
“That would be an entirely different story.”
“Is that your theory, sir?”
“Theory?” Alleyn repeated vaguely. “I haven’t got a theory. I haven’t sorted things out. Mustn’t keep you standing here in the cold.” He held out his hand. Paul’s was like ice. “Good-bye,” said Alleyn.
“One minute, sir. Will you tell me this? I give you my word it’ll go no further. Was my grandfather murdered?”
“Oh, yes,” said Alleyn. “Yes. I’m afraid we may be sure of that. He was murdered.” He walked down the street, leaving Paul, still blowing on his frozen knuckles, to stare after him.
iii
The canvas walls were faintly luminous, They were laced to their poles with ropes and glowed in the darkness. Blobs of light from hurricane lanterns suspended within formed a globular pattern across the surface. One of these lanterns must have been touching the wall, for the village constable on duty outside could clearly make out shadows of wire and the precise source of light.