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

‘Well – I mean …’

‘All right. Were they to Miss Cartell and Desirée, Lady Bantling?’

‘Why ask me,’ Nicola said rather crossly, ‘if you already know?’

‘I was tricking you, my pretty one, oiled Hawkshaw the detective.’

‘Ha-ha, very funny, I suppose,’ Nicola sourly remarked.

‘Well, only fairly funny.’ Alleyn had wandered over to the corner of the room that bore Mr Period’s illuminated genealogy. ‘He seems woundily keen on begatteries,’ he muttered. ‘Look at all this. Hung up in a dark spot for modesty’s sake, but framed and hung up, all the same. It’s not an old one. Done at his cost, I’ll be bound.’

‘How do you know?’

‘If you keep on asking “feed” questions you must expect to be handed the pay-off line. By the paper, gilt and paint.’

‘Oh.’

‘Where’s Ribblethorpe?’

‘Beyond Baynesholme, I think.’

‘The Pyke family seems to have come from there.’

‘So I’ve been told,’ Nicola sighed, ‘and at some length, poor lamb. He went on and on about it yesterday after luncheon. I think he was working something off.’

‘Tell me again about the conversation at lunch.’ Nicola did so and he thanked her. ‘I must go,’ he said.

‘Where to?’

‘Oh – up and down in the world seeking whom I may devour. See you later, no doubt.’

As he left the house Alleyn thought: ‘That was all pretty bloody facetious, but the girl makes me feel young.’ And as he got into the police car he added to himself: ‘But so after all, does my wife. And that’s what I call being happily married. To Baynesholme,’ he added, to his driver. On the way there, he sat with his hat cocked forward, noticing that spring was advancing in the countryside and wondering what Desirée Ormsbury, as he remembered her, would look like after all these years.

‘Pretty tough, I dare say, what with one thing and another,’ he supposed, and when he was shown into her boudoir and she came forward to greet him, he found he had been right.

Desirée was wearing tight pants and an Italian shirt. The shirt was mostly orange and so were her hair and lipstick. Her make-up generally, was impressionistic rather than representational and her hands, quite desperately haggard.

But when she grinned at him there was the old raffish, disreputable charm he remembered so well and he thought: ‘She’s formidable, still.’

‘It is you, then,’ she said hoarsely. ‘I wasn’t sure if it was going to be you or your brother – George, was he? – who’d turned into a policeman.’

‘I wonder at your remembering either of us.’

‘I do, though. But of course, George turned into a baronet. You’re Rory, the dashing one.’

‘You appal me,’ Alleyn said.

‘You don’t look all that different. I wish I could say as much for myself. Shall we have a drink?’

‘Not me, thank you,’ Alleyn said rather startled. He glanced at a clock: it was twenty to three.

‘I’ve only just had lunch,’ she explained. ‘I thought brandy might be rather a thing. Where did you have lunch?’ She looked at him. ‘Wait a moment, will you? Sorry. I won’t be long. Have a smoke.’ She added over her shoulder as she walked away: ‘I’m not trying to escape.’

Alleyn looked about him. It was a conventional country house boudoir with incongruous dabs of Desirée scattered about it in the form of ‘dotty’ bits of French porcelain and one astonishing picture of a nude sprouting green bay leaves and little flags.

There were photographs of Richard Bantling and a smooth-looking youngish man whom Alleyn supposed must be Desirée’s third husband. It was a rather colourless photograph but he found himself looking at it with a sense of familiarity. He knew the wideset eyes were grey rather than blue and that the mouth, when smiling, displayed almost perfect teeth. He knew he had heard the voice: a light baritone, lacking colour. He knew he had at some time encountered this man but he couldn’t remember where or when.

‘That’s Bimbo,’ said Desirée, returning. ‘My third. We’ve been married a year.’ She carried a loaded tray. ‘I thought you were probably hungry,’ she said, putting it on her desk. ‘You needn’t feel awkward,’ she added. She strolled off and lit a cigarette. ‘Do have it, for God’s sake, after all my trouble getting it. If I’m arrested, I promise I won’t split on you. Eat up.’

‘Since you put it like that,’ Alleyn rejoined, ‘I shall, and very gratefully.’ He sat down to chicken-aspic and salad, bread, butter, cheese, a bottle of lager and something in an over-sized cocktail glass.

‘Dry Martini,’ Desirée said. She herself had a generously equipped brandy glass. She picked up a magazine and disappeared into a sofa. ‘Is that all right?’

By the smell he supposed it to be made up of nine parts gin to one of french. He therefore tipped it quickly into a vase of flowers on the desk and poured out the lager. The chicken-aspic was quite excellent.

‘Andrew tells me,’ Desirée said, ‘that you seem to think Hal was murdered.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘It appears so unlikely, somehow. Unless somebody did it out of irritation. When we were married, I promise you I felt like it often enough. Still, being rid of him I no longer do – or did. If you follow me.’

‘Perfectly,’ said Alleyn.

‘Andrew says it’s all about a kind of booby-trap, he thinks. Is that right?’

‘That’s right.’

‘I expected,’ Desirée said after a pause, ‘that it would be you asking me the questions.’

‘If you fill my mouth with delectable food, how can I?’

‘Is it good? I didn’t have any. I never fancy my lunch much except for the drinks. Was Hal murdered? Honestly?’

‘I think so.’

There was a longish silence and then she began to talk about people they had both known and occasions when they had met. This went on for some time. In her offhand way she managed to convey an implicit familiarity. Presently she came up behind him. He could smell her scent which was sharp and unfamiliar. He knew she was trying to get him off-balance, to make him feel vulnerable, sitting there eating and drinking. He also knew, as certainly as if she had made the grossest of advances, that she was perfectly ready for an unconventional interlude. He wondered where her Bimbo had taken himself off to and if Andrew Bantling was in the house. He continued sedately to eat and drink.

‘My Bimbo,’ she said as if he had spoken aloud, ‘is having his bit of afternoon kip. We were latish last night. One of my parties. Quite a pure one, but I suppose you know about that.’

‘Yes, it sounded a huge success,’ Alleyn said politely. He laid down his knife and fork and got up. ‘That was delicious,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much, jolly kind of you to think of it.’

‘Not at all,’ she murmured, coming at him with cigarettes and a lighter and an ineffable look.

‘May we sit down?’ Alleyn suggested and noticed that she took a chair facing a glare of uncompromising light: she was evidently one of those rare, ugly, provocative women who can’t be bothered taking the usual precautions.

‘I’ve got to ask you one or two pretty important questions,’ Alleyn said. ‘And the first is this. Have you by any chance had a letter from Mr Pyke Period? This morning, perhaps?’

She stared at him. ‘Golly, yes! I’d forgotten all about it. He must be dotty, poor lamb. How did you know?’