Dead Water (15 page)

It was now two o’clock.

The Major, it presently transpired, was in the habit of taking a siesta.

‘He got used to it in India,’ Mrs Barrimore said. ‘People do.’

Alleyn had run into her at the door of the old pub. She was perfectly composed and remote in her manner: a beautiful woman who could not, he thought, ever be completely unaware of the effect
she made. It was inescapable. She must, over and over again, have seen it reflected in the eyes of men who looked at, and at once recognized, her. She was immensely attractive.

He said: ‘Perhaps, in the meantime, I may have a word with you?’

‘Very well. In the parlour, if you like. The children are out, just now.’

‘The children?’

‘Jenny and Patrick. I should have said “the young” I expect. Will you come in.’

He could hardly recognize the woman he had seen in her garden, veering this way and that like a rudderless ship and unable to control her hands. She sat perfectly still and allowed him to look at her while she kept her own gaze on her quietly, interlaced fingers.

He supposed she must have had a hand in the transformation of the old bar-parlour into a private living-room: if so she could have taken little interest in the process. Apart from the introduction of a few unexceptionable easy-chairs, one or two photographs, a noncommittal assembly of books and a vase of the flowers she had so mishandled in the garden, it must be much as it was two years ago: an impersonal room.

Alleyn began by following the beaten paths of routine investigation. He tried to establish some corroboration of her alibi, though he did not give it this name, for the period covered by Miss Emily’s visit to the enclosure up to the probable time of Miss Cost’s death. There was none to be had. Nobody had visited the kitchen-dining-room while she drank her coffee and ate her toast. The servants were all busy in the main building. Jenny and Patrick had breakfasted in the public dining-room, her husband was presumably asleep. Alleyn gathered that they occupied separate rooms. She had no idea how long this solitary meal had lasted. When it was over she had attended to one or two jobs, interviewed the kitchen staff and then gone up to her room and changed from a housecoat to a day dress. When she came downstairs again she had found the young people in the parlour. Alleyn had arrived soon afterwards.

‘And for the rest of the morning,’ he asked casually, ‘did you go out at all?’

‘No farther than the garden,’ she said after a fractional pause. ‘I went into the garden for a time.’

‘To cut flowers?’ he suggested, looking at those in the room.

She lifted her eyes to his for a moment. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘to cut flowers. I do the flowers on Sunday as a rule: it takes quite a time. Jenny helped me,’ she added as an afterthought.

‘In the garden?’

Again the brief look at him, this time perhaps, fractionally less controlled. ‘No. Not in the garden. In the house. Afterwards.’

‘So you were alone in the garden?’

She said quickly with the slight hesitation he had noticed before in her speech: ‘Yes. Alone. Why d-do you keep on about the garden? What interest can it have for you? It was after – afterwards. Long afterwards.’

‘Yes, of course. Did the news distress you very much, Mrs Barrimore?’

The full, unbridled mouth so much at variance with the rest of her face, moved as if to speak, but, as in a badly-synchronized sound-film, her voice failed. Then she said: ‘Naturally. It’s a terrible thing to have happened, isn’t it?’

‘You were fond of Miss Cost?’

Something in her look reminded him, fantastically, of the strange veiling of a bird’s eyes. Hers were heavy-lidded and she had closed them for a second. ‘Not particularly,’ she said. ‘We had nothing –’ She stopped, unaccountably.

‘Nothing in common?’

She nodded. Her hands moved but she looked at them and refolded them in her lap.

‘Had she made enemies?’

‘I don’t know of any,’ she said at once as if she had anticipated the question. ‘I know very little about her.’

Alleyn asked her if she subscribed to the theory of mistaken identity and she said that she did. She was emphatic about this and seemed relieved when he spoke of it. She was, she said, forced to think that it might have been Wally.

‘Excited, originally, by Miss Cost herself?’

‘I think it’s possible. She was – It doesn’t matter.’

‘Inclined to be vindictive?’

She didn’t answer.

‘I’m afraid,’ Alleyn said, ‘that in these cases one can’t always avoid speaking ill of the dead. I did rather gather from something in Mrs Carstairs’ manner – ’

‘Dulcie Carstairs!’ she exclaimed, spontaneously and with animation. ‘She never says anything unkind about anybody.’

