NIGHT THICKENS
It was in a sort of trance that Roberta offered to spend the rest of an endless night in an unknown house with the apparently insane widow of a murdered peer. Lord Charles had displayed an incisiveness that surprised Roberta. When Charlot said she would go to Brummell Street he had said: “I absolutely forbid it, Immy,” and rather to Roberta’s surprise Charlot had at once given in. Frid offered to go, but not with any great show of enthusiasm, and Charlot looked dubious. So Roberta, wondering whether she spoke out of turn or whether at last here was something she could do for the Lampreys, made her offer. With the exception of Henry they all seemed to be gently relieved. Roberta knew that the Lampreys, persuaded perhaps by dim ideas of pioneering hardihood, were inclined to think of all colonials as less sheltered and more inured to nervous strain than their English contemporaries. They were charmingly grateful and asked if she was sure she wouldn’t mind.
“You won’t see a sign of Aunt V.,” said Frid, and Charlot added: “And you really ought to see the house, Robin. I can’t tell you what it is like. All Victorian gloom and glaring stuffed animals. Too perfect.”
“I don’t see why Robin should go,” said Henry.
“Robin says she doesn’t mind,” Frid pointed out. “And if Nanny goes she’ll feel as safe as a Crown jewel. Isn’t Robin sweet, Mummy?”
“She’s very kind indeed,” said Charlot. “Honestly, Robin darling, are you sure?”
“I’m quite sure if you think I’ll do.”
“It’s just for somebody to be there with the nurses. If Violet should by any chance make some sort of scene you can ring us up. But I’m sure she won’t. She needn’t even know you are there.”
And so it was arranged. P. C. Martin, no longer in his armchair, stared fixedly at a portrait of a Victorian Lamprey. Lord Charles went off for his interview with Alleyn. Frid did her face; the twins looked gloomily at old Punch es; Charlot, having refused to go to bed until the interviews were over, put her feet up and closed her eyes.
“Every moment,” said Henry, “this room grows more like a dental waiting parlour. Here is a particularly old Tatler, Robin. Will you look at it and complete the picture?”
“Thank you, Henry. What are you reading?”
“The Bard. I am reading ‘Macbeth.’ He has a number of very meaty things to say about murder.”
“Do you like the Bard?”
“I suppose I must, as quite often I find myself reading him.”
“On this occasion,” Stephen said. “I call it bad form t-to read ‘Macbeth.’ ”
“‘Night thickens,’ ” said Frid in a professionally deep voice.
“And the crow makes wing to the rooky wood:
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
While night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.”
“You would,” said Colin bitterly.
Roberta turned over the pages of the Tatler, unsolaced by studio portraits of ladies looking faintly nauseated and by snapshots of the same or closely similar ladies, looking either partially concussed or madly hilarious. She would have liked to put down the Tatler but was prevented from doing so by the circumstance of finding, whenever she looked up, that Henry’s eye was upon her. Strange thoughts visited Roberta. She supposed that many of the ladies in the Tatler were personally known to Henry. Perhaps the mysterious Mary was one of them. Perhaps she was long-limbed, with that smooth, expensive look so far beyond the reach of a small, whey-faced colonial. So why, thought Roberta, with murder in the house and nobody being anything but vaguely kind, and with smooth ladies everywhere for Henry, should she be feeling happy? And before she could stop herself she had pictured the smooth ladies gliding away from Henry because he was mixed up in murder while she, Roberta Grey, dawned upon him in her full worth. With these and similar fancies her mind was so busily occupied that she did not notice the passing of the minutes, and when Lord Charles and Nigel Bathgate returned she thought that Alleyn must have kept them a very short time in the dining-room. She roused herself to notice that Lord Charles looked remarkably blank and Mr. Bathgate remarkably uneasy.
“Immy, darling,” said Lord Charles, “why haven’t you gone to bed?”
