Death at the Dolphin by Ngaio Marsh
‘No doubt Mr Alleyn will mark it for you. “Quite G, but should take more pains with his writing.” Are you sure you haven’t forgotten the one apparently trifling clue round which the whole mystery revolves?’
‘You’re very joky, aren’t you? I’m far from sure. The near-drowning accident’s all complete, I think, but I’m not so sure about the visit to Drury Place. Of course, I was drunk by the time that was over. How extraordinary it was,’ Peregrine said. ‘Really, he was rum. Do you know, Emmy, darling, it seems to me now as if he acted throughout on some kind of compulsion. As if it had been he not I who was half-drowned and behaving (to mix my metaphor, you pedantic girl) like a duck that’s had its head chopped off. He was obsessed while I was merely plastered. Or so it seems, now.’
‘But what did he do that was so odd?’
‘Do? He – well, there was an old menu card from the yacht Kalliope. It was in the desk and he snatched it up and burnt it.’
‘I suppose if your yacht’s wrecked under your feet you don’t much enjoy being reminded of it.’
‘No, but I got the impression it was something on the card –’ Peregrine went into a stare and after a long pause said in a rather glazed manner, ‘I think I’ve remembered.’
‘What?’
‘On the menu. Signatures: you know? And – Emmy, listen.’
Emily listened. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘For what it’s worth: put it in.’
Peregrine put it in. ‘There’s one other thing,’ he said. ‘It’s about last night. I think it was when I was in front and you had come through from backstage. There was the disturbance by the boy – catcalls and the door-slamming. Somewhere about then, it was, that I remember thinking of The Cherry Orchard. Not consciously but with one of those sort of momentary, back-of-the-mind things.’
‘The Cherry Orchard?’
‘Yes, and Miss Joan Littlewood.’
‘Funny mixture. She’s never produced it, has she?’
‘I don’t think so. Oh, damn, I wish I could get it. Yes,’ Peregrine said excitedly. ‘And with it there was a floating remembrance, I’m sure – of what? A quotation: “Vanished with a – something perfume and a – ” that I think was used somewhere by Walter de la Mare. It was hanging about like the half-recollection of a dream when we walked up the puddled alleyway and into Wharfingers Lane. Why? What started it up?’
‘It mightn’t have anything to do with Trevor or Jobbins.’
‘I know. But I’ve got this silly feeling it has.’
‘Don’t try to remember and then you may.’
‘All right. Anyway the end of hols essay’s ready for what it’s worth. I wonder if Alleyn’s still at the theatre.’
‘Ring up.’
‘OK. What’s that parcel you’ve been carting about all day?’
‘I’ll show you when you’ve rung up.’
A policeman answered from The Dolphin and said that Alleyn was at the Yard. Peregrine got through with startling promptitude.
‘I’ve done this thing,’ he said. ‘Would you like me to bring it over to you?’
‘I would indeed. Thank you, Jay. Remembered anything new?’
‘Not much, I’m afraid.’ The telephone made its complicated jangling sound.
‘What?’ Alleyn asked. ‘What’s that twanging? What did you say? Nothing new?’
‘Yes!’ Peregrine suddenly bawled into the receiver. ‘Yes. You’ve done it. I’ll put it in. Yes. Yes. Yes.’
‘You sound like a pop singer. I’ll be here for the next hour or so. Ask at the Yard entrance and they’ll send you up. ‘Bye.’
‘You’ve remembered?’ Emily cried. ‘What is it? You’ve remembered. ’
And when Peregrine told her, she remembered, too.
He re-opened his report and wrote feverishly. Emily unwrapped her parcel. When Peregrine had finished his additions and swung round in his chair he found, staring portentously at him, a watercolour drawing of a florid gentleman. His hair was curled into a cockscomb. His whiskers sprang from his jowls like steel wool and his prominent eyes proudly glared from beneath immensely luxuriant brows. He wore a frock coat with satin revers, a brilliant waistcoat, three alberts, a diamond tie-pin and any quantity of rings. His pantaloons were strapped under his varnished boots and beneath his elegantly arched arm, his lilac-gloved hand supported a topper with a curly brim. He stood with one leg straight and the other bent. He was superb.
And behind, lightly but unmistakably sketched in, was a familiar, an adorable facade.
‘Emily? It isn’t – ? It must be – ?’
‘Look.’
