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

‘Right-oh, sir.’

‘Anyone else going?’ Nigel inquired.

‘No doubt you will appear. I expect the Initiates to turn up in full force. Two o’clock.’

‘Certainly, I shall come,’ said Nigel. ‘Au revoir.’

Nigel returned to his office and Alleyn went down the Strand to the little street where Mr Rattisbon kept office.

It was one of those offices that look as if they were kept going as a memorial to Charles Dickens. A dingy entry smelt of cobwebs and old varnish. A dark staircase led to a landing, where a frosted-glass skylight let in enough light to show Mr Rattisbon’s name on the door. Beyond the door Alleyn found Mr Rattisbon himself in an atmosphere of dust, leather, varnish, dry sherry, and age. The room was not dusty, but it made one think of discreet dust. Mr Rattisbon was not dressed in Victorian garments, but he conveyed an impression of being so dressed. He was a thin, eager old man with bluish hands and sharp eyes. He spoke rapidly with a sort of stuttering volubility, and had a trick of vibrating the tip of his long tongue between his lips. He dealt, as his father and grandfather had done before him, with the estates of the upper-middle class. He was a very shrewd old gentleman.

‘I hope I’m not late, sir,’ said Alleyn.

‘No, no, Chief Inspector, not at all. Quite punctual, quite punctual. Pray sit down. Yes. Let me see. I don’t think we have met since that unfortunate affair – um?’

‘No. I am sorry to bother you. I expect you have guessed what brought me?’

‘Brought you. Yes. Yes. This miserable business of Miss Cara Valerie Quayne. I have received word of it this morning. A most distressing affair, most.’

‘How did you hear of it, sir?’

‘Through the maid, the confidential maid. A Miss – ah – Miss Edith Laura Hebborn. Miss Hebborn felt I should be advised immediately and very properly rang me up. One of the old type of domestic servants. The old type. I suppose there’s no doubt about it being a case of homicide. Um? No.’

‘None, I’m afraid. It’s a bizarre case.’

‘Bizarre!’ ejaculated Mr Rattisbon with distaste. ‘Tch! Well, Chief Inspector, how can I assist you?’

‘By giving me any information you can about Miss Quayne and by letting me see the Will. The inquest is tomorrow. Perhaps it would save time if I told you what I have learned up to date.’

Alleyn gave Mr Rattisbon the gist of the information he had received from Nannie and from the Initiates. The little lawyer listened attentively.

‘Precisely,’ he said when Alleyn had finished. ‘An excellent account and substantially correct. Accurate.’

‘Miss Quayne’s affairs have always been in your hands, sir?’

‘Oh, yes. Yes. Colonel Quayne – her father – old family clients. Charming fellow.’

‘You have seen Miss Quayne recently?’

‘Five weeks ago tomorrow.’

‘On that occasion did she wish to alter her Will?’

‘Um? You heard of that?’

‘From M. de Ravigne. I hope you will tell me anything that strikes you as being relevant.’

‘It is exceedingly distasteful to me to discuss my clients’ affairs, Chief Inspector. Of course, I quite appreciate the extraordinary nature of the matter. Since you rang up I have considered the advisability of – of – speaking with complete frankness, and – I – in short I have decided to lay the whole matter before you.’

Mr Rattisbon suddenly snatched his pince-nez from his nose and waved them at Alleyn.

‘As follows,’ he said. ‘Five weeks ago I received a visit from Miss Cara Valerie Quayne. She had advised me first that she wished to make an extensive alteration in her Will, and then that she desired me to draw up a new Will. I therefore had the existing document in readiness for her visit. She arrived.’ He rubbed his nose violently. ‘And I may say she astounded me.’

Alleyn was silent. After contemplating him with severity for some seconds Mr Rattisbon leant across the desk and continued:

‘She astounded me. The previous Will had been a very proper and sensible disposition of her considerable fortune. Several large sums to various worthy charities. Annuities to her servants. Various legacies. The residuary legatee was a third cousin in New Zealand. A boy whom she has never seen, but he bears her father’s name. And so on and so on and so on. Perfectly proper. She now informed me that she wished me completely to revise these terms and – in short to draw up a new document. On these lines: She wished the annuity of two hundred pounds per annum to Miss Edith Laura Hebborn to be increased to three hundred pounds per annum. The lease of her house, its contents, her pictures, jewels and so on to M. Raoul Honoré Christophe de Ravigne. A – a handsome legacy to Father Jasper Garnette. The rest of her very considerable fortune – every penny piece of it – she would leave to the House of the Sacred Flame, 89 Knocklatchers Row, Eaton Place, making Father Garnette the sole trustee.’

‘Gosh!’ said Alleyn.

‘You may well say so. I – frankly, Chief Inspector – I was horrified. I had known Miss Quayne from her childhood. Her father was a personal friend as well as a client. In a sense I may say I had considered myself in loco parentis, since both guardians were deceased. When I first became aware of Miss Quayne’s increasing interest in Mr Garnette’s sect I went so far as to make inquiries about him. What I discovered did not reassure me. On the contrary I became gravely suspicious. Then, to crown everything, she came to me with the request that I should draw up a Will on the lines I have indicated.’

‘Extraordinary.’

‘Most extraordinary. As a solicitor I have become accustomed to testamentary – ah – vagaries. I have become accustomed to them. But this caused me the greatest concern. I exceeded the strict limits of propriety by urging her again and again to reconsider. I represented to her that this Father Garnette might not be all she thought him. I strongly urged her to allow me to make further inquiries. When all else failed I begged that she at least left this very considerable sum to be administered by other trustees on behalf of the – the – religious body in which she had become so interested. Not a bit of it!’

‘She insisted on leaving Mr Garnette as sole trustee?’

‘Precisely. She was in a most excitable frame of mind and was impatient, I may say intolerant, of any suggestions. I put it to her that her father would have regarded the terms of the new Will with abhorrence. She would not listen. She – in short, she said that if I made any further difficulties she would get a Will form from – from a Smith’s bookstall and fill it in herself.’

Mr Rattisbon dropped his pince-nez delicately on his blotting-paper and by this moderate gesture conveyed a sense of overwhelming defeat.

‘I drew up the Will,’ he said. ‘Three days afterwards, she came here and signed it.’

‘So that’s that,’ grunted Alleyn. ‘By how much does the sect benefit?’

‘In round figures, twenty-one thousand pounds.’

‘And may I ask, sir, by how much Mr Jasper Garnette is to be a richer man?’

‘Ten thousand pounds.’

‘Damn!’ said Alleyn.

Mr Rattisbon shot a shrewd glance at him.

‘May I take it as your personal opinion that he will live to – to enjoy it?’ he asked.

‘He’ll need it before I’m done with him.’

‘That is a cryptic answer, Chief Inspector.’

‘Yours was a leading question, sir.’

Mr Rattisbon suddenly sucked in his breath three or four times very rapidly and uttered a little whooping noise. He had laughed.

‘In any case,’ Alleyn went on, ‘couldn’t the Will be contested? What about the young Quayne, down under? What about coercion? Or her mental condition? I’m entirely ignorant of the law, sir, but suppose – well, suppose he’d been giving her drugs?’

Mr Rattisbon stared at the inspector for some seconds.