Singing in the Shrouds (10 page)

“No, no. Not you. You were entirely convincing. It was the captain.”

“His air of spontaneity
was
rather massive, perhaps.”

“Exactly.” Father Jourdain leaned forward and said, “Alleyn, why was that conversation about the Flower Murderer introduced?”

Alleyn said, “For fun. Why else?”

“So you are not going to tell me.”

“At least,” Alleyn said lightly, “I’ve got your alibi for January the fifteenth.”

“You don’t trust me, of course.”

“It doesn’t arise. As you have discovered, I am a policeman.”

“I beg you to trust me. You won’t regret it. You can check my alibi, can’t you? And the other time, the other poor child who had been to church — when was that? The twenty-fifth. Why, on the twenty-fifth I was at a conference in Paris. You can prove it at once. No doubt you’re in touch with your colleagues. Of course you can.”

“I expect it can be done.”

“Then do it. I urge you to do it. If you are here for the fantastic reason I half suspect, you will need someone you can trust.”

“It never comes amiss.”

“These women must not be left alone.” Father Jourdain had arisen and was staring through, the glass doors. “Look,” he said.

Mrs. Dillington-Blick was taking a walk on deck. As she passed the lighted windows above the engine-rooms she paused. Her earrings and necklace twinkled, the crimson scarf she had wrapped about her head fluttered in the night breeze. A man emerged from the shadow of the centrecastle and walked towards her. He took her arm. They turned away and were lost to view. He was Aubyn Dale. “You see,” Father Jourdain said. “If I’m right, that’s the sort of thing we mustn’t allow.”

Alleyn said, “To-day is the seventh of February. These crimes have occured at ten-day intervals.”

“But there have only been two.”

“There was an attempt on January fifth. It was not publicized.”

“Indeed! The fifth, the fifteenth and the twenty-fifth. Why, then, ten days have already passed since the last crime. If you are right (and the interval after all may be a coincidence) the danger is acute.”

“On the contrary, if there’s anything in the ten-day theory, Mrs. Dillington-Blick at the moment is in no danger.”

“But—” Father Jourdain stared at him. “Do you mean there’s been another of these crimes? Since we sailed? Why then—?”

“About half an hour before you sailed and about two hundred yards away from the ship. On the night of the fourth. He was punctual almost to the minute.”

“Dear God!” said Father Jourdain.

“At the moment, of course, none of the passengers except the classic
one
knows about this, and unless anybody takes the trouble to cable the news to Las Palmas they won’t hear about it there.”

“The fourteenth,” Father Jourdain muttered. “You think we may be safe until the fourteenth.”

“One simply hopes so. All the same, shall we take the air before we turn in? I think we might.” Alleyn opened the doors. Father Jourdain moved towards them.

“It occurs to me,” he said, “that you may think me a busybody. It’s not that. It is, quite simply, that I have a nose for evil and a duty to prevent, if I can, the commission of sin. I am a spiritual policeman, in fact. You may feel that I’m talking professional nonsense.”

“I respect the point of view,” Alleyn said. For a moment they looked at each other. “And, sir, I am disposed to trust you.”

“That, at least, is a step forward,” said Father Jourdain. “Shall we leave it like that until you have checked my alibis?”

“If you’re content to do so.”

“I haven’t much choice,” Father Jourdain observed. He added, after a moment, “And at any rate it
does
appear that we have an interval. Until February the fourteenth?”

“Only if the time theory is correct. It may not be correct.”

“I suppose — a psychiatrist—?”

“Dr. Makepiece, for instance. He’s one. I’m thinking of consulting him.”

“But—”

“Yes?”

“He had no alibi. He said so.”

“They tell us,” Alleyn said, “that the guilty man in a case of this sort never says he has no alibi. They say he always produces an alibi. Of some sort. Shall we go out?”

They went out on deck. A light breeze still held but it was no longer cold. The ship, ploughing through the dark, throbbed with her own life and with small orderly noises and yet was compact of a larger quietude. As they moved along the starboard side of the well-deck a bell sounded in four groups of two.

“Midnight,” Alleyn said. Sailors passed them, quiet-footed. Mrs. Dillington-Blick and Aubyn Dale appeared on the far side of the hatch, making for the passengers’ quarters. They called out good-night and disappeared.