Peregrine came closer. Yes, scribbled in faded pencil at the bottom of the work: ‘Mr Adolphus Ruby of The Dolphin Theatre. “Histrionic Portraits” series, 23 April 1855.’
‘It’s a present,’ Emily said. ‘It was meant, under less ghastly circs, to celebrate The Dolphin’s first six months. I thought I’d get it suitably framed but then I decided to give it to you now to cheer you up a little.’
Peregrine began kissing her very industriously.
‘Hi!’ she said. ‘Steady.’
‘Where, you darling love, did you get it?’
‘Charlie Random told me about it. He’d seen it on one of his prowls in a print shop off Long Acre. Isn’t he odd? He didn’t seem to want it himself. He goes in for nothing later than 1815, he said. So, I got it.’
‘It’s not a print, by Heaven it’s an original. It’s a Phiz original, Emmy. Oh, we shall frame it so beautifully and hang it – ’ He stopped for a second. ‘Hang it,’ he said, ‘in the best possible place. Gosh, won’t it send old Jer sky high!’
‘Where is he?’
Peregrine said: ‘He had a thing to do. He ought to be back by now. Emily, I couldn’t have ever imagined myself telling anybody what I’m going to tell you so it’s a sort of compliment. Do you know what Jer did?’
And he told Emily about Jeremy and the glove.
‘He must have been demented,’ she said flatly.
‘I know. And what Alleyn’s decided to do about him, who can tell? You don’t sound as flabbergasted as I expected.’
‘Don’t I? No, well – I’m not altogether. When we were making the props Jeremy used to talk incessantly about the glove. He’s got a real fixation on the ownership business, hasn’t he? It really is almost a kink, don’t you feel? Harry was saying something the other day about after all the value of those kinds of jobs was purely artificial and fundamentally rather silly. If he was trying to get a rise out of Jeremy, he certainly succeeded. Jeremy was livid. I thought there’d be a punch-up before we were through. Perry, what’s the matter? Have I been beastly?’
‘No, no. Of course not.’
‘I have,’ she said contritely. ‘He’s a great friend and I’ve been talking about him as if he’s a specimen. I am sorry.’
‘You needn’t be. I know what he’s like. Only I do wish he hadn’t done this.’
Peregrine walked over to the window and stared across the river towards The Dolphin. Last night, he thought, only sixteen hours ago, in that darkened house, a grotesque overcoat had moved in and out of shadow. Last night – He looked down into the street below. There from the direction of the bridge came a ginger head, thrust forward above heavy shoulders and adorned, like a classic ewer, with a pair of outstanding ears.
‘Here he comes,’ Peregrine said. ‘They haven’t run him in as yet it seems.’
‘I’ll take myself off.’
‘No, you don’t. I’ve to drop this stuff at the Yard. Come with me. We’ll take the car and I’ll run you home.’
‘Haven’t you got things you ought to do? Telephonings and fussings. What about Trevor?’
‘I’ve done that. No change. Big troubles with Mum. Compensation. It’s Greenslade and Winty’s headache, thank God. We want to do what’s right and a tidy bit more but she’s out for the earth.’
‘Oh, dear.’
‘Here’s Jer.’
He came in looking chilled and rath
‘Hallo, Jer.’
‘I’ve told her,’ Peregrine said.
‘Thank you very much.’
‘There’s no need to take it grandly, is there?’
‘Jeremy, you needn’t mind my knowing. Truly.’
‘I don’t in the least mind,’ he said in a high voice. ‘No doubt you’ll both be surprised to learn I’ve been released with a blackguarding that would scour the hide off an alligator.’
‘Surprised and delighted,’ Peregrine said. ‘Where’s the loot?’
‘At the Yard.’
Jeremy stood with his hands in his pockets as if waiting for something irritating to occur.
‘Do you want the car, Jer? I’m going to the Yard now,’ Peregrine said and explained why. Jeremy remarked that Peregrine was welcome to the car and added that he was evidently quite the whitehaired Trusty of the Establishment. He stood in the middle of the room and watched them go.
‘He is in a rage,’ Emily said as they went to the car.
‘I don’t know what he’s in but he’s bloody lucky it’s not the lock-up. Come on.’
IV
Alleyn put down Peregrine’s report and gave it a definitive slap. ‘It’s useful, Fox,’ he said. ‘You’d better read it.’
