you leave it here, do you think?’ asked Angela gently. ‘Marjorie, do try to think. I can see what Mr Alleyn means. It may be frightfully important.’
‘I tell you I can’t remember. I should think I did. Yes—I did. I’m sure I did. Arthur, shouldn’t you think I did?’
‘Darling heart!’ said Wilde. ‘I didn’t see you; but I know you generally throw your gloves down as soon as you get in. I should take very long odds on it. The fact that the lost one was here,’ he went on, turning to Alleyn, ‘looks rather as if it was a favourite spot.’
‘I think so, too,’ said Alleyn. ‘Thank you so much, Mrs Wilde. I’m very sorry to bother you.’
He opened the inner door, and Mrs Wilde and Angela went through followed by the men. Handesley paused.
What about luncheon, Mr Alleyn?’ he said. ‘I should be delighted if…’
‘Thank you,’ said Alleyn, ‘but I think I will finish up here and in the bedrooms. The mortuary car will arrive at one-thirty. I should suggest, Sir Hubert, that you keep your guests as long as possible in the dining-room.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Handesley, turning away quickly. ‘I know what you mean. Yes, I will.’
Roberts, the pantry-man, came into the hall and announced lunch. Alleyn waited until they had all gone, pocketed the glove, and went upstairs to Rankin’s room, where he found Bailey waiting for him.
‘Any luck, sir?’ asked the fingerprint expert.
‘Not a great deal. The glove is Mrs Wilde’s. She had lost it. Probably shoved it over the end of the drawer when she first came here. She wore the mate yesterday and the general idea is that she left it in the lobby downstairs. That may have been suggested by my supposedly finding the other one there. However, it seems quite likely. If she did, anyone may have picked it up. I’ve started a hare that our man may have come in from outside. You’ve seen how the ground lies there. Quite impossible, but it’s useful to let them think it’s our theory.’
‘It would have been very easy for the butler to pick that glove up in the lobby or the hall and keep it by him,’ said Bailey.
‘Ah, your favourite. Yes, it would, and it would have been equally easy for any of the others to do so. Get out all the clothes, will you, Bailey? Blast. I had hopes of that glove.’
‘The left-hand print on the stair knob is Mr Wilde’s,’ said Bailey.
‘Is it?’ answered Alleyn without enthusiasm. ‘Aren’t you a one?’
‘It seems to me, sir,’ said Bailey, as he opened the wardrobe doors, ‘that whoever stabbed Mr Rankin took an enormous risk. Suppose he had turned and seen him.’
‘If it was a member of the house-party, he had only to pretend he was the murderer in the game.’
‘How was he to know Rankin wasn’t the “murderer”?’
‘It was an eight-to-one chance,’ said Alleyn. ‘Mr Wilde was the only one who would have been certain of that, and he was in his bath. Wait a moment, though—there was one other.’
‘Yes, sir—Vassily.’
‘One to you, Bailey. But Vassily wasn’t playing.’
‘Well, sir, I think he was.’
‘I’m not at all sure I don’t agree with you, you know. What have we here?’
Bailey had laid Rankin’s suits out on the bed and was sprinkling the water-jug and glass with white powder. The two worked in silence for some time until Alleyn had come to the last of Rankin’s garments—a dinner-jacket. This he carried over to the window and examined rather more closely.
‘As a rule,’ he observed, ‘there is much less to be gleaned from the clothes of a man with a valet than from those of the poorer classes. “Highly recommended by successful homicide” would be a telling reference for any man-servant. Here, however, we have an exception. Presumably, Mr Rankin’s valet sent him down here with a tidy dinner-jacket. By Saturday night he had managed to get a good deal of liquid powder down the face of it.’
‘Keen on the ladies, I dare say,’ said Detective-Sergeant Bailey placidly.
‘Poor devil! There are certain aspects of our job that are not very delicious.’
Alleyn produced an envelope and a pocket knife. By dint of scraping the coat very delicately, he managed to collect a pinch of fine light powder.
‘I may have to send the jacket in for analysis,’ he said, ‘but I think this will do. Go through all the papers now, Bailey, and the drawers. Then I think we have finished in here.’
He left his companion and returned to Mrs Wilde’s, to Angela’s, and to Rosamund Grant’s rooms. On each of their dressing-tables he found collections of bottles and boxes. Mrs Wilde seemed to travel with half a beauty-parlour in tow. The inspector, who had collected a case from downstairs, opened it and produced a number of small bottles, into each of which he poured samples of liquid powder and of scent. These he carried back to Rankin’s room and, picking up the dinner-jacket, nosed it reflectively.
‘I rather fancy,’ he said to Bailey, ‘I rather fancy it’s a mixture of “Milk of Gardenias” and “Chanel 5”. Mrs Wilde and a hint of Miss Grant, in fact. But an analysis will correct me.’
‘Someone,’ said Bailey, ‘has dusted the outer rim of the stairs and not the inner. There’s a glove-mark on the knob. Did you notice, sir?’
‘How you do dwell on those stairs!’ said Alleyn.
And with that he finally left the bedrooms and went downstairs. In the hall he found Nigel.
‘You have finished your lunch early, Mr Bathgate,’ said Alleyn.
‘I came out,’ said Nigel. ‘Sir Hubert told me what was happening, and I thought, if you didn’t mind, that I would like to—to see Charles off.’
‘Why, of course. I only thought that for the ladies it would be better to have it happen as unnoticeably as possible. Would you like to go into the study?’
‘If I may, please.’
So Nigel stood and looked for the last time at Charles Rankin. He had never seen death before, but it seemed to him that it was not so very strange. Only he found it difficult to touch Charles, a gesture that obscurely he felt obliged to make. He put out his hand and met the cold heaviness of the forehead. Then he went back into the hall.
The mortuary car had arrived, and the men were already waiting. They brought Rankin out of the study, and in a very short time had driven him away. Inspector Alleyn stood by Nigel on the steps, watching until the car had disappeared down the drive. Nigel was conscious of him, and found that he liked his presence. When the sound of the car had died away, he turned to speak to the detective, but he had already gone. It was Angela who stood in the doorway.
‘I know what’s been happening,’ she said. ‘Come for a walk.’
‘I’d like to,’ said Nigel. ‘Where shall we go?’
