Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 4: A Surfeit of Lampreys, Death and the Dancing Footman, Colour Scheme. Ngaio Marsh

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СКАЧАТЬ murmured something inaudible. Alleyn said: ‘That will be done.’

      ‘Tell them to cover it with something heavy and thick. Close down his eyes. The eyes of the dead can see where the eyes of the living are blind. That is established, else how could they find their way, as they sometimes do, into strange houses?’

      Mr Fox wrote in his note-book, the nurse looked significantly towards Dr Kantripp. Tinkerton, over her mistress’s shoulder, executed a little series of nods and grimaces and shakes of the head. Alleyn and Lady Wutherwood stared into each other’s faces.

      ‘That is all,’ said Lady Wutherwood. ‘But for one thing. It must be understood that I will not be touched or persecuted or followed. I warn you that there is a great peril in wait for anybody who intercepts me. I have a friend who guards me well. A very powerful friend. That is all.’

      ‘Not quite,’ said Alleyn. ‘Lady Wutherwood, if you had not asked for this interview I should have done so. You see, the circumstances of your husband’s death have obliged me to make very close inquiries.’

      Without changing her posture or the fixed blankness of her gaze, she said: ‘You had better be careful. You are in danger.’

      ‘I,’ murmured Alleyn. ‘How should I be in danger?’

      ‘My husband died because he offended against one greater than himself. I have not been told by whose agency he died. But I know the force that killed him.’

      ‘What force is that?’

      The corners of the shifting mouth moved up. Small wrinkles appeared about her eyes. Her face became a mask of an unlovely Comedy. She did not answer Alleyn’s question.

      ‘I must tell you,’ he said, ‘that if you know of anything that would explain even the smallest detail in the sequence of events that led to his death, you should let the police know what it is. On the other hand we cannot compel you to give information. You may think it advisable to send for your solicitor who, if he considers that you are likely to prejudice yourself by answering any question, will advise you not to do so.’

      ‘I know very well,’ said Lady Wutherwood, ‘by what means I may be brought to betray myself into a confession of things I have not done and words I have never uttered. But I remember Marguerite Loundman of Begweiler, and Anna Ruffa of Douzy. As for a solicitor, I have no need or desire for such protection. I am well protected. I am in no danger.’

      ‘In that case,’ said Alleyn equitably, ‘you will not object, perhaps, to answering one or two questions.’

      She did not reply. He waited for a moment and had time to notice the scandalized expression of Mr Fox, and the alert and speculative glances of the two doctors.

      ‘Lady Wutherwood,’ said Alleyn, ‘who took you down in the lift?’

      She answered at once: ‘It seemed to be one of his nephews.’

      ‘Seemed?’

      Lady Wutherwood laughed. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘seemed.’

      ‘I don’t understand that,’ said Alleyn. ‘Lady Charles Lamprey asked for one of her sons to take you down in the lift, didn’t she?’

      Lady Wutherwood nodded.

      ‘And one of them came out of the flat and, in fact, entered the lift and took you down? You saw him come out? And you stood close beside him in the lift? It was one of the twins, wasn’t it?’

      ‘I thought so, then.’

      ‘You thought so, then,’ Alleyn repeated and was silent for a moment. Lady Wutherwood laughed again and her laughter, Alleyn thought, was for all the world like the cackle of one of the witches in a traditional rendering of Macbeth. This idea startled him and he went back in his mind over the string of inconsequent statements to which she had treated them. He was visited by an extremely odd notion.

      ‘Lady Wutherwood,’ he began, ‘do you think it is possible that somebody impersonated one of the twin brothers?’

      She gave him an extraordinary look and with a movement that startled them all by its abruptness and shocking irrelevancy, wrapped her arms across her breast and hugged herself. Then with a sidelong glance, horridly knowing, she nodded again very slightly.

      ‘Was there any recognizable mark?’ asked Alleyn.

      Her right hand crept up to her neck and round to the back of it. She moved her head slightly and, catching sight of the nurse, hurriedly withdrew her hand and laid one of her fingers across her lips. And through Alleyn’s thoughts ran the memory of three lines:

       ‘You seem to understand me

       By each at once her choppy finger laying

       Upon her skinny lips.’

      ‘Only,’ thought Alleyn, ‘Lady Wutherwood’s finger is not choppy nor are her lips skinny. Damnation, what the devil is all this!’ And aloud he said: ‘He stood with his back towards you in the lift?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And you noticed the mark on the back of his neck?’

      ‘I saw it.’

      ‘Just there?’ asked Alleyn, pointing to the startled Fox.

      ‘Just there. It was a sign. Ssh! He does that sometimes.’

      ‘The Little Master?’ asked Alleyn.

      ‘Ssh! Yes. Yes.’

      ‘Do you think it happened before you were there? The attack on your husband, I mean.’

      ‘He sat huddled in the corner, not speaking. I knew he was angry. He called for me in an angry voice. He had no right to treat me as he did. He should have been more careful. I warned him of his peril.’

      ‘Did you speak to him when you entered the lift?’

      ‘Why should I speak to him?’ This was unanswerable. Alleyn pressed his questions, however, and gathered that Lady Wutherwood had scarcely glanced at her husband who was sitting in the corner of the lift with his hat over his eyes. With an unexpected turn for mimicry she slumped down in her own chair and sunk her chin on her chest. ‘Like that,’ she said, looking slyly at them from under her brows. ‘He sat like that. I thought he was asleep.’ Alleyn asked her when she first noticed that something was amiss. She said that when the lift was halfway down she turned to rouse him. She spoke to him and finally, thinking he was asleep, put her hand on his shoulder. He fell forward. When she had reached this point in her narrative she began to speak with great rapidity. Her words clattered together and her voice became shrill. Dr Kantripp gave the nurse a warning signal and they moved nearer to Lady Wutherwood.

      ‘And there he was,’ she gabbled, ‘with a ring in his eye and a red ribbon on his face. He was yawning. His mouth was wide, wide open. To see him like that! Wasn’t it wonderful, Tinkerton? Tinkerton, when I saw him, I knew it was all true and I opened my mouth like Gabriel and I screamed and screamed –’

      ‘She’s off,’ said Dr Curtis gloomily, and СКАЧАТЬ