He dropped it on the desk before his colleague, filled his pipe and strolled over to the window. Like Peregrine Jay, an hour earlier, he looked down at the Thames and he thought how closely this case clung to the river as if it had been washed up by the incoming tide and left high-and-dry for their inspection. Henry Jobbins of Phipps Passage was a waterside character if ever there was one.
Peregrine Jay and Jeremy Jones were not far east along the Embankment. Opposite them The Dolphin pushed up its stage-house and flagstaff with a traditional flourish on Bankside. Behind Tabard Lane in the Borough lurked Mrs Blewitt while her terrible Trevor, still on the South Bank, languished in St Terence’s. And as if to top it off, he thought idly, here we are at the Yard, hard by the river.
‘But with Conducis,’ Alleyn muttered, ‘we move West and, I suspect, a good deal further away than Mayfair.’
He looked at Fox who, with eyebrows raised high above his spectacles in his stuffy reading expression, concerned himself with Peregrine’s report.
The telephone rang and Fox reached for it. ‘Super’s room,’ he said. ‘Yes? I’ll just see.’
He laid his great palm across the mouthpiece. ‘It’s Miss Destiny Meade,’ he said, ‘for you.’
‘Is it, by gum! What’s she up to, I wonder. All right. I’d better.’
‘Look,’ cried Destiny when he had answered. ‘I know you’re a kind kind man.’
‘Do you?’ Alleyn said. ‘How?’
‘I have a sixth sense about people. Now, you won’t laugh at me will you? Promise.’
‘I’ve no inclination to do so, believe me.’
‘And you won’t slap me back. You’ll come and have a delicious little dinky at six, or even earlier or whenever it suits and tell me I’m being as stupid as an owl. Now, do, do, do, do, do. Please, please, please.’
‘Miss Meade,’ Alleyn said, ‘it’s extremely kind of you but I’m on duty and I’m afraid I can’t.’
‘On duty! But you’ve been on duty all day. That’s worse than being an actor and you can’t possibly mean it.’
‘Have you thought of something that may concern this case?’
‘It concerns ME,’ she cried and he could imagine how widely her eyes opened at the telephone.
‘Perhaps if you would just say what it is,’ Alleyn suggested. He looked across at Fox who, with his spectacles half-way down his nose, blankly contemplated his superior and listened at the other telephone. Alleyn crossed his eyes and protruded his tongue.
‘ – I can’t really, not on the telephone. It’s too complicated. Look – I’m sure you’re up to your ears and not for the wide, wide world would I – ’ The lovely voice moved unexpectedly into its higher and less mellifluous register. ‘I’m nervous,’ it said rapidly. ‘I’m afraid. I’m terrified. I’m being threatened.’ Alleyn heard a distant bang and a male voice. Destiny Meade whispered in his ear, ‘Please come. Please come.’ Her receiver clicked and the dialling tone set in.
‘Now who in Melpomene’s dear name,’ Alleyn said, ‘does that lovely lady think she’s leading down the garden path? Or is she? By gum, if she is,’ he said, ‘she’s going to get such a tap on the temperament as hasn’t come her way since she hit the headlines. When are we due with Conducis? Five o’clock. It’s now half past two. Find us a car, Br’er Fox, we’re off to Cheyne Walk.’
Fifteen minutes later they were shown into Miss Destiny Meade’s drawing-room.
It was sumptuous to a degree and in maddeningly good taste: an affair of mushroom-coloured curtains, dashes of Schiaparelli pink, dull satin, Sévres plaques and an unusual number of orchids. In the middle of it all was Destiny wearing a heavy sleeveless sheath with a mink collar: and not at all pleased to see Inspector Fox.
‘Kind, kind,’ she said, holding out her hand at her white arm’s length for Alleyn to do what he thought best with. ‘Good afternoon,’ she said to Mr Fox.
‘Now, Miss Meade,’ Alleyn said briskly, ‘what’s the matter?’ He reminded himself of a mature Hamlet.
‘Please sit down. No, please. I’ve been so terribly distressed and I need your advice so desperately.’
Alleyn sat, as she had indicated it, in a pink velvet buttoned chair. Mr Fox took the least luxurious of the other chairs and Miss Meade herself sank upon a couch, tucked up her feet which were beautiful and leant superbly over the arm to gaze at Alleyn. Her hair, coloured raven black for the Dark Lady, hung like a curtain over her right jaw and half her cheek. She raised a hand to it and then drew the hand away as if it had hurt her. Her left ear was exposed and embellished with a massive diamond pendant.
