Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 10: Last Ditch, Black As He’s Painted, Grave Mistake. Ngaio Marsh

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СКАЧАТЬ shot or whatever it was. The lights in the pavilion are out. Everybody except the ladies and the President gets to his feet. Doing what?’

      ‘How d’you mean, doing what?’ Sir John Smythe asked.

      ‘Well, sir, did everybody face out into the garden, trying to see what was going on – apart from the concert item which, I understand, stopped short when the report was heard.’

      ‘Speaking for myself,’ said Sir George, ‘I stayed where I was. There were signs of – ah – agitation and – ah – movement. Sort of thing that needs to be nipped in the bud if you don’t want a panic on your hands.’

      ‘And you nipped it, sir?’ Fox asked.

      ‘Well – I wouldn’t go so far – one does one’s best. I mean to say – I said something. Quietly.’

      ‘If there had been any signs of panic,’ said Sir John Smythe drily, ‘they did not develop.’

      ‘– “did not develop”,’ Mr Fox repeated. ‘And in issuing your warning, sir, did you face inwards? With your back to the garden?’

      ‘Yes. Yes, I did,’ said Sir George.

      ‘And did you notice anything at all out of the way, sir?’

      ‘I couldn’t see anything, my dear man. One was blinded by having looked at the brilliant light on the screen and the performer.’

      ‘There wasn’t any reflected light in the pavilion?’

      ‘No,’ said Sir George crossly. ‘There wasn’t. Nothing of the kind. It was too far away.’

      ‘I see, sir,’ said Fox placidly.

      Lady Smythe suddenly remarked that the light on the screen was reflected in the lake. ‘The whole thing,’ she said, ‘was dazzling and rather confusing.’ There was a general murmur of agreement.

      Mr Fox asked if during the dark interval anybody else had turned his or her back on the garden and peered into the interior. This produced a confused and doubtful response from which it emerged that the piercing screams of Mrs Cockburn-Montfort within the house had had a more marked effect than the actual report. The Smythes had both heard Alleyn telling the President to sit down. After the report everybody had heard the President shout out something in his own language. The plenipotentiary said it was an order. He shouted for lights. And immediately before or after that, Sir John Smythe said, he had been aware of something falling at his feet.

      And then the light had gone up.

      ‘And I can only add, Inspector,’ said Sir John, ‘that I really have nothing else to say that can have the slightest bearing on this tragic business. The ladies have been greatly shocked and I must beg you to release them from any further ordeal.’

      There was a general and heartfelt chorus of agreement. Sir George said, ‘Hear, hear,’ very loudly.

      Fox said this request was very reasonable he was sure, and he was sorry to have put them all to so much trouble and he could assure the ladies that he wouldn’t be keeping them much longer. There were no two ways about it, he added, this was quite a serious affair, wasn’t it?

      ‘Well, then –’ said Sir John and there was a general stir.

      At this juncture Alleyn came in.

      In some curious and indefinable fashion he brought a feeling of refreshment with him rather like that achieved by a star whose delayed entry, however quietly executed, lifts the scene and quickens the attention of his audience.

      ‘We are so sorry,’ he said, ‘to have kept you waiting like this. I’m sure Mr Fox will have explained. This is a very muddling, tragic and strange affair and it isn’t made any simpler for me, at any rate, by finding myself an unsatisfactory witness and an investigating copper at one and the same time.’

      He gave Lady Smythe an apologetic grin and she said – and may have been astonished to hear herself – ‘You poor man.’

      ‘Well, there it is and I can only hope one of you has come up with something more useful than anything I’ve been able to produce.’

      His brother said: ‘Done our best. What!’

      ‘Good for you,’ Alleyn said. He was reading the sergeant’s notes.

      ‘We’re hoping,’ said Sir John, ‘to be released. The ladies –’

      ‘Yes, of course. It’s been a beastly experience and you must all be exhausted.’

      ‘What about yourself?’ asked Lady Smythe. She appeared to be a lady of spirit.

      Alleyn looked up from the notes. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you can’t slap me back. These notes seem splendidly exhaustive and there’s only one question I’d like to put to you. I know the whole incident was extremely confused, but I would like to learn if you all, for whatever reason or for no reason, are persuaded of the identity of the killer?’

      ‘Good God!’ Sir George shouted. ‘Really, my dear Rory! Who else could it be but the man your fellows marched off. And I must compliment you on their promptitude, by the way.’

      ‘You mean –?’

      ‘Good God, I mean the great hulking brute with the spear. I beg your pardon,’ he said to the black plenipotentiary and himself turned scarlet. ‘Afraid I spoke out of turn. Sure you understand.’

      ‘George,’ said his brother with exquisite courtesy, ‘would you like to go home?’

      ‘I? We all would. Mustn’t desert the post, though. No preferential treatment.’

      ‘Not a morsel, I assure you. I take it, then,’ Alleyn said, turning to the others, ‘that you all believe the spear-carrier was the assailant?’

      ‘Well – yes,’ said Sir John Smythe. ‘I mean – there he was. Who else? And, my God, there was the spear!’

      The black plenipotentiary’s wife said something rather loudly in their native tongue.

      Alleyn looked a question at her husband, who cleared his throat, ‘My wife,’ he said, ‘has made an observation.’

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘My wife has said that because the body was lying beside her, she heard.’

      ‘Yes? She heard?’

      ‘The sound of the strike and the death noise.’ He held a brief consultation with his wife. ‘Also a word. In Ng’ombwanan. Spoken very low by a man. By the Ambassador himself, she thinks.’

      ‘And the word – in English?’

      ‘“Traitor”,’ said the plenipotentiary. After a brief pause he added: ‘My wife would like to go now. There is blood on her dress.’

      III

      The Boomer had changed into a dressing-gown and looked like Othello in the last act. It was a black and gold gown and underneath it crimson СКАЧАТЬ