Father Jourdain peered at his watch. “And this afternoon we arrive at Las Palmas,” he said.

Las Palmas is known to tourists for its walkie-talkie dolls. They stare out of almost every shop window, and sit in rows in the street bazaars near the wharves. They vary in size, cost and condition. Some have their garments cynically nailed to their bodies and others wear hand-sewn dresses of elaborate design. Some are bald under their bonnets, others have high Spanish wigs of real hair crowned with real lace mantillas. The most expensive of all are adorned with necklaces, bracelets and even rings, and have masses of wonderful petticoats under their flowered and braided skirts. They can be as tall as a child or as short as a woman’s hand.

Two things the dolls have in common. If you hold any one of them by the arm it may be induced to jerk its legs to and fro in a parody of walking, and as it walks it also jerks its head from side to side and from within its body it squeaks, “Ma-ma.” They all squeak in the same way with voices that are shockingly like those of infants. Nearly everybody who goes to Las Palmas remembers either some little girl who would like a walkie-talkie doll or, however misguidedly, some grown woman who might possibly be amused by one.

The company placed an open car at the disposal of Captain Bannerman and in it he put Mrs. Dillington-Blick, looking like a piece of Turkish delight. They drove about Las Palmas, stopping at shops where the driver had a profitable understanding with the proprietor. Mrs. Dillington-Blick bought herself a black lace near-mantilla with a good deal of metal in it, a comb to support it, some Portuguese jewellery, and a fan. Captain Bannerman bought her a lot of artificial magnolias because they didn’t see any real ones. He felt proud because all the Las Palmanians obviously admired her very much indeed. They came to a shop where a wonderful dress was displayed, a full Spanish dress made of black lace and caught up to display a foam of scarlet petticoats underneath. The driver kissed his fingers over and over again and intimated that if Mrs. Dillington-Blick were to put it on she would look like the queen of heaven. Mrs. Dillington-Blick examined it with her head on one side.

“Do you know,” she said, “allowing for a little Latin exaggeration, I’m inclined to agree with him.”

Tim Makepiece and Brigid came along the street and joined them. Brigid said, “
Do
try it on. You’d look absolutely marvelous. Do. For fun.”

“Shall I? Come in with me, then. Make me keep my head.”

The captain said he would go to his agents’ offices, where he had business to do, and return in twenty minutes. Tim, who very much wanted to buy some roses for Brigid, also said he’d come back. Greatly excited, the two ladies entered the shop.

The stifling afternoon wore into evening. Dusk was rapidly succeeded by night, palm trees rattled in an enervated breeze, and at nine o’clock by arrangement, Captain Bannerman and Mrs. Dillington-Blick were to meet Aubyn Dale at the grandest hotel in Las Palmas for dinner.

Mrs. Dillington-Blick had been driven back to the ship, where she changed into the wonderful Spanish dress, which of course she had bought. She was excitedly assisted by Brigid. “What did I tell you!” Brigid shouted triumphantly. “You ought to be sitting in a box looking at a play by Lope de Vega with smashing caballeros all round you. It’s a riot.” Mrs. Dillington-Blick, who had never heard of Lope de Vega, half smiled, opened her eyes very wide, turned and turned again to watch the effect in her looking-glass and said, “Not bad. Really, it’s not bad,” and pinned one of the captain’s artificial magnolias in her décolletage. She gave Brigid the brilliant look of a woman who knows she is successful.

“All the same,” she murmured, “I can’t help
rather
wishing it was the G.B. who was taking me out.”

“The G.B.?”

“My dear, the Gorgeous Brute. Glamorous Broderick, if you like. I dropped hints like thunderbolts but no luck, alas.”

“Never mind,” Brigid said, “you’ll have a terrific success, anyway. I promise you.”

She ran off to effect her own change. It was when she fastened one of Tim Makepiece’s red roses in her dress that it suddenly occurred to Brigid she hadn’t thought of her troubles for at least six hours. After all, it
was
rather fun to be dining out in a foreign city on a strange island with a pleasant young man.

It all turned out superbly, an enchanted evening suspended like a dream between the strange intervals of a sea voyage. The streets they drove through and the food they ate, the music they danced to, the flowers, the extremely romantic lighting and the exotic people were all, Brigid told Tim, “out of this world.” They sat at their table on the edge of the dance floor, talked very fast about the things that interested them, and were delighted to find how much they liked each other.