‘This is so difficult,’ she said.
‘Perhaps we could fire point-blank.’
‘Fire? Oh, I see. Yes. Yes, I must try, mustn’t I?’
‘If you please.’
Her eyes never left Alleyn’s face. ‘It’s about – ‘ she began and her voice resentfully indicated the presence of Mr Fox. ‘It’s about ME.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid I must be terribly frank. Or no. Why do I say that? To you of all people who, of course, understand – ’ she executed a circular movement of her arm – ‘everything. I know you do. I wouldn’t have asked you if I hadn’t known. And you see I have nowhere to turn.’
‘Oh, surely!’
‘No. I mean that,’ she said with great intensity. ‘I mean it. Nowhere. No one. It’s all so utterly unexpected. Everything seemed to be going along quite naturally and taking the inevitable course. Because – I know you’ll agree with this – one shouldn’t – indeed one can’t resist the inevitable. One is fated and when this new thing came into our lives we both faced up to it, he and I, oh, over and over again. It’s like,’ she rather surprisingly added, ‘Antony and Cleopatra. I forget the exact line. I think, actually, that in the production it was cut but it puts the whole thing in a nutshell, and I told him so. Ah, Cleopatra,’ she mused and such was her beauty and professional expertise, that, there and then, lying (advantageously of course) on the sofa she became for a fleeting moment the Serpent of the old Nile. ‘But now,’ she added crossly as she indicated a box of cigarettes that was not quite within her reach, ‘now, with him turning peculiar and violent like this I feel I simply don’t know him. I can’t cope. As I told you on the telephone, I’m terrified.’
When Alleyn leant forward to light her cigarette he fancied that he caught a glint of appraisal and of wariness but she blinked, moved her face nearer to his and gave him a look that was a masterpiece.
‘Can you,’ Alleyn said, ‘perhaps come to the point and tell us precisely why and of whom you are frightened, Miss Meade?’
‘Wouldn’t
She turned her head aside, swept back the heavy wing of her hair and superbly presented herself to Alleyn’s gaze.
‘Look,’ she said.
Unmistakably someone had slapped Miss Meade very smartly indeed across the right-hand rearward aspect of her face. She had removed the diamond ear-ring on this side but its pendant had cut her skin behind the point of the jaw and the red beginnings of a bruise showed across the cheek.
‘What do you think of that?’ she said.
‘Did Grove do this?’ Alleyn ejaculated.
She stared at him. An indescribable look of – what?
Pity? Contempt? Mere astonishment? – broke across her face. Her mouth twisted and she began to laugh.
‘Oh, you poor darling,’ said Destiny Meade. ‘Harry? He wouldn’t hurt a fly. No, no, no, my dear, this is Mr Marcus Knight. His mark.’
Alleyn digested this information and Miss Meade watched him apparently with some relish.
‘Do you mind telling me,’ he said at length, ‘why all this blew up? I mean, specifically why. If, as I understand, you have finally broken with Knight.’
‘I had,’ she said, ‘but you see he hadn’t. Which made things so very tricky. And then he wouldn’t give me back the key. He has, now. He threw it at me,’ she looked vaguely round the drawing-room. ‘It’s somewhere about,’ she said. ‘It might have gone anywhere or broken anything. He’s so egotistic.’
‘What had precipitated this final explosion, do you think?’
‘Well – ’ She dropped the raven wing over her cheek. ‘This and that. Harry, of course, has driven him quite frantic. It’s very bad of Harry and I never cease telling him so. And then it really was too unfortunate last night about the orchids.’
‘The orchids?’ Alleyn’s gaze travelled to a magnificent stand of them in a Venetian goblet.
‘Yes, those,’ she said. ‘Vass had them sent round during the show. I tucked his card in my décolletage like a sort of Victorian courtesan, you know, and in the big love scene Marco spotted it and whipped it out before I could do a thing. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t had that flare-up in the yacht a thousand years ago. He hadn’t realized before that I knew Vass so well. Personally, I mean. Vassy has got this thing about no publicity and of course I respect it. I understand. We just see each other quietly from time to time. He has a wonderful brain.’