‘I’m sure she doesn’t. It was just that – well, I thought she was rather desperately determined not to do so in this case.’

She gave him a faint smile. It transfigured her face.

‘Dear Dulcie,’ she murmured.

‘She and the Rector are horrified, of course. They struck me as being such a completely unworldly pair, those two.’

‘Did they? You were right. They are.’

‘I mean – not only about Miss Cost but about the whole business of the Spring being more or less discredited by the present owner. The events of the last two years must have made a great difference to them, I suppose.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Enormous.’

‘Were they very hard up before?’

‘O yes. It was a dreadfully poor parish. The stipend was the least that’s given, I believe, and they’d no private means. We were all so sorry about it. Their clothes! She’s nice-looking but she needs careful dressing,’ said Mrs Barrimore with all the unconscious arrogance of a woman who would look lovely in a sack. ‘Of course everyone did what they could. I don’t think she ever bought anything for herself.’

‘She looked quite nice this morning, I thought.’

‘Did she?’ For the first time, Margaret Barrimore spoke as if there was some kind of rapprochement between them. ‘I thought men never noticed women’s clothes,’ she said.

‘Do you bet me I can’t tell you what you wore yesterday at the Spring?’

‘Well?’

‘A white linen dress with a square neck and a leather belt. Brown Italian shoes with large buckles. Brown suede gloves. A wide stringcoloured straw hat with a brown velvet ribbon. A brown leather bag. No jewellery.’

‘You win,’ said Mrs Barrimore. ‘You don’t look like the sort of man who notices but I suppose it’s part of your training and I shouldn’t feel flattered. Or should I?’

‘I would like you to feel flattered. And now I’m going to ruin my success by telling you that Mrs Carstairs, too, wore a linen dress, this morning.’ He described it. She listened to this talk about clothes as if it was a serious matter.

‘White?’ she asked.

‘No. Green.’

‘O yes. That one.’

‘Was it originally yours?’

‘If it’s the one I think it is, yes.’

‘When did you give it to her?’

‘I don’t in the least remember.’

‘Well: as long as two years ago?’

‘Really, I’ve no idea.’

‘Try.’

‘But I
don’t
remember. One doesn’t remember. I’ve given her odd things from time to time. You make me feel as if I’m parading – as if I’m making a lot of it. As if it was charity. Or patronage. It was nothing. Women do those sorts of things.’

‘I wouldn’t press it if I didn’t think it might be relevant.’

‘How can it be of the slightest interest?’

‘A green dress? If she had it two years ago? Think.’

She was on her feet with a quick controlled movement.

‘But that’s nonsense! You mean – Wally?’

‘Yes. I do. The Green Lady.’

‘But – most people have always thought he imagined her. And even if he didn’t – there are lots of green dresses in the summer-time.’

‘Of course. What I’m trying to find out is whether this was one of them. Is there nothing that would call to mind when you gave it to her?’

She waited for a moment, looking down at her hands.

‘Nothing. It was over a year ago, I’m sure.’ She turned aside. ‘Even if I could remember, which I can’t, I don’t think I would want to tell you. It can’t have any bearing on this ghastly business – how could it? – and suppose you’re right, it’s private to Dulcie Carstairs.’

‘Perhaps she’d remember.’

‘I don’t believe it. I don’t for a moment believe she would think of playing a – a fantastic trick like that. It’s not like her. She was never the Green Lady.’

‘I haven’t suggested she was, you know.’ Alleyn walked over to her. She lifted her head and looked at him. Her face was ashen.

‘Come,’ he said, ‘don’t let us fence any more. You were the Green Lady, weren’t you?’

He wondered if she would deny it and what he could say if she did. Very little. His assumption had been based largely on a hunch and he liked to tell himself that he didn’t believe in hunches. He knew that she was deeply shocked. Her white face and the movement of her hands gave her away completely but she was, as Miss Emily had remarked, a woman of character.

She said: ‘I have been very stupid. You may, I suppose, congratulate yourself. What gave you the idea?’

‘I happened to notice your expression when that monstrous girl walked out from behind the boulder. You looked angry. But, more than that, I’ve been told Wally sticks to it that his Green Lady was tall and very beautiful. Naturally, I thought of you.’

A door slammed upstairs. Someone, a man, cleared his throat raucously.

