Death of a Peer

said. “Let me see.”

“Immy, my dear!” protested her husband.

“Well, Charlie, I’m not going to read any of Mr. Alleyn’s notes and he’d snatch it away from me if there was anything secret in the drawing. There, it’s as clear as daylight. That’s the bathroom, Mr. Alleyn. I told her where it was and off she went. And then Aunt Kit began to whisper — you know how that generation does — only even more so because, as Patch says, she whispers anyway. So she went off to the other place which I see you’ve also got marked very neatly, and now I think of it that’s the last I saw her.”

“It’s as clear as glass,” Frid interrupted. “She probably whispered: ‘I’ll have to go. Bless you, my dear,’ and you thought she said: ‘Lavatory. I’ll just disappear.’ ”

“Anyone would think it was I who was deaf instead of Aunt Kit! She didn’t say anything of the sort. She went down the passage in that direction.”

“Well, perhaps she’s locked in,” suggested Frid. “It happened to her once before, Mr. Alleyn, in a railway station, and nobody heard her whispering.”

“Good heavens, I wonder—”

“No, m’lady,” said Nanny firmly and unexpectedly.

“Oh. Are you certain, Nanny?”

With a scarlet face and a formidable frown Nanny said that she was certain.

“Then, that’s no good,” said Lady Charles. “And then, Mr. Alleyn, I waited for Violet. She was rather a long time and I remember that my brother-in-law shouted again for her. The two girls, Frid and Patch, came in, and then at last she came back and she reminded me that she and Gabriel didn’t like working the lift themselves, so I came along here leaving her on the landing, and asked one of the boys to take them down.”

It seemed to Alleyn that as Lady Charles reached this point a curious stillness fell upon the room. He looked up quickly. The Lampreys had returned to their former postures. Lord Charles again swung his eyeglass, Henry’s hands were again driven into his trousers pockets, and again the twins stared at the fire while Patch, her chin on her knees, squatted on the floor by Roberta Grey. And Miss Grey still sat erect on her stool. Alleyn was reminded of the childish game of Steps in which, whenever the “he” has his back turned, the players creep nearer, only to freeze into immobility whenever he turns round and faces them. Alleyn felt sure that some signal had passed between the Lampreys, a signal that, by the fraction of a second, he himself had missed. At this hated and familiar sign of guardedness his own attention sharpened.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “We may as well clear up this point as we come to it.” He looked at the twins. “Mr. Fox tells me that Lord Charles didn’t notice which of you went down in the lif’t. Which was it?”

“I did,” said the twins.

So complete a silence fell upon the room that Alleyn heard a voice in the street below call for a taxi. The fire settled down in the grate with a little sigh and, as clearly as if, instead of sitting stone-still in their chairs, the Lampreys had made a swift concerted movement, Alleyn heard them close their ranks.

II

“Hullo,” he said amiably, “a difference of opinion! Or did you both go down in the lift?”

“I went down, sir,” said the twins. Lord Charles, very white in the face, put his eyeglass away.

“My dear Alleyn,” he said, “I must warn you that these two idiots have got some ridiculous idea of stonewalling us over this point. I have told them that it is extremely foolish and very wrong. I hope you will convince them of this.”

“I hope so, too,” said Alleyn. Out of the tail of his eye he saw Lady Charles’s thin hands close on each other. He turned to her. “Perhaps, Lady Charles, you will be able to clear this point up for us,” he said. “Can you tell us who took Lord and Lady Wutherwood down in the lift?”

“No. I’m sorry. I didn’t notice. One of the twins came out to the landing as soon as I asked for someone to work the lift.” She looked at the twins with a painful nakedness of devotion, made as if to speak to them, and was silent.

Alleyn waited. Fox returned and went silently to his chair. Nanny cleared her throat.

“Did anyone else,” asked Alleyn, “notice which twin remained here and which went down in the lift?”

The twins looked at the fire. Frid made a sudden impatient movement. Henry lit a cigarette.

“No?” said Alleyn. “Then we’ll go on.”

There was a sort of stealthy shifting of positions. For the first time they all looked directly at him and he knew that they had expected him to pounce on this queer behaviour of the twins and were profoundly disconcerted by his refusal to do so. He went on steadily.

“When Lady Charles came and asked for someone to work the lift, Lady Frid and Lady Patricia were in their mother’s bedroom, and their brothers were here in the drawing-room?”

“Yes,” said Henry.

“Where had you been before that?”

“In the dining-room.”

“All of you?”

“Yes. All of us. All the children and Roberta. Miss Grey.”

“While your father and Lord Wutherwood were talking in here?”

“Yes.”

“When did you leave the dining-room?”

“When the girls went out. The twins …”

“And you, Miss Grey?”

“I stayed in the dining-room with Mike — with Michael.”

“And Michael,” said Alleyn, “is of course now in bed?”

“He is,” said Nanny.

“Were you all in the dining-room when Lord Wutherwood called out?”

“Yes,” said Henry. “He shouted ‘Violet!’ twice. We were in the dining-room.”

“At what stage did Michael appear in the dining-room?”

Henry leant forward and pulled an ash-tray towards him. “Not long before Uncle Gabriel called out. He’d been messing about with his trains in 26.”

“Right. That’s perfectly clear. We’ve got to the moment when Lady Wutherwood and her escort went into the lift. Did you go out on the landing, Lady Charles?”

“I stood in the hall door and called out good-bye.”

“Yes? And then?”

“I turned back to come in here. I’d just gone to that table over there to get myself a cigarette when I heard —” she only stopped for a second — “when I heard my sister-in-law screaming. We all went out on the landing.”

“I’ll go on,” said Henry. “We went out to the landing. The lift came up. Aunt Violet was still screaming. Then whichever twin it was opened the lift doors and she sort of half fell out. Then we saw him.”

“Yes. Now, to go back a little way. This call Lord Wutherwood gave — Did it strike none of you as at all odd that he should sit in the lift and shout for Lady Wutherwood?”

“Not in the least,” said Frid. “It was entirely in character. I can’t tell you—”

“My brother,” interrupted Lord Charles hurriedly, “was like that. I mean he did rather sit still and shout for people.”

“I see. You wouldn’t say, on thinking it over, that there was any particular urgency in his voice?”

“I see what you mean, sir,” said Henry. “I’m sure there was nothing wrong when he shouted. I’ll swear nothing happened until after that.”

“But wait a moment.” Lady Charles leant forward and the light from a table lamp caught her face at an exacting angle. Shadows appeared beneath her eyes, her cheekbones; shadows prolonged the small folds at the corners of her mouth and traced out the muscles of her neck. By that trick of lighting a prefiguration of age fell across her. Her voice sharpened. “Wait a moment, all of you. Is it certain that he wasn’t calling out in alarm? How do we know? How do we know that he hadn’t seen something — someone?”

Alleyn saw Lord Charles look sharply at her.

“We don’t know, of course,” he said slowly.