Nigel had to repeat this question.
‘Yea-us,’ conceded Sissy.
‘What sort of gentleman?’ began Alleyn.
Sissy made another grab at Nigel’s shilling and gave a sudden boisterous shout.
‘Was he a big gentleman?’ said Nigel, backing away from her.
‘Gimme der shillun!’ yelled Sissy. ‘Yah! Gimme der shillun!’
‘No!’ said Nigel. ‘Not if you aren’t a good girl.’
The girl screamed piercingly and flung herself face downwards on the path, where she remained yelling and thrashing about with her legs.
‘That’s tore it,’ said Stimson gloomily.
‘What are you doing to that poor baby!’ cried an indignant voice, and Angela came hurrying down the path. In a moment she was kneeling on the ground and had gathered Sissy up in her arms. The child clung round Angela’s neck and buried her filthy little face in her blouse.
‘Toike away the nasty gentlemen!’ she sobbed, ‘and gimme der shilluns!’
‘My poor darling,’ crooned Angela. ‘Why have you been teasing her?’ she demanded fiercely of Nigel and Alleyn.
‘We haven’t been doing anything of the sort,’ said Nigel crossly. ‘Have we, Stimson?’
‘You didn’t go for to, sir,’ agreed Stimson. ‘It’s like this, miss,’ he continued. ‘Sissy saw a lady and gentleman in the coppice, and the lady was crying, and this gentleman wants to know the rights of it. And young Sis, she’s turned rancid on us, miss.’
‘I don’t wonder,’ said Angela. ‘Give me that money you’ve been tormenting her with.’
Alleyn and Nigel handed over the shillings.
‘There, my precious!’ murmured Angela. ‘We won’t tell them anything about it. We’ll have it for a secret. You whisper to me what the silly old people in the woods were like. You needn’t wait, Stimson. I’ll bring her along to the cottage.’
‘Very good, miss,’ said Stimson, and retired.
Sissy appeared to blow ferociously in Angela’s ear.
‘A lady with a lovely red cap,’ whispered Angela. ‘Poor lady! I expect a wopsie had bitten her, don’t you? Was it a big gentleman?’
Alleyn had whipped out his note-book. Sissy was breathing hard into Angela’s hair.
‘It was a funny gentleman,’ reported Angela. ‘Why was he funny? Just funny. You saw another lady this afternoon, did you? What was she doing, darling? Just walking. There now! That was a lovely secret, and now we’ll go home.’
‘I’ve got a lovely secret, too,’ said Detective-Inspector Alleyn astonishingly.
Sissy, who had detached herself from Angela, turned a watery eye on him. The inspector suddenly squatted down by her and distorted his face slightly so that one slim black eyebrow shot up his forehead. Sissy chuckled. The eyebrow came back to normal.
‘More!’ said Sissy.
‘It won’t do it again unless you whisper to it some more about the gentleman you saw in the coppice,’ said Alleyn.
Sissy waddled across the path and placed a fat, earthy paw on the inspector’s face. He flinched slightly and shook his head. Sissy whispered. The eyebrow moved up.
‘There! That’s how it works,’ remarked Alleyn; ‘and if we went into the coppice, there’s no knowing if it wouldn’t do it again.’
Sissy looked over her shoulder at Angela. ‘Goin’ to der coppus,’ she said briefly.
Alleyn rose with the child in his arms.
‘Leave to dismiss, Miss North?’ he asked politely.
‘Certainly, Inspector Alleyn,’ said Angela stiffly.
The inspector performed a guardsman’s salute with his free hand, and strode off down the path with Sissy’s arms entwined lovingly about his neck.
‘Extraordinary!’ said Nigel.
‘Not a bit,’ rejoined Angela. ‘The child has got sense, that’s all.’
‘Shall we play badminton?’ asked Nigel.
‘By all means,’ responded Miss North.
II
Alleyn’s first action on returning to Frantock from his session with Miss Stimson was to wash himself very thoroughly in the downstairs cloakroom. He then looked up one of his notes made during what he called ‘wardrobe inspection’ that morning, read a certain entry in reference to a red cap, and inquired of Ethel if he could speak to Miss Grant. He learned that Doctor Young was attending her in her room.
‘I will wait for Doctor Young,’ said Alleyn, and sat down in the hall.
He had not been there long before Wilde came in from the garden. He hesitated, as indeed they all did, at the sight of the inspector, and then asked if he was waiting for anyone.
‘I’m really waiting for Doctor Young,’ said Alleyn, ‘but I also wanted to see Sir Hubert. I wonder, Mr Wilde, if you know where he is?’
The archaeologist rubbed his hair up the wrong way—a characteristic gesture.
‘He was—in there,’ he said, pointing to the study door.
‘In the study?’
‘Yes.’
‘Really? I must have missed him somehow,’ remarked the inspector ambiguously. ‘When did he go in?’
‘Soon after they took—Charles—away,’ said Wilde. ‘He may still be there. Would you like me to ask if he can see you, Inspector?’
‘Thank you so much,’ said Alleyn gratefully.
Wilde opened the study door and looked inside. Evidently Handesley was still there, as Wilde went in and Alleyn heard their voices. He waited a couple of minutes, and then Wilde appeared again. Alleyn thought he looked faintly shocked.
‘He is just coming,’ he said, and with a nod to the inspector went upstairs.
Handesley came out of the study. He had a sheet of note-paper in his hand.
‘Ah, there you are, Inspector,’ he said. ‘I have just been going through a few papers that I wanted.’ He hesitated, and then went on with painful deliberation, ‘It was impossible for me to enter the room while Mr Rankin’s body lay there.’
‘I can well understand that,’ said Alleyn.
‘This,’ continued Handesley, holding out the paper, ‘is the document I mentioned this morning. The will Mr Rankin signed yesterday, bequeathing the dagger to me. You mentioned that you would like to see it.’
‘You have made things easy for me, Sir Hubert,’ said Alleyn. ‘It was in my mind to ask you for it.’
He took the paper and read it through impassively.
‘I suppose,’ said Handesley, who was staring out at the front door, ‘I suppose that, although the thing was drawn up more or less in fun, it does actually constitute a legal document?’
‘I am no lawyer,’ answered Alleyn, ‘but I should imagine that it was quite in order. May I keep it for the moment?’
‘Yes, of course. I suppose later on I may have it again? I should like to keep it.’ He paused, and then added