She twisted her hands into his. Her face was a mask of terror. ‘Mr Alleyn, promise me, for God’s sake, promise me you won’t speak about this to my husband. It won’t help you to discuss it with him. I swear it won’t. You don’t know what would happen if you did.’

‘Does he not know?’

She tried to speak but only looked at him in terror.

‘He
does
know?’

‘It makes no difference. He would be – he would be angry. That you knew.’

‘Why should he mind so much? You said what you said, I expect, impulsively. And it worked. Next morning the boy’s hands were clean. You couldn’t undo your little miracle.’

‘No, no, no, you don’t understand. It’s not that. It’s – O God, he’s coming down. O God, how can I make you? What shall I do! Please, please.’

‘If it’s possible I shall say nothing.’ He held her hands firmly for a moment until they stopped writhing in his. ‘Don’t be frightened,’ he said and let her go. ‘He’d better not see you like this. Where does that door lead to? The kitchen?’ He opened it. ‘There you are. Quickly.’

In a moment she was gone.

Major Barrimore came heavily downstairs. He yawned, crossed the little hall and went into the old private bar. The slide between it and the parlour was still there. Alleyn heard the clink of glass. A mid-afternoon drinker; he thought and wondered if the habit was long-established. He picked up his suitcase, went quietly into the hall and out at the front door. He then noisily returned.

‘Anyone at home?’ he called.

After an interval, the door of the private opened and Barrimore came out, dabbing at his mouth with a freshly-laundered handkerchief and an unsteady hand. He was, as usual, impeccably turnedout. His face was puffy and empurpled and his manner sombre.

‘Hallo,’ he said. ‘You.’

‘I’m on my way to sign in,’ Alleyn said cheerfully. ‘Can you spare me a few minutes? Routine, as usual. One’s never done with it.’

Barrimore stared dully at him and then opened the door of the parlour. ‘In here,’ he said.

Margaret Barrimore had left the faintest recollection of her scent behind her but this was soon lost in the Major’s blended aura of Scotch-cigar-and-hair-lotion.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘What’s it, this time? Made any arrests?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Everybody nattering about the boy, I s’ppose. You’d think they’d all got their knife into the poor kid.’

‘You don’t agree?’

‘I don’t. He’s too damn’ simple, f’one thing. No harm in him, f’r’nother. You get to know ‘bout chap’s character in a regiment. Always pick the bad ‘uns. He’s not.’

‘Have you any theories yourself?’

The Major predictably said: ‘No names, no pack drill.’

‘Quite. But I’d be glad of your opinion.’

‘You wouldn’t, old boy. You’d hate it.’

Now, Alleyn thought, this is it. I know what this is going to be. ‘I?’ he said, ‘why?’

‘Heard what they’re saying in the village?’

‘No. What are they saying?’

‘I don’t necessarily agree, you know. Still: they hated each other’s guts, those two. Face it.’

‘Which two?’

‘The females. Beg pardon: the ladies. Miss P. and Miss C. And she was
there,
old boy. Can’t get away from it. She was on the spot. Hanging up her bloody notice.’

‘How do you know?’
Alleyn said and was delighted to speak savagely.

‘Here! Steady! Steady, the Buffs!’

‘The path has been closed. No one has been allowed near the enclosure. How do you know Miss Pride was there? How do you know she hung up her notice?’

‘By God, sir –’

‘I’ll tell you. You were there yourself.’

The blood had run into patches in the Major’s jowls. ‘You must be mad,’ he said.

‘You were on the path. You took shelter behind an outcrop of stone by the last bend. After Miss Pride had left and returned to the hotel, you came out and went to the enclosure.’

He was taking chances again, but, looking at that outfaced blinking man, he knew he was justified.

‘You read the notice, lost your temper and threw it into the mud. The important thing is that you were there. If you want to deny it you are, of course, at perfect liberty to do so.’

Barrimore drew his brows together and went through a parody of brushing his moustache. He then said: ‘Mind if I get a drink?’

‘You’d better not, but I can’t stop you.’

‘You’re perfectly right,’ said the Major. He went out. Alleyn heard him go into the private and pushed back the slide. The Major was pouring himself a Scotch. He saw Alleyn and said: ‘Can I persuade you? No. S’pose not. Not the drill.’

