‘We’d better print the brandy-glass,’ said Alleyn. ‘I’ll get Bailey to attend to it and then, I think, they can clean up here. How did you get on?’
‘All right, sir. The Halcut-Hacketts will see us any time later on this afternoon.’
‘What about Carrados?’
‘He came to the telephone,’ said Fox. ‘He’ll see us if we go round now.’
‘How did he sound? Bloody-minded?’
‘If you like to put it that way, sir. He seemed to be sort of long-suffering, more than angry, I thought, and said something about hoping he knew his duty. He mentioned that he is a great personal friend of the chief commissioner.’
‘Oh, Lord, Lord! Huff and grandeur! Uncertain, coy, and hard to please. Don’t I know it. Fox, we must continue to combine deference with a suggestion of high office. Out with the best butter and lay it on in slabs. Miserable old article, he is. Straighten your tie, harden your heart, and away we go.’
Sir Herbert and Lady Carrados lived in Green Street. A footman opened the door to Alleyn.
‘Sir Herbert is not at home, sir. Would you care to leave a message?’
‘He has an appointment with me,’ said Alleyn pleasantly, ‘so I expect he is at home really. Here’s my card.’
‘I beg pardon, sir,’ said the footman, looking at Alleyn’s clothes, which were admirable. ‘I understood it was the police who were calling.’
‘We are the police,’ said Alleyn.
Fox, who had been dealing with their taxi, advanced. The footman’s eye lit on his bowler and boots.
‘I beg pardon, sir,’ he said, ‘will you come this way, please?’
He showed them into a library. Three past Carradoses, full length, in oils, stared coldly into space from the walls. The firelight wavered on a multitude of books uniformly bound, behind glass doors. Sir Herbert, in staff-officer’s uniform with shiny boots and wonderful breeches, appeared in a group taken at Tunbridge Wells, the centre of his wartime activities. Alleyn looked at it closely, but the handsome face was as expressionless as the tightly-breeched knees which were separated by gloved hands resting with embarrassing importance on the inside of the thighs. A dumb photograph. It was flanked by two illuminated addresses of which Sir Herbert was the subject. A magnificent cigar box stood on a side table. Alleyn opened it and noted that the cigars were the brothers of the one that had been smoked in the buffet. He gently closed the lid and turned to inspect a miniature French writing-cabinet.
Fox, completely at his ease, stood like a rock in the middle of the room. He appeared to be lost in a mild abstraction, but he could have gone away and described the library with the accuracy of an expert far-gone in Pelmanism.
The door opened and Carrados came in. Alleyn found himself unaccountably reminded of bereaved royalty. Sir Herbert limped rather more perceptibly than usual and employed a black stick. He paused, screwed his glass in his eye, and said:
‘Mr Alleyn?’
Alleyn stepped forward and bowed.
‘It is extremely kind of you to see us, sir,’ he said.
‘No, no,’ said Carrados, ‘one must do one’s duty however hard one is hit. One has to keep a stiff upper lip. I was talking to your chief commissioner just now, Mr Alleyn. He happens to be a very old friend of mine – er – won’t you sit down both of you? Mr – er –?’
‘This is Inspector Fox, sir.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Carrados, extending his hand. ‘Do sit down, Fox. Yes –’ he turned again to Alleyn when they were all seated. ‘Your CO tells me you are a son of another old friend. I knew your mother very well years ago and she sees quite a lot of my wife, I believe. She was at Marsdon House last night.’ He placed his hand over his eyes and repeated in an irritating whisper: ‘At Marsdon House. Ah, well!’
Alleyn said: ‘We are very sorry indeed, sir, to bother you after what has happened. This tragedy has been a great shock to you, I’m afraid.’
Carrados gave him an injured smile.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I cannot pretend that it has not. Lord Robert was one of our dearest friends. Not only have we a great sense of personal bereavement but I cannot help thinking that my hospitality has been cruelly abused.’
This reduction of homicide to terms of the social amenities left Alleyn speechless. Sir Herbert appeared to regard murder as a sort of inexcusable faux pas.
‘I suppose,’ he continued, ‘that you have come here armed with a list of questions. If that is so I am afraid you are doomed to disappointment. I am a simple soldier-man, Mr Alleyn, and this sort of thing is quite beyond my understanding. I may say that ever since this morning we have been pestered by a crew of insolent young pups from Fleet Street. I have been forced to ask Scotland Yard, where I believe my name is not unknown, if we had no redress from this sort of damnable persecution. I talked about it to your chief who, as I think I told you, is a personal friend of mine. He agrees with me that the behaviour of journalists nowadays is intolerable.’
‘I am sorry you have been badgered,’ said Alleyn. ‘I will be as quick as I can with our business. There are one or two questions, I’m afraid, but only one or two and none of them at all formidable.’
‘I can assure you I am not in the least afraid of police investigation,’ said Carrados with an injured laugh. His hand still covered his eyes.
‘Of course not, sir. I wanted first of all to ask you if you spoke to Lord Robert last night. I mean something more than hail and farewell. I thought that if there was anything at all unusual in his manner it would not escape your notice as it would the notice of, I am afraid, the majority of people.’
Carrados looked slightly less huffy.
‘I don’t pretend to be any more observant than the next fellow,’ he said, ‘but as a soldier-man I’ve had to use my eyes a bit and I think if there’s anything wrong anywhere I’m not likely to miss it. Yes, I spoke to Lord Robert Gospell once or twice last night and I can assure you he was perfectly normal in every possible way. He was nice enough to tell me he thought our ball the most successful of the season. Perfectly normal.’
Alleyn leant forward and fixed Carrados with a reverent glare.
‘Sir Herbert,’ he said, ‘I’m going to do a very unconventional thing and I hope you won’t get me my dismissal as I’m sure you very easily could. I’m going to take you wholly into our confidence.’
It was pleasant to see the trappings of sorrow fall softly away from Carrados, and to watch his posture change from that of a stricken soldier-man to an exact replica of the Tunbridge Wells photograph. Up came his head. The knees were spread apart, the hands went involuntarily to the inside of the thighs. Only the gloves and breeches were lacking. A wise son of Empire sat confessed.
‘It would not be the first time,’ said Carrados modestly, ‘that confidence has been reposed in me.’
‘I’m sure it wouldn’t. This is our difficulty. We have reason to believe that the key to this mystery lies in a single sentence spoken by Lord Robert on the telephone from Marsdon House. If we could get a true report of the conversation that Lord Robert held with an unknown person at one o’clock this morning I believe we would have gone a long way towards making an arrest.’
‘Ah!’ Carrados positively beamed. ‘This bears out my own theory, Mr Alleyn. It was an outside job. You see I am conversant with your phraseology. From the moment we heard of this tragedy I said to my wife that I was perfectly satisfied that none of our guests could be in any way implicated. A telephone message from outside! There you are!’
‘I had half-hoped,’ said Alleyn modestly, ‘that you might have heard