Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 2: Death in Ecstasy, Vintage Murder, Artists in Crime

‘Someone was bound to say in vino veritas sooner or later,’ said Alleyn, ‘but you are quite right, Bathgate.’

‘That’s the lot, then,’ said Nigel.

‘No. Again you’ve forgotten Opifex.’

‘Opifex? What do you mean?’

‘Another classical touch. Don’t you remember the rhyme in the Latin text-books:

Common are to either sex

Artifex and Opifex.

‘Quite good names for Lionel and Claude.’

‘Really, Inspector!’ protested Nigel, grinning broadly.

‘Artifex was busy with the censer and seems unlikely. Opifex had, of course, less opportunity than the others. I understand he did not handle the cup?’

‘I don’t think he did,’ said Nigel. ‘Of course he was bending over the Initiates while they passed it round.’

‘Meaning Mr Wheatley?’ asked Fox.

‘Yes. Mr Claude Wheatley.’

‘Hardly got the guts to kill anybody, would you think, sir?’

‘I’d say not,’ agreed Nigel heartily.

‘They call poison a woman’s weapon, don’t they?’ asked Alleyn vaguely. ‘A dangerous generalisation. Well, let’s go home. There’s one more point I want to clear up. Any prints of interest, Bailey?’

Detective-Sergeant Bailey had returned from the bedroom and had been at work on the parcel and the book. He had not uttered a word for some time. He now said with an air of disgruntled boredom: ‘Nothing on the book. Reverend Garnette on the parcel, I think, but I’ll take a photograph. There’s some prints in the bedroom besides the Reverend’s. I think they are Mr Pringle’s. I got a good one of his from that rail out there. Noticed him leaning on it.’

‘Did you find out how the torch is worked?’

‘Yes. Naphtha. Bottle in the vestry.’

‘Can you ginger it up for a moment, Bailey?’

‘Very good, sir.’

‘Have you got any cigarette-papers on you?’

Bailey, looking completely disinterested, produced a packet and went out. Alleyn got a silver cup from the sideboard, half filled it with some of Father Garnette’s Invalid Port, emptied some salt into a cigarette-paper, stuck the margins together, and screwed up the end. Meanwhile, Fox locked the safe and sealed it with tape and wax. Alleyn pocketed the keys.

‘Come on out,’ he said.

‘They all returned to the sanctuary. Bailey had got the torch flaring again. The hall had taken on a new but rather ghastly lease of life. It looked like a setting for a film in extremely bad taste. The nude gods, the cubistic animals, the velvets and the elaborate ornaments flickered in the torchlight with meretricious theatricality. It was, Nigel told himself, altogether too much of a good thing. And yet, over-emphasized as it was, it did make its gesture. It was not, as it might well have been, merely silly. As the light flared up, the faces of the plaster figures flushed and seemed to move a little. The shadows under the eyes and nostrils of the Wotan wavered and the empty scowl deepened. One god seemed to puff out his cheeks, another to open and close his blank eyes. It was very still; there was no sound at all but for the roar of the naphtha. The men’s voices sounded forlorn and small. It had grown very cold.

Alleyn walked down to the chancel steps and peered out into the body of the hall.

‘I want you all up here for a moment,’ he said.

His voice seemed to echo a little. A plain-clothes man came out of the vestry and another appeared in the aisle. A constable came out of the porch.

When they were all assembled under the torch Alleyn asked them to kneel in a circle. They did this, the constable and Fox very stolidly, Bailey with morose detachment, and two plain-clothes men with an air of mild interest. Nigel was unpleasantly moved by this performance. His imagination fashioned out of shadows the figure of Cara Quayne.

Alleyn knelt with them. All their hands were shadowed by the sconce. They held them folded as Nigel showed them. They passed the cup from hand to hand, beginning with Fox who knelt in Mrs Candour’s place. Alleyn made them send it twice round the circle. Then they all stood up.

‘Notice anything?’ asked Alleyn.

Nobody spoke.

Alleyn suddenly flung the cup from him. It fell with a dull thud and the wine seeped into the carpet. Alleyn bent down and invited them all to look. In the bottom of the cup were the dregs of the wine and a tiny piece of paper.

‘You see it’s stuck to the side,’ said Alleyn.

‘When did you put it in, sir?’ asked Fox.

‘The first time round. You see, none of you noticed it. It’s much too dark. The little tube tipped up, the salt slipped out of the open end, the paper went transparent. I hadn’t coloured mine red, but still you didn’t see it.’

‘By Gum,’ said Fox.

Bailey said: ‘Cuh!’ and bent down again to examine the paper.

‘Yes,’ added Fox suddenly, ‘but how did the murderer know it would be so safe?’

‘That,’ said Alleyn, ‘is another matter altogether. I rather think it’s the crux of the whole case.’

Part Two (#)

CHAPTER 13 Nannie (#)

When Nigel woke on the morning after his visit to the House of the Sacred Flame, it was with a vague sense of disquietude as though he had been visited by nightmare. As the memory of the night’s adventure came back to him it still seemed unreal. He could scarcely believe that, only a few hours ago, he had knelt under a torch among images of Nordic gods, that he had seen a woman, who seemed to be possessed of an evil spirit, drink and die horribly. He closed his eyes and the faces of the Initiates appeared again. There was Miss Wade with prim lips, Pringle talking, talking, Ogden perspiring gently, M. de Ravigne who seemed to bow his head with grotesque courtesy, Janey Jenkins, and Mrs Candour who opened her mouth wider and wider –

He jerked himself back from sleep, got out of bed, and went to his window. The rain still poured down on the roofs. Wet umbrellas bobbed up and down Chester Terrace. A milkman’s cart with a dejected and irritated pony was drawn up at the corner of Knocklatchers Row. Nigel looked down Knocklatchers Row. Perhaps he would not have been very surprised if there had been no Sign of the Sacred Flame, but there it was, swinging backwards and forwards in the wind, and underneath it he could just see the narrow entry.

He bathed, breakfasted, opened his paper and found no reference to the tragedy. So much the better. He rang up his office, got out his notes, sat down to the typewriter and worked solidly for an hour. Then he rang up Scotland Yard. Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn was in his room and would speak to Mr Bathgate.

‘Hullo!’ said Nigel with extreme cordiality.

‘What do you want?’ asked Alleyn guardedly.

‘How are you?’

‘In excellent health, thank you. What do you want?’

‘It’s just a matter of my copy –’