‘Come back,’ Alleyn said.

He swallowed his whisky neat and returned.

‘Better,’ he said. ‘Needed it.’ He sat down. ‘There’s a reasonable explanation,’ he said.

‘Good. Let’s have it.’

‘I followed her.’

‘Who? Miss Pride?’

‘That’s right. Now, look at it this way. I wake. Boiled owl. Want a drink of water. Very well. I get up. Raining cassandogs. All v’y fine. Look outer th’window. Cassandogs. And there
she
is with her bloody great brolly, falling herself in, down below. Left wheel and into the path. What’s a man going to do? Coupler aspirins and into some togs. Trench coat. Hat. Boots. See what I mean? You can’t trust her an inch. Where was I?’

‘Following Miss Pride along the path to the enclosure.’

‘Certainly. She’d gained on me. All right. Strategy of indirect approach. Keep under cover. Which I did. Just like you said, old boy. Perfectly correct. Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes.’ He leered at Alleyn.

‘Do you mean that you confronted her?’

‘Me! No, thank you!’

‘You mean you kept under cover until she’d gone past you on her way back to the hotel.’

‘What I said. Or did I?’

‘Then you went to the enclosure?’

‘Nasherally.’

‘You read the notice and threw it aside?’

‘ ‘Course.’

‘And then? What did you do?’

‘Came back.’

‘Did you see Wally Trehern?’

The Major stared. ‘I did not.’

‘Did you meet anyone?’

A vein started out on Barrimore’s forehead. Suddenly, he looked venomous.

‘Not a soul,’ he said loudly.

‘Did you see anyone?’

‘No?’

‘You met Miss Cost. You must have done so. She was on the path a few minutes after Miss Pride got back. You either met her at the enclosure itself or on the path. Which was it?’

‘I didn’t see her. I didn’t meet her.’

‘Will you sign a statement to that effect?’

‘I’ll be damned if I do.’ Whether through shock or by an astonishing effort of will, he had apparently got himself under control. ‘I’ll see you in hell first,’ he said.

‘And that’s your last word?’

‘Not quite.’ He got up and confronted Alleyn, staring into his face. ‘If there’s any more of this,’ he said. ‘I’ll ring up the Yard and tell your O.C. you’re a prejudiced and therefore an untrustworthy officer. I’ll have you court-martialled, by God! Or whatever they do in your show.’

‘I really think you’d better not,’ Alleyn said mildly.

‘No? I’ll tell them what’s no more than the case: you’re suppressing evidence against an old woman who seems to be a very particular friend. No accounting for taste.’

‘Major Barrimore,’ Alleyn said. ‘You will not persuade me to knock your tongue down your throat but you’d do yourself less harm if you bit it off.’

‘I know what I’m talking about: You can’t get away from it. Ever since she came here she’s had her knife into poor old Cost. Accusing her of writing letters. Chucking stones. Telephone messages. Planting ornaments.’

‘Yes,’ Alleyn said. ‘Miss Pride was wrong there, wasn’t she? Miss Cost didn’t put the Green Lady in Miss Pride’s room. You did.’

Barrimore’s jaw dropped.

‘Well,’ Alleyn said. ‘Do you deny it? I shouldn’t if I were you. It’s smothered in your finger-prints and so’s the paper round its neck.’

‘You’re lying. You’re bluffiing.’

‘If you prefer to think so. There’s been a conspiracy between you, against Miss Pride, hasn’t there? You and Miss Cost, with the Treherns in the background? You were trying to scare her off. Miss Cost started it with threatening messages pieced together from the local paper. You liked the idea and carried on with the word ‘Death’ cut out of your
Racing Supplement
and stuck round the neck of the image. You didn’t have to ask Miss Cost for one. They’re for sale in your pub.’

‘Get to hell out of here.
Get out.’

Alleyn picked up his suitcase. ‘That’s all for the present. I shall ask you to repeat this conversation before a witness. In the meantime, I suggest that you keep off the whisky and think about the amount of damage you’ve done to yourself. If you change your mind about any of your statements I’m prepared to listen to you. You will see to it, if you please, that Miss Pride is treated with perfect civility during the few hours she is most unfortunately obliged to remain here as your guest.’

He had got as far as the door when the Major said: ‘Hold on. Wait a bit.’

‘Well?’

‘Daresay I went too far. Not myself. Fellah shouldn’t lose his temper, should he? What!’

‘On the contrary,’ said Alleyn, ‘the exhibition was remarkably instructive.’ And went out.

‘And after all that,’ he thought, ‘I suppose I should grandly cancel my room and throw myself on Coombe’s hospitality again. I won’t though. It’s too damned easy and it’s probably exactly what Barrimore hopes I’ll do.’

He collected his key at the office and went up to his room. It was now a quarter past three. Miss Emily would still be having her siesta. In an hour and forty-five minutes, Detective-Inspector Fox, Detective-Sergeant Bailey and Detective-Sergeant Thompson would arrive. Curtis, the pathologist, would be driving to Dunlowman under his own steam. Coombe had arranged for Dr Maine to meet him there. The nearest mortuary was at Dunlowman. Alleyn would be damned glad to see them all.

He unpacked his suitcase and began to write his notes on hotel paper. It was the first time he’d ever embarked on a case without his regulation kit and he felt uncomfortable and amateurish. He began to wonder if, after all, he should hand over to Fox or somebody else. Triumph for the gallant Major, he thought.

For a minute or two he indulged in what he knew to be fantasy. Was it, in the smallest degree, remotely possible that Miss Emily,
inflamed by Miss Cost’s activities, could have seen her approaching, bolted into the enclosure, hidden behind the boulder and under a sudden access of exasperation, hurled a rock at Miss Cost’s umbrella? It was not. But supposing for a moment that it was? What would Miss Emily then have done? Watched Miss Cost as she drowned in the pool; as her hair streamed out over the fall; as her dress inflated and deflated in the eddying stream? Taken another bit of rock, and scraped out her own footprints and walked back to The Boy-and-Lobster? And, where, all that time, was the Major? What became of his admission that he tore down the notice and threw it away? Suppose there was an arrest and a trial and defending council used Miss Emily as a counterblast? Could her innocence be established? Only, as things stood, by the careful presentation of the Major’s evidence and the Major thought, or pretended to think, she was guilty. And, in any case, the Major was a chronic alcoholic.

He got up and moved restlessly about the room. A silly, innocuous print of anemones in a mug, had been hung above the bed. He could have wrenched it down and chucked it, with as much fury as had presumably inspired the Major, into the wastepaper basket.

There must have been an encounter between Barrimore and Miss Cost. He had seen Emily pass and repass, had come out of concealment and gone to the enclosure. By that time Miss Cost was approaching. Why, when he saw her, should he again take cover, and where? No: they must have met. What, then, did they say to each other in the pouring rain? Did she tell him she was going to retrieve the necklace? Or did he, having seen her approaching, let himself into the enclosure and hide behind the boulder? But why? And where, all this time, was Wally? Dr Maine and Miss Emily had both seen him, soon after half past seven. He had shouted at Miss Emily and then ducked out of sight. The whole damned case seemed to be littered with people that continually dodged in and out of concealment. What about Trehern? Out and about in the landscape with the rest of them? Inciting his son to throw rocks at a supposed Miss Emily? Dr Maine had not noticed him but that proved nothing.

Next, and he faced this conundrum with distaste, what about Mrs Barrimore alias the Green Lady? Did she fit in anywhere or had he merely stumbled down an odd, irrelevant by-way? But why was she so frightened at the thought of her husband being told of her masquerade?
The Green Lady episode had brought Barrimore nothing but material gain. Wouldn’t he simply have ordered her to shut up about it and if anything, relished the whole story? She had seemed to suggest that the fact of Alleyn himself being aware of it would be the infuriating factor. And why had she been so distressed when she was alone in the garden? At that stage there was no question of her identity with the Green Lady being discovered.

Finally, of course, was Miss Cost murdered, as it were, in her own person, or because she was mistaken for Miss Emily?

The answer to that one must depend largely upon motive and motive is one of the secondary elements in police investigation. The old tag jog-trotted through his mind.
‘Quis? Quid? Ubi? Quibus auxilis? Cur? Quomodo? Quando?’
Which might be rendered: ‘Who did the deed? What was it? Where was it done? With what? Why was it done? And how done? When was it done?’ The lot!