“There you are, Fox. Anything else?”
“I don’t think so, sir,” said Fox with a smile, “Unless the gentleman would like to be searched.”
“Would you care to be searched, Mr. Ogden? We do that sort of thing rather neatly.”
“Well, for crying out loud!” exclaimed Mr. Ogden. He looked from Alleyn to Fox, cast up his eyes, passed a plump hand over his head and burst out laughing.
“Get to it,” he begged, “get to it. For the Lord’s sake get to it. Would I care to be searched!”
“Carry on, Fox,” said Alleyn.
Fox took out a notebook and Alleyn, with the swift precision of a pickpocket, explored the inner fastnesses of Mr. Ogden’s suit.
“Note-case. One fiver and three singles. Pocketbook. Letter. Typewritten, stamped and sealed. Address ‘Hector K. Manville, Ogden-Schultz Gold-refining and Extracting Co., 81, East Forty-fifth Street, Boston, Massachusetts.’ Letter refers to a new gold refining process. It’s rather technical.”
Fox read it with difficulty.
“Bill from Harrods. £9 10s. 8d. To account rendered. Date: November 2nd of this year. Letter beginning ‘Dear Sam,’ signed Heck. Date—”
Alleyn murmured on. It was all over before Mr. Ogden had left off chuckling.
“No phials of poison,” said Alleyn lightly. “That’s all, sir.”
“It was real smart,” declared Mr. Ogden handsomely. “They don’t fan a man neater than that in the States. That’s saying some. Well, Inspector, if that’s all I guess I’ll move off. Say, it seems real callous for me to be standing here talking facetious when Cara Quayne is lying — See here, Chief, have I got to say murdered?”
“We must wait for the inquest, Mr. Ogden.”
The American’s genial face had suddenly become preternaturally solemn like that of a clown, or a child who has been reproved for laughing.
“If it is murder,” he said quietly, “and the trail’s not just all that easy and — aw hell, Chief, I’ve got the dollars and I ain’t paralysed yet.” With which cryptic remark Mr. Ogden took himself off.
“Is he real?” asked Nigel, “or is he a murderer with unbridled histrionic ambitions? Surely no American was ever so American. Surely—”
“Do stop making these exclamatory interjections. You behave for all the world like a journalistic Greek chorus. Fox, what did the gentleman mean by his last remark. The one about not suffering from paralysis?”
“I understood him to be offering unlimited sums of money to the police and the prosecution, sir.”
“Bribery, thinly disguised, depend upon it,” said Nigel. “I tell you no American was ever—”
“I don’t know. His eyes, at all events, are original. People do run true to type. It’s an axiom of police investigation. Next please, Bailey.”
Janey Jenkins was next.
CHAPTER VII
Janey and Maurice
Miss Jenkins was one of those women who are instinctively thought of by their Christian names. She looked like a Janey. She was shortish, compact, with straight hair, well brushed, snapping black eyes, snub nose, and an amusing mouth. Without being pretty she was attractive. Her age was about twenty-two. She walked briskly towards Alleyn, sat down composedly and said: “Well, Inspector Alleyn, let’s get it over. I’ll answer any questions you like, compromising or uncompromising, as long as it’s over quickly.”
“I thank whatever gods may be,” rejoiced Alleyn, “and there are enough to begin with on the premises, if you’ll excuse my saying so.”
“We are rather generously endowed, aren’t we?” said Janey.
“You must forgive me. I didn’t mean to be offensive.”
“You weren’t. I’m not altogether an ass. This is rather a rum show, I dare say.”
“You don’t talk like my idea of an Initiate.”
“Don’t I? Well perhaps I’m not a very good one. I’m thinking of backsliding, Inspector Alleyn. Oh, not because of this awful business. At least — I don’t know. Perhaps it has shown us up in rather an unattractive light.” She paused and wrinkled her forehead. “It all seems very bogus to you I expect, but — but — there’s something in it — or I thought so.”
“When I was an undergraduate I became a Plymouth Brother for two months. It seemed frightfully important at the time. I believe nowadays they go in for Black Magic.”
“Yes, Maurice tried that when he was up. Then he switched over to this.”
“You speak of Mr. Pringle?”
“Yes.”
“Did he introduce you to this church?”
“Clever of you,” said Janey. “Yes, he did.”
“When was this?”
“Oh, about six months ago.”
“You have advanced rather quickly, surely.”
“This was my first evening as an Initiate. Maurice has been one for some time. I was to have begun special instruction next week.”
“You don’t mean to go on with it?”
“I don’t, ” said Janey.
“Would you mind telling me why?”
“I think perhaps I would.” She looked thoughtfully at Alleyn. “No, I’ll tell you. I’ve got my doubts about it. I’ve had my doubts about it for some time, to be quite honest.”
‘Then why—?”
“Maurice was so terribly keen. You see we’re engaged. He could talk of nothing else. He’s awfully highly strung— terribly sensitive — and — and sort of vulnerable, and I thought—”
“You thought you would keep an eye on him — that it?”
“Yes. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
“I am sure you will not regret doing so. Miss Jenkins, do you know what Mr. Pringle was driving at when he said that Mr. Garnette. was keeping them all quiet, that Mrs. Candour would have taken Miss Quayne’s place if she could, and that he was going to tell everybody something?”
“How do you know Maurice said that?”
“You may remember he was in the middle of it when I arrived. He stopped short when he saw me. I heard some of it. Mr. Bathgate has told me the rest What is the explanation?”
“I don’t think I can answer that.”
“Can’t you? Why not?”
“I don’t want to stir it all up. It has got nothing to do with this dreadful thing. I’m sure of that.”
“You cannot possibly be sure of that. Listen to me. Mr. Bathgate is prepared to swear that Miss Quayne put nothing into the cup after it was handed to her. She took it by the stem in both hands and drank from it without changing their position. She died two minutes after she drank from the cup. It had gone round the circle of Initiates. No one else, except the acolyte and Mr. Garnette, had handled it. Can you not see that the inter-relationships of those six people are of importance? Can you not see that I must learn all I may of them? I must not try to persuade you to speak against your judgment — if I did this I should grossly exceed my duty. But please Miss Jenkins, don’t say: ‘It’s got nothing to do with the case.’ We don’t know what may or may not bear on the case. There is only one person who could tell us that.”
“Only one person? You mean — a guilty person?”
“I do. If such a one exists.”
There was a long silence.
“I’ll tell you this much,” said Janey at last. “Maurice hero-worshipped Father Garnette. He went, as Mr. Ogden would say, crazy about him. I think Father Garnette took hold of his imagination. Maurice is very responsive to personal magnetism.”
“Yes.”
“I feel for it myself. When he preaches — it’s rather extraordinary — one feels as though the most terrific revelation is being made. No, that’s not quite it. Everything seems to be beautifully dovetailed and balanced.”
“A sense of exquisite precision,” murmured Alleyn. “I believe opium smokers experience it.”
Janey flushed.
“You mean we were drugged with words. I don’t think I quite admit that. But where was I? Oh. Well, a little while ago Maurice began to suspect that things were happening all the time in the background. He had put Father Garnette on a pedestal, you see, and the least suggestion of — of worldly interest seemed wrong to Maurice. Some of the women in the congregation, Mrs. Candour and poor Cara too, I’m afraid, were rather blatantly doting. Maurice got all worked up about it. He minded most dreadfully. That’s what he meant when he talked like that about Mrs. Candour.”