Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 2: Death in Ecstasy, Vintage Murder, Artists in Crime. Ngaio Marsh
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you handle it?’
‘I – I – just glanced at it.’
‘You touched it. You’re sure of that?’
‘Yes, I am. Because I remember I had my gloves on. The ones I do the polishing in. I like to keep my hands nice. I wondered if they’d marked it. Then I put it away and – and I read something else, you see.’
‘Petronius, perhaps.’
‘Yes, it was. I thought it marvellous.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I don’t understand,’ began Miss Wade.
‘Nor do I,’ interrupted Mrs Candour. ‘Why is such a fuss being made about this book?’
‘It’s a treatise on poisons,’ said Maurice. ‘Cara was poisoned. Find the owner of the book and there’s your murderer. Q.E.D. Our wonderful police!’
‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Mr Ogden with a curious inflection in his voice, ‘that it’s not just as simple as all that.’
‘Really?’ jeered Maurice. ‘You seem to know a damn’ sight too much to be healthy.’
‘Maurice, please!’ said Janey.
‘Oh, God, I’m sorry, Jane.’
‘The interesting thing about the book,’ said Alleyn in his quietest voice, ‘is that if you handle it as Mr Garnette did, it falls open at a discourse on cyanide.’ He took the book and handed it to de Ravigne. ‘Like to try?’ he asked.
De Ravigne took the book, but he must have handled it differently. It fell open at another place. He examined it closely, a curiously puzzled expression in his eyes.
‘Let me see,’ said Lionel. ‘Do, please.’ With him the experiment worked successfully.
‘How too marvallous!’ said Claude.
‘Here,’ shouted Mr Ogden suddenly, ‘lemme see.’
Lionel handed him the book and he experimented with it while they all watched him. The book fell open repeatedly and each time at the same page
‘Well, for crying out loud!’ said Mr Ogden, and slammed it down on the table.
‘Now,’ Alleyn went on, ‘there’s one more exhibit. This box of cigarettes. Yours, isn’t it, Mr Garnette?’ He laid the Benares Box on the table.
‘Ah, yes.’
‘Will you open it?’
‘Is this a sleight of hand act?’ asked Maurice Pringle. ‘No deception practised.’
‘None, on my part,’ replied Alleyn good-humouredly, ‘as I think you will agree, Mr Garnette.’
Garnette had opened the box. Cara Quayne’s note lay on the top of the cigarettes.
‘What is this?’ asked Garnette. And then: ‘My God, it’s her writing.’
‘Will you read it aloud?’
Garnette read slowly. The habit of the pulpit was so strong in him that he pitched his voice and read deliberately with round vowels and stressed final consonants.
‘Must see you. Terrible discovery. After service tonight.’
He put the paper down on the table and again looked at Alleyn. His lips twitched, but he did not speak. He moved his hands uncertainly. He looked neither guilty nor innocent but simply puzzled.
‘Where did this come from?’ he said at last.
‘It was found last night in that box,’ Alleyn said.
‘But – I did not know. I did not see it there.’
‘Does anyone,’ asked Alleyn, ‘know anything of this note?’ Nobody spoke.
‘Had Miss Quayne spoken to any of you of this terrible discovery she had made?’
‘When was it written?’ asked Maurice suddenly.
‘Yesterday.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because it is dated,’ answered Alleyn politely.
‘Oh, Maurice, my poor pet!’ said Janey, and for the first time that morning somebody laughed.
‘Shut up!’ exclaimed Maurice.
‘You did not open this box yesterday, Mr Garnette?’ Alleyn went on.
‘No.’
‘When did Miss Quayne call?’
‘I do not know. I did not see her. I was out from midday until about three o’clock.’
‘Where were you?’
‘Father Garnette was my guest at luncheon,’ said de Ravigne. ‘I had invited Cara also, but she desired, she said, to spend the day in meditation in her own house.’
‘She changed her mind, it seems. How would she get in here?’
‘The key to the front door of the church is always left in the porch, monsieur. It is concealed behind the torch there. We all use it.’
‘Did any of you come here yesterday between two-thirty and three o’clock while Miss Quayne was in the hall?’
No one had come, it seemed. Alleyn asked them all in turn where they had been. Maurice had lunched with Janey in her flat and had stayed there till four. Mrs Candour had been at home for lunch, and so had Miss Wade. Miss Wade to everybody’s surprise said she had been in the hall when Cara went through and into Garnette’s flat. Miss Wade had been engaged in a little meditation, it appeared. She had seen Cara come out again and had thought she seemed ‘rather put out.’
‘Why did you say nothing of this before?’ asked Alleyn.
‘Because you did not ask me, officer,’ said Miss Wade.
‘Touché,’ said Alleyn, and turned to the others.
Mr Ogden had lunched at his club and afterwards taken a ‘carnstitootional’ in the park, arriving home at tea-time. Garnette and de Ravigne had remained in the latter’s house until two-forty, when de Ravigne had asked Garnette the time in order to set his clock right. About ten minutes later, Garnette left. He had a Neophytes’ class at three-thirty, and it seemed that two selected advanced Neophytes always stayed on for what Father Garnette called a little repast in his flat, and then went to the evening instruction. This was a regular routine. That would account, Nigel reflected, for Cara Quayne leaving the note in the cigarette-box. Whatever her terrible discovery was, she would know she had no chance of a private conversation before the evening ceremony. After he left de Ravigne’s house Father Garnette had gone straight to the hall. There he found one or two people who had come in early for the ceremony. He had not looked at the safe, but he felt sure he would have noticed if it had been open. De Ravigne lived in Lowndes Square, so it would not have taken many minutes for the priest to walk back to Knocklatchers Row. He probably arrived at about three o’clock. De Ravigne said he had remained at home until it was time to go to the evening ceremony. Claude and Lionel it transpired, had not got up until half-past three in the afternoon.
‘Ah, well,’ said Alleyn, with the ghost of a sigh, ‘I shall not keep you here any longer, ladies and gentlemen. The meeting is adjourned.’
One by one the Initiates got to their feet. Garnette remained seated at the table, his face buried in his hands. Evidently most of them felt desperately uncomfortable at the thought of Father Garnette. They eyed him surreptitiously and made uneasy noises in their throats. Ogden still glared at him and, alone of the Initiates, seemed disinclined to leave. M. de Ravigne clicked his heels, made a formal bow which included Alleyn and Garnette, said ‘Gentlemen’; made a rather more willowy bow, said ‘Ladies,’ and walked out with an air of knowing how to