At half-past nine Mrs. Dillington-Blick arrived with the captain and Aubyn Dale. She really was, as Brigid pointed out to Tim, sensational. Everybody looked at her. A kind of religious gravity impregnated the deportment of the head waiter. Opulence and observance enveloped her like an expensive scent. She
was
terrific.

“I admire her,” Brigid said, “enormously. Don’t you?”

Brigid’s chin rested in the palm of her hand. Her forearm, much less opulent than Mrs. Dillington-Blick’s, shone in the candlelight and her eyes were bright.

Tim said, “She’s the most suffocatingly feminine job I’ve ever seen, I think. An all-time low in inhibitions and an all-time high in what it takes. If, of course, that happens to be your line of country. It’s not mine.”

Brigid found this answer satisfactory. “I like her,” she said. “She’s warm and uncomplicated.”

“She’s all of that. Hullo! Look who’s here!”

Alleyn came in with Father Jourdain. They were shown to a table at some distance from Tim’s and Brigid’s.

“ ‘Distinguished visitors’!” Brigid said, gaily waving to them.

“They are rather grand-looking, aren’t they? I must say I like Broderick. Nice chap, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I do,” Brigid said emphatically. “What about Father Jourdain?”

“I wouldn’t know. Interesting face; not typically clerical.”

“
Is
there a typically clerical face or are you thinking of comic curates at the Players Theatre Club?”

“No,” said Tim slowly. “I’m not. But look at the mouth and the eyes. He’s a celibate, isn’t he? I bet it’s been a bit of a hurdle.”

“Suppose,” Brigid said, “you wanted advice very badly and had to go to one of those two. Which would it be?”

“Oh, Broderick. Every time.
Do
you by any chance want advice?”

“No.”

“If you did, I’d take it very kindly if you came to me.”

“Thank you,” said Brigid. “I’ll bear it in mind.”

“Good. Let’s trip a measure.”

“Nice young couple,” said Father Jourdain as they danced past him and he added, “I do hope you’re right in what you say.”

“About—?”

“About alibis.”

The band crashed and was silent. The floor cleared and two spotlights introduced a pair of tango dancers, very fierce, like game birds. They strutted and stalked, clattered their castanets, and frowned ineffably at each other. “What an angry woo,” Tim said.

When they had finished they moved among the tables followed by their spotlight.

“Oh,
no
!” Father Jourdain exclaimed. “Not
another
doll!”

It was an enormous and extraordinarily realistic one, carried by the woman dancer. Evidently it was for sale. She flashed brilliant smiles and proudly showed it off, while her escort stood moodily by. “
Señores y señoras,
” announced a voice over the loud-speaker and added, they thought, something about having the honour to present “La Esmeralda,” which was evidently the name of the doll.

“Curious!” Alleyn remarked.

“What?”

“It’s dressed exactly like Mrs. D-B.”

And so it was — in a flounced black lace dress and a mantilla. It even had a green necklace and earrings and lace gloves, and its fingers were clamped round the handle of an open fan. It was a woman-doll with a bold, handsome face and a flashing smile like the dancer’s. It looked terrifyingly expensive. Alleyn watched with some amusement as it approached the table where Mrs. Dillington-Blick sat with the captain and Aubyn Dale.

The dancers had of course noticed the resemblance and so had the headwaiter. They all smiled and ejaculated and admired as the doll waddled beguilingly towards Mrs. Dillington-Blick.

“Poor old Bannerman,” Alleyn said, “he’s sunk, I fear. Unless Dale—”

But Aubyn Dale extended his hands in his well-known gesture, and with a smile of rueful frankness was obviously saying it was no good them looking at him, while the captain, ruby-faced, stared in front of him with an expression of acute unconcern. Mrs. Dillington-Blick shook her head and beamed and shook it again. The dancers bowed, smiled and moved on, approaching the next table. The woman stooped and with a kind of savage gaiety induced the doll to walk. “Ma-ma!” squeaked the doll. “Ma-ma!”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the loud-speaker repeated and continued, this time in English, “we have the honour to present Mees Esmeralda, Queen of Las Palmas.”

