‘You’ve been working too hard, Douglas,’ she said. ‘You’re suffering from nervous strain, dear.’
But Douglas made short work of this objection and indignantly put before her the link with Mr Kurata Kan, at which Flossie winced, the vagueness of Markins’ antecedents, the importance of their work, the impossibility of taking the smallest risk and their clear duty in the matter. It would be better, he said, if after further investigation on Douglas’s part Markins still looked suspicious, for Flossie and not Douglas or Fabian to report the matter to the highest possible authority.
Poor Flossie wrung her hands. ‘Think of what he does,’ she wailed. ‘And he’s so good with Arthur. He’s marvellous with Arthur. And he’s so obliging, Douglas. Single-handed butler in a house of this size! Everything so nice, always. And there’s no help to be got. None.’
‘The girls will have to manage.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ she cried, rallying. ‘I’m always right in my judgement of people. I never go wrong. I won’t believe it.’
But, as Ursula had said, Flossie was an honest woman, and it seemed as if Douglas had done his work effectively. She tramped up and down the room hitting her top teeth with a pencil, a sure sign that she was upset. He waited.
‘You’re right,’ Flossie said at last. ‘I can’t let it go.’ She lowered her chin and looked at Douglas over the tops of her pince-nez. ‘You were quite right to tell me, dear,’ she said. ‘I’ll handle it.’
This was disturbing. ‘What will you do?’ he asked.
‘Consider,’ said Florence magnificently. ‘And act.’
‘How?’
‘Never you mind.’ She patted him rather too vigorously on the cheek. ‘Leave it all to your old Floosy,’ she said. This was the abominable pet name she had for herself.
‘But, Auntie,’ he protested, ‘we’ve a right to know. After all –’
‘So you shall. At the right moment.’ She dumped herself down at her desk. She was a tiny creature but all her movements were heavy and noisy. ‘Away with you,’ she said. Douglas hung about. She began to write scratchily and in a moment or two tossed another remark at him. ‘I’m going to tackle him,’ she said.
Douglas was horrified. ‘Oh, no, Aunt Floss. Honestly, you mustn’t. It’ll give the whole show away. Look here, Aunt Floss –’
But she told him sharply that he had chosen to come to her with his story and must allow her to deal with her own servants in the way that seemed best to her. Her pen scratched busily. When in his distress he roared at her, she, too, lost her temper and told him to be quiet. Douglas, unable to make up his mind to leave her, stared despondently through the window and saw Markins, neatly dressed, walk past the window mopping his brow. He had tramped up from the front gate.
‘Auntie Floss, please listen to me!’
‘I thought I told you –’
Appalled at his own handiwork, he left her.
At this point in his narrative Douglas rose and straddled the hearth-rug.
‘I don’t mind telling you,’ he said, ‘that we weren’t the same after it. She got the huff and treated me like a kid.’
‘We noticed,’ Fabian said, ‘that your popularity had waned a little. Poor Flossie! You’d hoist her with the petard of her own conscience. A maddening and unforgivable thing to do, of course. Obviously she would hate your guts for it.’
‘There’s no need to put it like that,’ said Douglas grandly.
‘With a little enlargement,’ Fabian grinned, ‘it might work up into quite a pretty motive against you.’
‘That’s a damned silly thing to say, Fabian,’ Douglas shouted.
‘Shut up, Fab,’ said Ursula. ‘You’re impossible.’
‘Sorry, darling.’
‘I still don’t see,’ Douglas fumed, ‘that I could have taken any other line. After all, as she pointed out, it was her house and he was her servant.’
‘You didn’t think of that when you picked his door lock,’ Fabian pointed out.
‘I didn’t pick the lock, Fabian, and anyhow that was entirely different.’
‘Did Mrs Rubrick tackle him?’ Alleyn asked.
‘I presume so. She said nothing to me, and I wasn’t going to ask and be ticked off again.’
Douglas lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. ‘Obviously,’ Alleyn thought, ‘he still has something up his sleeve.’
‘As a matter of fact,’ said Douglas lightly, ‘I’m quite positive she did tackle him, and I believe it’s because of what she said that Markins killed her.’
IV
‘And there,’ said Fabian cheerfully, ‘you have it. Flossie says to Markins, “I understand from my nephew that you’re an enemy agent. Take a week’s wages in lieu of notice and expect to be arrested and shot when you get to the railway station!” “No, you don’t,” says Markins to himself. He serves up the soup with murder in his heart, takes a stroll past the wool-shed, hears Flossie in the full spate of her experimental oratory, nips in and – does it. To me it just doesn’t make sense.’
‘You deliberately make it sound silly,’ said Douglas hotly.
‘It is silly. Moreover, it’s not in her character as I read it, to accuse Markins. It would have been the action of a fool and, bless my soul, Flossie was no fool.’
‘It was her deliberately expressed intention.’
‘To “tackle Markins”. That was her phrase, wasn’t it? That is, to tackle l’affaire Markins. She wanted to get rid of you and think. And, upon my soul, I don’t blame her.’
‘But how would she tackle Markins?’ Terence objected, ‘except by questioning him?’ She spoke so seldom that the sound of her voice, cool and incisive, came as a little shock.
‘She was a bit of a Polonius, was Flossie. I think she went round to work. She may even,’ said Fabian, giving a curious inflection to the phrase, ‘she may even have consulted Uncle Arthur.’
‘No,’ said Douglas.
‘How on earth can you tell?’ asked Ursula.
There was a moment’s silence.
‘It would not have been in her character,’ said Douglas.
‘Her character, you see,’ Fabian said to Alleyn. ‘Always her character.’
‘Ever since fifth column trouble started in this country,’ said Douglas, ‘Flossie had been asking questions about it in the House. Markins knew that as well as we did. If she gave him so much as an inkling that she suspected him, how d’you suppose he’d feel?’
‘And even if she decided not to accuse him straight out,’ Ursula said, ‘don’t you think he’d notice some change in her manner?’