“If any one else tells me to go to bed,” said Charlot, “knowing full well that my bed is occupied by a mad woman, I shall instantly ask Mr. Martin to arrest them.”
“Well, it won’t be occupied much longer. Alleyn says she may go home and that Robin and Nanny may go with her. He’s sending a policeman too, so you’ll be quite safe, Robin, my dear. The rest of us are—” Lord Charles fumbled for his glass — “are free to go to bed.”
“Except me,” said Frid. “Mr. Alleyn will want to see me. He’s evidently saved me for the last.”
“He didn’t say anything about you.”
“Wait and see,” said Frid, touching her hair.
Fox came in.
“Excuse me, my lady,” Fox said. “Mr. Alleyn has asked me to thank you and his lordship and the other ladies and gentlemen for their patience and courtesy and to say he will not trouble you any further tonight.”
“Make a good exit out of that, if you can,” said Henry unkindly to Frid.
II
Could it possibly, Robin pondered confusedly, be no longer than forty hours ago that she packed this little suitcase in her cabin? Time, she thought, meant nothing at all when strange things were happening. It was incredible that she had slept only one night in England. The bottom of the suitcase was littered with small objects for which she had not been able to find a place: the final menu card of the ship, with signatures that had already become quite meaningless, snapshots of deck sports, a piece of ship’s notepaper. They belonged to a remote experience but for a fraction of a second Roberta longed for the secure isolation of her cabin and thought of how in the night, sometimes, she would listen contentedly to the sound of the ship’s progress through the lonely ocean. She packed the suitcase, trying to keep her head about the things she would need and wondering how long she would have to stay with the Lampreys’ mad aunt in Brummell Street. There were sounds of activity next door in Charlot’s room and presently Roberta heard the door open. A dragging, clumsy footstep sounded in the passage and the nurse’s voice, professionally soothing: “Now, we shall soon be home and tucked up in our own bed. Come along, dear. That’s the way.” Then that deep grating voice: “Leave me alone. Where’s Tinkerton?” And Tinkerton: “Here, m’lady. Come along, m’lady. We’re going home.” Roberta heard them pass and go out to the landing. She had fastened down the lid of her suitcase but was still sitting on the floor when the curtains of her improvised room rattled and, turning quickly, she saw Henry.
He wore a great-coat and scarf and in his hands he held a small heap of clothes.
“Oh, Robin,” Henry said, “I’m coming to Brummell Street instead of Nanny. Do you mind?”
“Henry! I don’t mind at all. I’m terribly glad.”
“Then that’s all right. I asked Alleyn. He seems to think it’s in order. I’ll just pack these things and then we’ll get a taxi and go. Mama has rung up Brummell Street and told the servants. Tinkerton has told Aunt V.”
“What did she say?”
“I don’t think she was particularly ravished at the thought. Patch is having nightmares and Nanny isn’t coming.”
“I see.”
Henry looked gravely at Roberta and then smiled. There was a quality in Henry’s smile that had always touched Roberta and endeared him to her. He made a comic family grimace, winked, and laid his finger against his nose. Roberta made the same grimace and Henry withdrew. With an illogical singing in her heart she put on her own overcoat and hat and took her suitcase out into the passage to wait for Henry. This time last night they had been dancing together.
It was not very pleasant crossing the landing where a policeman stood on guard by the dark lift but Henry lightened the situation by saying; “We’re not fleeing from justice, officer.”
“That’s quite all right, sir,” answered the policeman. “The Chief Inspector told us all about you.”
“Good night,” said Henry, piloting Roberta down the stairs.
“Good night, sir,” said the policeman and his voice rang hollow in the lift well.
Roberta remembered her last trip down the stairs when she went to fetch Giggle and Tinkerton and how like a nightmare it had seemed. Now the stairs seemed a way of escape. It was glorious to reach the ground floor and see the lights of traffic through the glass doors. It was splendid when the doors were opened to breathe the night air of London. Henry took her elbow and they moved forward into a blinding whiteness that flashed and was gone. A young man came up to Henry and with a queer air of hardened deference said: “Lord Rune? I wonder if you would mind?”
