Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 2. Ngaio Marsh

Чтение книги онлайн.

       CHAPTER 12 Alleyn Takes Stock

      ‘Dear me!’ said Alleyn as he laid the book on the table. ‘This is a quaint coincidence.’ He paused a moment and then murmured: ‘I wonder if coincidence is quite the right word.’

      ‘H’m’ said Fox, deeply.

      ‘I’d call it the Hand of – of Fate, or Providence, or Nemeses or something,’ said Nigel.

      ‘I dare say you would – on the front page. Not this time, however.’ But Nigel was reading excitedly.

      ‘Do listen, Alleyn. It says you can make sodium cyanide from wool and washing soda.’

      ‘Really? It sounds a most unpalatable mixture.’

      ‘You have to heat them terrifically in a retort or something. It says: “it is, perhaps, a fortunate circumstance that this simple recipe is not generally known. The tyro is advised to avoid the experiment as it is attended by a certain amount of danger, so deadly is the poison thus produced.”’

      ‘Yes. Don’t blow down my neck and don’t touch the book, there’s a good chap. Bailey will have to get to work on it. Not nearly so much dust on this as on the other hidden books, you notice, Fox, and the brown paper cover is newer. The others are stained. Blast! I don’t like it at all.’

      Bailey reappeared and was given the book.

      ‘I don’t think the results will be very illuminating,’ said Alleyn. ‘Try the open page as well as the cover. What is it these books smell of?’

      He sniffed at them.

      ‘It’s those stains, I seem to imagine. It’s very faint. Perhaps I do imagine. What about you, Bailey?’

      Alleyn examined the Curiosities closely. ‘It smells faintly. There’s no stain on the cover.’ He slipped the blade of his pocket-knife beneath the brown paper and peered under it: ‘And there is no stain on the red cover of the book. There you are, Bailey.’

      ‘But, Alleyn,’ interrupted Nigel, ‘surely it’s of the first importance. If the pathologist finds cyanide – sodium cyanide – and Garnette has this book and –’

      ‘I know, I know. Extraordinarily careless of him to leave it there, don’t you think? Stupid, what?’

      ‘Do you think it is coincidence?’

      ‘Bless my soul, Bathgate, how on earth am I to know? Your simple faith is most soothing, but I can assure you it’s misplaced.’

      ‘Well, but what do you think? Tell me what you think.’

      ‘I “think naught a trifle, though it small appear.”’

      ‘That has the advantage of sounding well and meaning nothing.’

      ‘Not altogether. Look here. We know Miss Quayne was probably murdered by cyanide poisoning. We believe that it must have been done by one of eight persons.’

      Nigel counted beneath his breath.

      ‘Only seven, six Initiates and Garnette.’

      ‘Mr Wheatley, sir,’ Fox reminded him. ‘The young fellow that handed round, you know.’

      ‘Oh – true. Well?’

      ‘Well,’ Alleyn went on composedly, ‘we have reason to suppose the stuff was dropped into the cup in a cigarette-paper. The paper was later found on the place where the cup fell. So much for the actual event. We have learned that Miss Quayne had deposited bearer-bonds, to the tune of five thousand, in the safe. We have found a parcel that appeared to be the original wrapping of these bonds. If so the bonds have been taken and newspaper substituted. We have found a message in Cara Quayne’s writing, addressed yesterday, presumably to Garnette. This message says she must see him at once as she had made a terrible discovery. I think the odds are he has not read the message. Whether it referred to the bonds or not we have no idea. We have found an antique work on chemistry hidden among Garnette’s books. It falls open at a recipe for home-made cyanide. So much for our tangible data.’

      ‘What about motive?’ suggested Nigel.

      ‘Motive. You mean Garnette’s motive, don’t you? I gather you are no longer wedded to Mr Ogden as the villain of the piece?’

      ‘I wasn’t really serious about Ogden, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he and Garnette were rogues together in the States.’

      ‘What’s your view, Fox?’ asked Alleyn.

      ‘Well, sir, I must say I don’t think so. Father Garnette was very frank under the influence and he said he met Mr Ogden crossing the Atlantic. That tallies with Mr Ogden’s statement.’

      ‘Exactly, Fox.’

      ‘And I must say, sir, Mr Ogden isn’t my notion of a Chicago racketeer.’

      ‘Not mine either. Perhaps we are too conservative, Brer Fox. But because two men come from the United States of America and one’s a rogue, it doesn’t mean they are old associates.’

      ‘If you put it like that,’ said Nigel, ‘it does sound a bit far-fetched.’

      ‘Of course they are associates now,’ ruminated Fox, ‘but Mr Ogden seems more like a victim than a crook.’

      ‘Well, then – Garnette,’ urged Nigel.

      ‘If,’ said Alleyn, ‘Mr Garnette stole the bonds and killed Miss Quayne with a jorum of sodium cyanide, he set about it in a most peculiar manner. He chose a moment when he and seven other persons would be equally suspected. He must have known that a search would be made of these rooms, yet he left his recipe book in a place where it was sufficiently concealed to look furtive, and not well enough hidden to escape СКАЧАТЬ