From somewhere in the shadows at the back of the room a napkin fluttered. The woman snatched up the doll and swept between the tables, followed by her escort. The spotlight settled on them. Heads were turned. One or two people stood up. It was impossible to see the person at the distant table. After a short delay the dancer returned, holding the doll aloft.

“She
hasn’t
sold it,” Father Jourdain remarked.

“On the contrary,” Alleyn rejoined, “I think she has. Look.”

The doll was borne in triumph to the captain’s table and with a magnificent curtsey presented to Mrs. Dillington-Blick.

At the other side of the room Tim said, “Look at that, now!”

“What a triumph!” Brigid exclaimed delightedly.

“Who’s the poor fish, do you suppose?”

“I can’t see. It’ll be some superb grandee with flashing eyes and a crimson cummerbund. What
fun
for Mrs. Dillington-Blick.”

The dancers were making gestures in the direction of their customer. Mrs. Dillington-Blick, laughing and triumphant holding the doll, strained round to see. The spotlight probed into the distant corner. Somebody stood up.

“Oh,
look
!” cried Brigid.

“Well, blow me down flat!” said Tim.

“How very surprising,” observed Father Jourdain, “it’s Mr. McAngus!”

“He has made his reciprocal gesture,” said Alleyn.

The
Cape Farewell
sailed at two in the morning and the passengers were all to be aboard by half-past one. Alleyn and Father Jourdain had returned at midnight and Alleyn had gone to his cabin to have another look at his mail. It included a detailed report from the Yard of the attack that had been made upon Miss Bijou Browne on January fifth and a letter from his senior saying nothing had developed that suggested alteration in Alleyn’s plan of action. Alleyn had telephoned the Yard from police headquarters in Las Palmas and had spoken to Inspector Fox. Following Alleyn’s radiogram of the previous night, the Yard had at once tackled the passengers’ alibis. Father Jourdain was, Fox said, as good as gold. Mr. Merryman’s cinema had in fact shown
The Lodger
on the night in question as the first half of a double bill. The name of Aubyn Dale’s sweetie so far eluded the Yard, but Fox hoped to get it before long and would, he said, dream up some cock-and-bull story that might give him an excuse to question her about the night of the fifteenth. The rest of Dale’s statement had been proved. Fox had got in touch with Mr. Cuddy’s lodge and had told them the police were making enquiries about a valuable watch. From information received they believe it had been stolen from Mr. Cuddy near the lodge premises on the night of the fifteenth. A record of attendances showed that Mr. Cuddy had signed in but the secretary remembered that he left very early, feeling unwell. Apart from Mr. McAngus having perforated his appendix four days after the date in question, Fox dryly continued, it would be impossible to check his litter of disjointed reminiscence. They would, however, poke about and see if anything cropped up. An enquiry at Dr. Makepiece’s hospital gave conclusive evidence that he had been on duty there until midnight.

Captain Bannerman, it appeared, had certainly been in Liverpool on the night of the fifteenth and a routine check completely cleared the other officers. In any case it was presumed that the ship’s complement didn’t go aboard clutching passengers’ embarkation notices.

The missing portion of the embarkation notice had not been found.

A number of psychiatric authorities had been consulted and all agreed that the ten-day interval would probably be maintained and that the fourteenth of February, therefore, might be anticipated as a deadline. One of them added, however, that the subject’s homicidal urge might be exacerbated by an untoward event. Which meant, Inspector Fox supposed dryly, that he might cut up for trouble before the fourteenth, if a bit of what he fancied turned up in the meantime and did the trick.

Fox concluded the conversation by enquiring about the weather and on being told it was semi-tropical remarked that some people had all the luck. Alleyn had rejoined that if Fox considered a long voyage with a homicidal maniac (identity unknown and boning up for trouble) and at least two eminently suitable victims was a bit of luck, he’d be glad to swap jobs with him. On this note they rang off.

Alleyn had also received a cable from his wife which said,

He put his papers away and went down to the well-deck. It was now twenty minutes past midnight but none of the passengers had gone to bed. The Cuddys were in the lounge telling Dennis, with whom they were on informal terms, about their adventures ashore. Mr. Merryman reclined in a deck-chair with his arms folded and his hat over his nose. Mr. McAngus and Father Jourdain leaned on the taffrail and stared down at the wharf below. The after-hatch was open and the winch that served it still in operation. The night was oppressively warm.