Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 8: Death at the Dolphin, Hand in Glove, Dead Water. Ngaio Marsh

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      She seemed to consider this but in an aimless sort of way as if she only gave him half her attention. When he took the sheet of paper from her fingers she suffered him to do so as if they were inanimate.

      Alleyn read the letter.

      ‘My dear: What can I say? Only that you have lost a devoted brother and I a very dear friend. I know so well, believe me so very well, what a shock this has been for you and how bravely you will have taken it. If it is not an impertinence in an old friend to do so, may I offer you these few simple lines written by my dear and so Victorian Duchess of Rampton? They are none the worse, I hope, for their unblushing sentimentality.

       So it must be, dear heart, I’ll not repine

       For while I live the Memory is Mine.

      I should like to think that we know each other well enough for you to believe me when I say that I hope you won’t dream of answering this all-too-inadequate attempt to tell you how sorry I am.

      Yours sincerely,

       Percival Pyke Period

      Alleyn folded the paper and looked at Miss Cartell. ‘But why,’ he said, ‘do you say that? Why do you say he must be mad?’

      She waited so long, gaping at him like a fish, that he thought she would never answer. Then she made a fumbling, inelegant gesture towards the letter.

      ‘Because he must be,’ she said. ‘Because it’s all happening twice. Because he’s written it before. The lot. Just the same.’

      ‘You mean –? But when?’

      ‘This morning,’ Connie said and began rootling in the litter on her desk. ‘Before breakfast. Before I knew.’

      She drew in her breath with a whistling noise. ‘Before anybody knew,’ she said. ‘Before they had found him.’

      She stared at Alleyn, nodding her head and holding out a sheet of letter-paper.

      ‘See for yourself,’ she said miserably. ‘Before they had found him.’

      Alleyn looked at the two letters. Except in one small detail they were, indeed, exactly the same.

       CHAPTER 5

       Postscript to a Party

      Connie raised no objections to his keeping the letters and with them both in his pocket he asked if he might see Miss Ralston and Mr Leiss. She said that they were still asleep in their rooms and added, with a slight hint of gratification, that they had attended the Baynesholme festivities.

      ‘One of Desirée Bantling’s dotty parties,’ she said. ‘They go on till all hours. Moppett left a note asking not to be roused.’

      ‘It’s now one o’clock,’ Alleyn said, ‘and I’m afraid I shall have to disturb Mr Leiss.’

      He thought she was going to protest but at that moment the Pekinese set up a petulant demonstration, scratching at the door and raising a crescendo of imperative yaps.

      ‘Clever boy!’ Connie said distractedly. ‘I’m coming!’ She went to the door. ‘I’ll have to see to this,’ she said. ‘In the garden.’

      ‘Of course,’ Alleyn agreed. He followed them into the hall and saw them out through the front door. Once in the garden the Pekinese bolted for a newly raked flowerbed.

      ‘Oh, no!’ Connie ejaculated. ‘After lunch,’ she shouted as she hastened in pursuit of her pet. ‘Come back later.’

      The Pekinese tore round a corner of the house and she followed it.

      Alleyn re-entered the house and went quickly upstairs.

      On the landing he encountered Trudi, the maid, who showed him the visitors’ rooms. They were on two sides of a passage.

      ‘Mr Leiss?’ Alleyn asked.

      A glint of feminine awareness momentarily transfigured Trudi’s not very expressive face.

      ‘He is sleeping,’ she said. ‘I looked at him. He sleeps like a god.’

      ‘We’ll see what he wakes like,’ Alleyn said, tipping her rather handsomely. ‘Thank you, Trudi.’

      He tapped smartly on the door and went in.

      The room was masked from its entrance by an old-fashioned scrap screen. Behind this a languid, indefinably Cockney voice said: ‘Come in.’

      Mr Leiss was awake but Alleyn thought he saw what Trudi meant: the general effect was in Technicolor. The violet silk pyjama jacket was open, the torso was bronzed, smooth and rather shiny as well as hirsute. A platinum chain lay on the chest. The glistening hair was slightly disarranged and the large brown eyes were open. When they lighted on Alleyn they narrowed. There was a slight convulsive movement under the bedclothes. The room smelt dreadfully of some indefinable unguent.

      ‘Mr Leiss?’ Alleyn said. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you. I am a police officer.’

      A very old familiar look started up in Leonard’s face: a look of impertinence, caginess, conceit and fear. It was there as if it had been jerked up from within and in a moment it was gone.

      ‘I don’t quite follow you,’ Leonard said. Something had gone amiss with his voice. He cleared his throat and recovered. ‘Is anything wrong?’ he asked.

      He raised himself on his elbow, plumped up his pillows and lay back on them. He reached out languidly for a cigarette-case and lighter on his bedside table. The ash-tray was already overloaded.

      ‘How can I help you?’ he said and lit a cigarette. He inhaled deeply and blew out a thin vapour.

      ‘You can help me,’ Alleyn said, ‘by answering one or two questions about your movements since you arrived at Little Codling yesterday morning.’

      Leonard raised his eyebrows and exhaled a drift of vapour. ‘And just why,’ he asked easily, ‘should I do that small thing?’

      ‘For reasons,’ Alleyn said, ‘that will explain themselves in due course. First of all, there’s the matter of an attempted car purchase. You gave Mr Pyke Period and Mr Cartell and Miss Cartell as references. They considered you had no authority to do so. I suggest,’ Alleyn went on, ‘that you don’t offer the usual unconvincing explanations. They really won’t do. Fortunately for the other persons involved, the deal collapsed and, apart from adding to your record, the incident has only one point of interest: it made Mr Cartell very angry.’ He stopped and looked hard at Leonard. ‘Didn’t it?’ he asked.

      ‘Look,’ Leonard drawled, ‘do me a favour and get the hell out of this, will you?’

      ‘Next,’ СКАЧАТЬ