“I’m afraid I would, do you know,” said Henry. “Taxi!”
A cruising taxi drew up at once but before they could get in there was another flash and this time Roberta saw the camera.
Henry bundled her in and slammed the doors, keeping his face turned from the window. “Damn!” he said. “I’d forgotten about Nigel’s low friends.” And he yelled the address through to the driver.
“Lord Rune,” said Roberta’s thoughts. “Henry is Lord Rune. The Earl of Rune. Press-men lie in wait for him with cameras. Everything is very odd.”
She was awakened by Henry giving her a little pat on the back. “Aren’t you the clever one?” he said.
“Am I?” asked Roberta. “How?”
“Tipping us the wink about what you’d told Alleyn.”
“Do you think that policeman noticed?”
“Not he. You know I didn’t exactly enjoy lying to Alleyn.”
“I hated it. And, Henry, I don’t think he believes it — about your Uncle G. promising the money.”
“ ’More do I. Oh well, we could but try.” He put his arm round Roberta. “Brave old Robin Grey,” said Henry. “Going into the witch’s den. What have we done to deserve you?”
“Nothing,” said Robin with spirit. “Without the word of a lie you’re a hopeless crew.”
“Do you remember a conversation we had years ago on the slope of Little Mount Silver?”
“Yes.”
“So do I. And here I am still without a job. I daresay it would have been a good thing if Uncle G. had lived to chortle at our bankruptcy. It would take a major disaster to cure us. Perhaps when the war comes it will do the trick. Kill, as they say, or cure.”
“I expect you’ll manage to slope through a war in the same old way. But don’t you call this a major disaster?”
“I suppose so. But you know, Robin, somehow or another, although I feel very bothered and frightened, I don’t, inside myself, think that any of us are bound for the dock.”
“Oh don’t. How can you gossip away about it!”
“It’s not affectation. I ought to be in a panic but I’m not. Not really.”
The taxi carried them into Hyde Park Corner. Roberta looked up through the window and saw the four heroic horses snorting soundlessly against a night sky, grandiloquently unaware of the less florid postures of some bronze artillerymen down below.
“We shan’t be long now,” said Henry. “I can’t tell you how frightful this house is. Uncle G.’s idea of the amenities was a mixture of elephantine ornament and incredible hardship. The servants are not allowed to use electricity once the gentry are in bed so they creep about by candlelight. It’s true, I promise you. The house was done up by my grandfather on the occasion of his marriage and since then has merely amassed a continuous stream of hideous objets d’art.”
“I read somewhere that Victorian things are fashionable again.”
“So they are, but with a difference. And anyway I think it’s a stupid fashion. Sometimes,” said Henry, “I wonder if there is such a thing as beauty.”
“Isn’t it supposed to exist only in the eye of the beholder?”
“I won’t take that. There are eyes and eyes. Fashion addles any true conception of beauty. There’s something inherently vulgar in fashion.”
“And yet,” said Roberta, “if Frid dressed herself up like a belle of 1929 you wouldn’t much care to be seen with her.”
“She’d only be putting her fashion back eleven years.”
“Well, what do you want? Nudism? Or bags tied round the middle?”
“You are unanswerable,” said Henry. “All the same…” and he expounded his ideas of fashion, giving Roberta cause to marvel at his detachment.
The taxi bucketed along Park Lane and presently turned into a decorous side-street where the noise of London was muffled and the rows of great, uniform houses seemed fast asleep.
“Here we are,” Henry said. “I think I’ve enough to pay the taxi. How much is it? Ah yes, I can just do it with the tip. So that’s all hotsy-totsy. Come on.”
As Henry rang the front doorbell, Roberta heard a clock chime and strike a single great note.
“One o’clock,” she said. “Where is it striking?”
“I expect it was Big Ben. You hear him all over the place at night-time.”
“I’ve only heard him on the air before.”
“You’re in London now.”
“I know. I keep saying so to myself.”
“It’s a damn shame you should be landed in our particular soup. Here comes somebody.”
The great door swung inwards. With the feeling that an ominous fairy tale was unfolding, Roberta saw a very old woman dressed in black satin and carrying a lighted candle in a silver candlestick. She stood against a dim background of stuffed bears, marble groups, gigantic pictures and a wide staircase that ascended into blackness. Henry said: “Good morning, Moffatt,” to this woman and added, “I expect Tinkerton has explained that Miss Grey and I have come to stay with her ladyship.” The woman answered: “Yes, Mr. Henry. Yes, my lord.” And like all the portresses of elfland she added: “You are expected.”
They followed her, crossing a deep carpet and ascending the stairs. They climbed two flights up to a muffled landing. The air was both cold and stuffy. Moffatt whispered an apology for her candle. A detective had arrived and insisted that the light should not be turned off at the switchboard but at least they could keep his poor lordship’s rule and not go using the lights before, as Moffatt said with relish, he was scarcely cold. Great shadows marched and stooped across unseen walls as Moffatt walked ahead with her candle. There was no sound but the stealthy whisper of her satin hem. Sometimes, as she held the candle before her, she was a black figure with a golden rim, but sometimes she turned to light them, and then her shadow sprang up beyond her. They came at last to a doorway which Moffatt opened. With a murmured apology she went in before them. Roberta, pausing on the threshold, saw a dim reflection of Moffatt in a dark looking-glass. Branched candlesticks stood on an immense dressing-table. Moffatt lit the candles and looked at Roberta, who on this hint entered her new bedroom. Henry followed.
“If there is anything you require, Miss?” suggested Moffatt. “Perhaps I may unpack for you? We only keep two maids when the family is not in residence and they are both in bed.”
Roberta said that she would unpack for herself and Moffatt and the candle and Henry went away.
The bedroom had a very high ceiling with a central plaster ornament. The walls were covered with a heavily patterned, paper and hung at intervals with thick curtains. Enormous pieces of furniture stood about the room, perpetuating some Victorian cabinetmaker’s illegitimate passion for mahogany and low relief. But the bed was a distinguished four-poster with fine carvings, a faded French canopy, and brocaded curtains where gold threads shone among rose-coloured flowers. The carpet was deep and covered with vegetable conceits. Upon the walls Roberta found four steel engravings and one colour print of a child with a kitten. There was a great charm in this print, so artlessly did the beribboned child simper over the blue bow of the tiny animal. Beside her bed Roberta found a Bible, a novel by Marie Corelli, and a tin of thick, dry biscuits. She unpacked her suitcase and, too timid to hunt down back passages for a bathroom, washed in cold water provided by a garlanded ewer. There was a tap at the door. Henry came in wearing his dressing-gown.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it frightful? I’m over the way so if you want anything you’ve only to cross the passage. There’s nobody else on this side. Aunt V. is across the landing in a terrible suite. Good night, Robin.”
“Good night, Henry.”
“You interrupted me,” said Henry. “I was going to add, ‘my darling.’ ”
He winked solemnly and went out.
III
A wind got up during the small hours. It hunted desolately about London, its course deflected by sleeping buildings. It moaned about Peasaunce Court Mansions, shaking the skylight of the lift well. The policeman on duty there stared upwards and wished the black, rattling panes would turn grey for the dawn. It blew the curtains of Patch’s windows across her face, giving her another nightmare and causing her to make horrid noises in her throat. The rest of the family, hearing Patch, turned fretfully in their beds and listened for the thud of Nanny’s feet as she stumped down the passage. Gathering strength in the open places of Hyde Park, the wind howled across Park Lane and whistled up Brummell Street so that the old chimney-cowls in No. 24 swung round with a groan and Roberta heard a voice in the chimney moaning “Rune — Rune — Rune.” Out at Hammersmith the wind ruffled the black waters of the Thames and the blameless dreams of Lady Katherine Lobe. Indeed the only actor in the Pleasaunce Court case who was not disturbed by that night wind was the late Lord Wutherwood who lay in a morgue awaiting his tryst with Dr. Curtis.
“Wind getting up,” said Fox in the Chief Inspector’s room at Scotland Yard. “Shouldn’t be surprised if we had rain before dawn.” He pulled a completed sheet and two carbons from his typewriter, added them tidily to the stacked papers on his desk, and took out his pipe.
“What’s the time?” asked Afleyn.
“Five-and-thirty past two, sir.”
“We’ve about finished, haven’t we, Fox?”
“I think so, sir. I’ve just got out the typescript of your report.”
Alleyn crumpled a sheet of paper and threw it at Nigel Bathgate, who was asleep in an office chair. “Wake up, Bathgate. The end’s in view.”
“What? Hullo, are we going home? Is that the report? May I see it?” asked Nigel.
“If you like. Give him a carbon, Fox. We’ll all have a brood over the beastly thing.” And for twenty minutes they read and smoked in a silence broken by the rustle of papers and occasional gusts that shook the window frames.
“That covers it, I think,” said Alleyn at last. He looked at Nigel, who with the nervous, half-irritated concentration of a press-man was still reading the report.
“Yes,” said Fox heavily, “as far as the family goes it’s all pretty plain sailing. Their truthful statements seem to hang together and so, if you can put it that way, do their untruthful statements.”
Nigel looked up. “Are you so positive,” he said, “that some of their statements are not true?”
“Certainly,” Alleyn said. “The story of Wutherwood promising to pay up is without doubt a tarradiddle. Roberta Grey tipped the wink to Lord Charles and Master Henry. Martin, the constable on duty, heard her do it. She said: ‘You must feel glad he was so generous, after all. It’ll be nice to remember that.’ You’ll find it in the report. I said she was a courageous little liar, didn’t I?”
“Is it the only lie she handed in?” asked Fox deeply.
“I’m sure it is. She made a brave shot at it but she had her ears laid back for the effort. I should say she was by habit an unusually truthful little party. I’ll stake my pension she hadn’t the remotest notion of the significance of her one really startling bit of information. She was absolutely sure of herself, too. Repeated it twice, and signed a statement to the same effect.”
“Here, wait a bit,” Nigel ejaculated and hastily turned back the pages of his report.
“If she’s right,” said Fox, “it plays bobs-a-dying with the whole blooming case.”
“It may make it a good deal simpler. Is that commissionarie fellow all right, Fox? Dependable?”
“I should say so. He noticed the eccentric old lady — Lady Katherine Lobe — all right. She walked down but he didn’t miss her. And he didn’t miss that chap Giggle or Miss Tinkerton either. Passed the time of day with them as they went out. And, by the way, you’ll notice he confirms Tinkerton’s story that she got downstairs just after Giggle.”
“Miserable female,” Alleyn muttered. “There’s a liar if you like! Still, the commissionarie seems sound enough.”
“Rather an observant sort of chap I should say,” Fox agreed. “They get a knack of noticing people at that job.”
“And he says the lift was not used between the time the Wutherwoods went up and what I feel sure Bathgate’s paper will call the fatal trip?”
“That’s right. He says he can’t be mistaken. He always has a look to see who comes down or goes up because it’s his job to keep that IN-and-OUT affair up to date. After the Wutherwoods went up to the flat the lift didn’t return. He says the people on the first floor never use it. The second floor’s away on a holiday and the third is unlet. The lift is really only used by the Lampreys just now.”
“Ah, well,” said Alleyn. “It’s a line of country. We’ll have to follow it up.”
“What is?” Nigel demanded. “What are you talking about?” He pored over the report for a minute and then said: “Here! Are you thinking of those two servants? Giggle and Tinkerton?”
“Have you read that report carefully?”
“Yes, I have. I know what you mean. Young Michael says Wutherwood yelled out for his wife after Giggle went downstairs. Suppose that was a blind? Suppose Giggle came back and did the job?”
“Passing Tinkerton on his way up and probably running into Lady Charles as she came through the landing? Remember Lady Charles came out of 26 and went to the drawing-room in the other flat.”
“Then whoever the murderer was, he took the risk of meeting her.”
“The murderer,” said Alleyn, “took great risks but I’m inclined to think that was not one of them.”
“For God’s sake, Alleyn, what do you mean by that?”
“I told you it would be better if you kept out of it. I can’t discuss the case fully with you. It wouldn’t be fair to any of us. If we find ourselves drawn away from the Lampreys you’d burst to tell them so. If we find ourselves drawn towards one of them — what then? Your position would be intolerable. Better keep out.”
“No,” said Nigel. “I’ll stick. What about this Tinkerton who’s a liar?”
“She’s almost the only member of the crowd of whom I am certain. She didn’t kill Wutherwood. It’s actually a physical impossibility.”
“Then,” said Nigel, “in my mind there’s only one answer. It must be the dowager. Homicidal lunacy. She must have taken the skewer when Imogen went into the dining-room to ask for a twin to work the lift.”
“The skewer had gone by then. Vide Michael.”
“Well, if he’s right, she took it before that and did the trick while she was supposed to be in the lavatory.”
“Yes,” said Alleyn, “that’s arguable. But see what Roberta Grey says.”
“Oh, damn Roberta Grey. What do you mean, Roberta Grey?”
“If you want to see thing as a whole,” said Alleyn, “get it down as a sort of table. Take Lord Wutherwood’s movements from the time he left the drawing-room until the lift returned, not forgetting the two yells he gave for his wife. Then look at the statement and correlate all the other people’s moves with his. You’ll find that after Wutherwood called the second time the landing was deserted until Lady Charles went from 26 to the drawing-room. During that period, according to statements, Lord Charles and his three eldest sons were in the drawing-room, Lady Charles and her daughters in her bedroom, Lady Wutherwood and Lady Katherine in the two lavatories, Giggle on his way downstairs, Tinkerton following him, Baskett in the servants’ hall, Roberta Grey in the dining-room, Michael in Flat 26, and Nanny in her bedroom. The other servants and the bum were in the kitchen, and during that same period Lady Katherine Lobe went downstairs and into the street.”
“And that’s the crucial time?”
“It’s unlikely that he yelled for his wife in what they all agree was his normal voice after he’d got a skewer in his brain.”
“Can you cut that period down a bit further?”
“Lady Katherine told me that she slipped away after Lady Charles crossed the landing. That means that she herself was on the landing and making for the stairs. She looked at the lift but could see nobody inside. With those doors you can’t see anybody who is sitting down. Wutherwood must have been in the lift then but his murderer, unless he sat beside the victim, was not there. Nor, of course, was he on the landing. A moment later Stephen Lamprey came out to work the lift.”
Nigel dabbed his finger on the carbon copy.
“And when Stephen went out on the landing his aunt was there — alone.”
“That is what he gave in his statement,” said Alleyn without emphasis.
“Have you any reason to doubt this statement?”
“At the moment, none.”
“Very well, then. She had been alone on the landing.”
“I thought your argument was that she did it before that, in which case why did she stay on the landing?”
“I’m only showing that she had opportunities.”
“All right.”
“Alleyn,” said Nigel, “please tell me. Do you think she did it?”
“There you go, you see,” said Alleyn wearily. “Stick to your press-manship, my boy. Go away and write a front-page story and let me see it before you hand it over to your evening screecher. Come on. We’ll go home to our unfortunate wives and Fox to his blameless pallet.”
They parted on the Embankment. Nigel hailed a taxi; Fox, his head bent sideways, his hand to his bowler and his overcoat flapping about his formidable legs, tacked off into the wind, making for his lodgings in Victoria. Alleyn crossed the Embankment and leaning on the parapet looked down into the black shadows of Westminster Pier. The river slapped against wet stones and Alleyn felt a thin touch of spray on his face. He stood for so long that a constable on night duty paused and finally marched down upon his superior, flashing his torch into Alleyn’s face.
“It’s all right,” said Alleyn. “I’m not yet tired of life.”
“I beg your pardon, sir, I’m sure. Mr. Alleyn isn’t it? Didn’t recognize you for a minute. It’s a thick night.”
“It’s a beastly night,” agreed Alleyn, “and we’re at the worst part of it.”
“Yes, sir. That’s right, sir.”
“Dull job, night duty, isn’t it?”
“Chronic, sir. Nothing much to do as a general rule except walk and think.”
“I know.”
Gratified by this encouragement, the constable said: “Yes, sir. I always reckon that if there’s any chap or female on this beat, hanging off and on, wondering whether they’ll make a hole in the river or not, it’s between two and four of the morning they’ll go overboard if they’re ever going. The river patrols say the same thing.”
“Yes,” said Alleyn. “So do doctors and nurses. It’s the hour of low vitality.” He did not move away and the constable, still further encouraged, continued the conversation.
“Have you ever read a play called ‘Macbeth,’ sir?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Alleyn, turning his head to look at the man.
“I wonder if it’d be the same thing, sir. The one I have in mind is by this Shakespeare.”
“I think it’ll be the same.”
“Well, sir, I saw that piece once at the old Vic. On duty there, sir, I was. It’s a funny kind of show. Not the type of entertainment that appeals to me as a general rule. Morbid. But it kind of caught my fancy and afterwards I got hold of a copy of the words and read them. There’s one or two bits I seem to be reminded of when I am on night duty. I don’t know why, I’m sure, because the play is a countrified affair. Blasted heaths and woods and so on.”
“And witches,” said Alleyn.
“That’s so, sir. Very peculiar. Fanciful. All the same there’s one or two bits that stick in my mind. Something about ‘night thickens’ and it goes on about birds flying into trees, and ‘good things of day begin to droop and drowse’ — and — er—”
“‘While night’s black agents to their prey do rouse.’ ”
“Ah. It’s the same, then. Gives you a sort of sensation, doesn’t it, sir?”
“Yes.”
“And there’s another remark that took my fancy. This chap Macbeth asks his wife, ‘What is the night?’ meaning what’s the time and she says ‘Almost at odds with morning, which is which.’ It’s the kind of way it’s put. They were a very nasty couple. Bad type. Superstitious, like most crooks. She was the worst of the two, in my opinion. Tried to fix the job so’s it’d look as if the servants had done it. Do you recollect that, sir?”
“Yes,” said Alleyn slowly, “yes.”
“Mind,” said the constable, warming a little, “I reckon if he hadn’t lost his nerve they’d have got away with it. No fingerprinting in those days, you see. And you know how it’d be, sir. You don’t expect people of their class to commit murder.”
“No.”
“No, you don’t. And with the weapons lying there beside these grooms or whatever they were, and so on, well the first thing anybody would have said was: ‘Here’s your birds.’ Not that there seemed to be anything like what you’d call an inquiry.”
“Not precisely,” said Alleyn.
“No, sir. No,” continued the constable, turning his back to the wind, “if Macbeth hadn’t got jumpy and mucked things up I reckon they’d have got away with it. They seemed to be well-liked people in the district. Some kind of royalty. Aristocratic, like. Well, nobody suspects people of that class. That’s my point.”
Alleyn pulled his hat on more firmly and turned up the collar of his coat.
“Well,” he said, “I’ll go off duty.”
“Yes, sir. I beg pardon, sir. Don’t know what came over me speaking so freely, sir.”
“That’s all right,“ said Alleyn. ”You’ve put a number of ideas in my head. Good night to you.”