Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 2: Death in Ecstasy, Vintage Murder, Artists in Crime. Ngaio Marsh

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       CHAPTER 11 Contents of a Desk, a Safe, and a Bookcase

      The behaviour of Father Garnette underwent a rapid and most perceptible change. This difference was first apparent in his face. It was rather as though a facile modeller in clay had touched the face in several places, leaving subtle but important alterations in its general expression. It became at once bolder and more sly. The resemblance to a purveyor of patent medicines triumphed over the more saintly aspect. Indeed, Father Garnette no longer looked in the least like a saint. He looked both shady and blowsy.

      Nigel, fascinated, watched this change into something rich and strange. Alleyn, busy at the desk, had his back to the priest. Inspector Fox had returned to the bedroom where he could be heard humming like a Gargantuan bumble-bee. Presently he burst into song:

      ‘Frerer Jacker, Frerer Jacker,

      Dormy-vous, dormy-vous.’

      It was an earnest attempt to reproduce the intermediate radio French lesson.

      The clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly, cleared its throat, and struck twelve.

      ‘Say, bo!’ said Father Garnette suddenly and astonishingly: ‘Say, bo, why can’t we get together?’

      Alleyn turned slowly and regarded him.

      ‘That’s the way Ogden talks when he talks when he talks,’ added Father Garnette with an air of great lucidity.

      ‘Oh, yes?’ said Alleyn.

      ‘Get together,’ repeated Father Garnette, ‘let’s get together at the river. The beautiful the beautiful the river. Why can’t we gather at the river? I ran a revivalist joint way down in Michitchigan back in ‘14. It was swell. Boy, it was swell.’

      ‘Was Mr Ogden with you in Michigan?’ asked Alleyn.

      ‘That big sap!’ said Father Garnette with bitter scorn. ‘Why, he thinks I’m the sand-fly’s garters.’ He appeared to regret his last observation and added, with something of his former manner: ‘Mr Ogden is sassherated in holy simplicity.’

      ‘Oh,’ said Alleyn. ‘When did you meet Mr Ogden?’

      ‘Crossing th’ ’Tlantic. He gave me a piece of gold. Ogden’s all right. Sassherated in simplicity.’

      ‘So it would appear.’

      ‘Listen,’ said Father Garnette. ‘You got me all wrong. I never did a thing to that dame. Is it likely? Little Cara! No, sir.’

      He looked so obscene as he made this statement that Nigel gave an involuntary exclamation.

      ‘Be quiet, Bathgate,’ ordered Alleyn very quietly.

      ‘Why can’t we get together?’ resumed Father Garnette. ‘I’ll talk.’

      ‘What with?’ asked Alleyn.

      ‘With the right stuff. You lay off this joint and you won’t need to ask for the say-so. What’s it worth?’

      ‘What’s it worth to you?’

      ‘It’s your squeak,’ said Father Garnette obscurely.

      ‘You’re bluffing,’ said Alleyn, ‘you haven’t got tuppence.’

      Father Garnette was instantly thrown into a violent rage.

      ‘Is that so!’ he said, so loudly that Fox came back to listen. ‘Is that so! Listen, you poor simp. In my own line there’s no one to touch me. Why? Because I got brains sanimaginasshon and mor’n that – because I got one hundred per cent essay.’

      ‘What’s that?’ asked Alleyn.

      ‘Essay! Ess-shay. “It.”’

      ‘So you say,’ grunted Alleyn most offensively.

      ‘So I say and what I say’s so I say,’ said Father Garnette with astounding rapidity, ‘If you don’t believe me – look f’yourself.’

      He made an effort to rise, fell back in his chair, fumbled in his pocket and produced a ring of keys.

      ‘Little leather box in desk,’ he said. ‘And not only that. Safe.’

      ‘Thank you,’ said Alleyn. Father Garnette instantly fell asleep.

      Alleyn, without another glance at him, returned to the desk and pulled out the bottom drawer.

      ‘Lor, sir,’ said Fox, ‘you’ve doped the gentleman.’

      ‘Not I,’ Alleyn grunted. ‘He’s merely tight.’

      ‘Tight!’ ejaculated Nigel. ‘What was in the bottle?’

      ‘Proof spirit. Over-proof as like as not.’

      ‘Pure alcohol?’

      ‘Something of the sort. That or rectified spirit, I imagine. Have to be analysed. This is a very exotic case. Thorndyke stuff. Not my cup of tea at all.’

      ‘What,’ asked Nigel, ‘did you write on that paper you gave Fox?’

      ‘A suggestion that he should attract Mr Garnette’s attention.’

      ‘You bad old Borgia!’

      ‘Stop talking. Can’t you see I’m detecting. What’s the back door like, Fox?’

      ‘Ordinary key and bolts. Funny it was open.’

      ‘Very funny. Go through that waste-paper basket, will you? And the grate.’

      Fox knelt on the hearth-rug. The fire had almost burnt out. For some time the detectives worked in silence. Suddenly Fox grunted.

      ‘How now, brown cow?’ asked Alleyn.

      ‘If you mean me, sir, here’s a bit of something.’

      ‘What?’

      Fox, using tweezers, drew two scraps of burnt paper from the ashtray and laid them before Alleyn. Nigel got up to look. They were the merest fragments of paper, but there were one or two words printed on them in green pencil: