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

Take your choice.’

      He followed Moppett into the passage. He found her arranging her back against the wall and her cigarette in the corner of her mouth. Alleyn could hear Mr Fox’s bass voice rumbling downstairs.

      ‘What can I do for you, Super?’ Moppett asked with the slight smile of the film underworldling.

      ‘You can stop being an ass,’ he rejoined tartly. ‘I don’t know why I waste time telling you this but if you don’t, you may find yourself in serious trouble. Think that one out, if you can, and stop smirking at me,’ Alleyn said, rounding off what was possibly the most unprofessional speech of his career.

      ‘Oi!’ said Moppett, ‘who’s in a naughty rage?’

      Alleyn heard Miss Cartell’s edgeless voice directing Mr Fox upstairs. He looked over the banister and saw her upturned face, blunt, red and vulnerable. His distaste for Moppett was exacerbated. There she stood, conceited, shifty and complacent as they come, without scruple or compassion. And there, below stairs, was her guardian, wide open to anything this detestable girl liked to hand out to her.

      Fox could be heard saying in a comfortable voice: ‘Thank you very much, Miss Cartell. I’ll find my own way.’

      ‘More force?’ Moppett remarked. ‘Delicious!’

      ‘This is Inspector Fox,’ Alleyn said as his colleague appeared. He handed Leonard’s dinner-suit and overcoat to Fox. ‘General routine check,’ he said, ‘and I’d like you to witness something I’m going to say to Miss Mary Ralston.’

      ‘Good afternoon, Miss Ralston,’ Fox said pleasantly. He hung Leonard’s garments over the banister and produced his note-book. The half-smile did not leave Moppett’s face but seemed rather, to remain there by a sort of oversight.

      ‘Understand this,’ Alleyn continued, speaking to Moppett. ‘We are investigating a capital crime and I have, I believe, proof that last night the cigarette-case in question was in the possession of that unspeakable young man of yours. It was found by Mr Cartell’s body and Mr Cartell has been murdered.’

      ‘Murdered!’ she said, ‘he hasn’t!’ And then she went very white round the mouth. ‘I can’t believe you,’ she said. ‘People like him don’t get murdered. Why?’

      ‘For one of the familiar motives,’ Alleyn said. ‘For knowing something damaging about someone else. Or threatening to take action against somebody. Financial troubles. Might be anything.’

      ‘Auntie Con said it was an accident.’

      ‘I dare say she didn’t want to upset you.’

      ‘Bloody dumb of her!’ Moppett said viciously.

      ‘Obviously you don’t feel the same concern for her. But if you did, in the smallest degree, you would answer my questions truthfully. If you’ve any sense, you’ll do so for your own sake.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘To save yourself from the suspicion of something much more serious than theft.’

      She seemed to contract inside Leonard’s dressing-gown. ‘I don’t know what you mean. I don’t know anything about it.’

      Alleyn thought: ‘Are these two wretched young no-goods in the fatal line? Is that to be the stale, deadly familiar end?’

      He said: ‘If you stole the cigarette-case, or Mr Leiss stole it or you both stole it in collusion, and if, for one reason or another, you dropped it in the ditch last night, you will be well advised to say so.’

      ‘How do I know that? You’re trying to trap me.’

      Alleyn said patiently: ‘Believe me, I’m not concerned to trap the innocent. Nor, at the moment, am I primarily interested in theft.’

      ‘Then you’re trying to bribe me.’

      This observation showing, as it did, a flash of perception, was infuriating.

      ‘I can neither bribe nor threaten,’ he said. ‘But I can warn you and I do. You’re in a position of great danger. You, personally. Do you know what happens to people who withhold evidence in a case of homicide? Do you know what happens to accessories before the fact, of such a crime? Do you?’

      Her face crumpled suddenly, like a child’s, and her enormous shallow eyes overflowed.

      ‘All right,’ she said. ‘All right. I’ll tell you. But it wasn’t anything. You’ve got it all wrong. It was –’

      ‘Well?’

      ‘It was all a mistake,’ Moppett whispered.

      The bedroom door opened and Leonard came out in his purple pyjamas.

      ‘You keep your great big, beautiful trap shut, honey,’ he said. He stood behind Moppett, holding her arms. He really would, Alleyn had time to consider, do rather well in a certain type of film.

      ‘Mr Leiss,’ he said, ‘will you be kind enough to take yourself out of this.’

      But, even as he said it, he knew it was no good. With astonishing virtuosity Moppett, after a single ejaculation of pain and a terrified glance at Leonard, leant back against him, falling abruptly into the role of seductive accessory. The tears still stood in her eyes and her mouth twitched as his fingers bit into her arm. She contrived a smile.

      ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ she said, rubbing her head against Leonard. ‘I’m not saying a thing.’

      ‘That’s my girl,’ said Leonard savagely.

      III

      ‘Not,’ Mr Fox remarked as they drove away, ‘the type of young people you’d expect to find in this environment.’

      ‘Not county, you think?’ Alleyn returned.

      ‘Certainly not,’ Fox said primly. ‘Leiss, now. A bad type that. Wide boy. Only a matter of time before he’s inside for a tidy stretch. But the young lady’s a different story. Or ought to be,’ Fox said, after a pause. ‘Or ought to be,’ he repeated heavily.

      ‘The young lady,’ Alleyn said tartly, ‘is a young stinker. Look, Fox! There are threads of the Period cigarette tobacco in Leiss’s pocket. Bob Williams’ll lay on a vacuum cleaner, I dare say. Go through the pockets and return the unspeakable garments will you? And check his dabs from the oddments in the pockets. To my mind, there’s no doubt they pinched the cigarette-case. Suppose Cartell or Period or both, cut up rough? What then?’

      ‘Ah!’ Fox said. ‘Exactly. And suppose Mr Cartell threatened to go to the police and they set the trap for him and accidentally dropped the case in doing it?’

      ‘All right. Suppose they did. Now as to their actions on the scene of the crime we’ve got that pleasant child, Nicola Maitland-Mayne, for a witness but she was in the throes of young love and may have missed one or two tricks. I’ll check with her young man, although he was probably further gone than she. All right. I’ll drop you at the station and return to the genteel assault on Mr Pyke Period. He’ll have lunched by now. What about you?’

      ‘Or you, Mr Alleyn, if it comes to that.’

      ‘I think I’ll press on, Br’er Fox. Get yourself a morsel of cheese and pickle at the pub and see if there’s anything more to be extracted from that cagey little job, Alfred Belt.’

      ‘As a matter of fact,’ Fox confessed, ‘Mr Belt and Mrs Mitchell the cook, who seems to be a very superior type of woman, suggested I should drop in for a snack later in the day. Mrs Mitchell went so far as to indicate she’d set something cold aside.’

      ‘I might have known it,’ Alleyn said. ‘Meet you at the station at fiveish.’ The car pulled up at Mr Pyke Period’s gate and he got out, arranging for it to pick him