Alleyn made a brief entry in his note-book and then looked round the table.
“Are there any questions that someone else would like to put?” he asked. “I can assure you that I will honestly welcome them.”
There was a short silence broken unexpectedly by Mrs. Wilde. She leant across the table, looking with an odd air of formality at her husband.
“I would like to ask,” she said rapidly, “what you and Charles talked about during the time you were alone together.”
For the first time Arthur Wilde hesitated.
“I don’t think,” he said quietly, “that we said anything that could have any bearing on the point at issue.”
“Neverzeless,” said Tokareff suddenly, “the question is asked.”
“Well—” there was the faintest echo of whimsicality in his answer. “Well, we talked about you, Doctor Tokareff.”
“Indeed? What about me?”
“Rankin seemed to resent your comments on his ownership of the dagger. He — he felt that it implied some sort of criticism of himself. He was rather on the defensive about it.”
Doctor Young unexpectedly uttered his throaty comment—“Kahoom”—and Alleyn smiled.
“What did you say to all this?” he asked.
Arthur Wilde rumpled up his hair. “I told him not to be an ass,” he said. “Charles was always rather touchy — it was characteristic. I tried to explain how a knife associated, as Doctor Tokareff believed, with the innermost ritual of a bratsvo, would naturally have more significance to a Russian than to an Englishman. He soon got over his huff and said he quite saw my point. Then we chaffed each other about the Murder Game and I left him.”
“Any more questions?” asked Alleyn. There were none apparently.
“I realize,” said Wilde, “that I was probably the last person — except Mary and the man who killed him — to see Charles alive. I hope very much that if anyone does think of any questions they would like to put, they will not hesitate in asking them.”
“I should like to say,” said Nigel, “that I can corroborate most of what you have said. I left you with Charles and heard you come up a few minutes later. You remember we shouted out to each other while your bath was running and afterwards when the lights went out. I can state positively that you were in the bathroom before, during, and after the time when the crime was committed.”
“Yes,” agreed Marjorie Wilde, “and you called through to me, too, Arthur.”
“Your rooms were all close together?” asked Alleyn.
Nigel sketched out a rough plan of the four rooms and slid it across the table to him.
“I see,” said the Inspector, and looked carefully at it. “I am sure you all appreciate,” he said a moment later, “the importance of establishing Mr. Wilde’s account of his movements. They have already been corroborated by Mrs. Wilde and Mr. Bathgate. Can anyone else bring forward any point that bears on the relative positions of these three after Mr. Wilde came upstairs?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Wilde eagerly, “I can. When I was in my room dressing, Florence, Angela’s maid, came in to ask if she could help me. She stayed a few moments, not long, but she must have heard Arthur calling out and everything — the door into the bathroom wasn’t shut properly.”
“She will be able to verify this herself, of course,” said the Inspector. “We have now a fairly complete picture of the movements of three of the house party from shortly after seven-thirty until the time of the murder. Mrs. Wilde went upstairs first, Mr. Bathgate second and Mr. Wilde last. They were all calling out to each other while they were dressing and their voices were probably heard by a housemaid. Mr. Bathgate, I understand that you were the first downstairs after the alarm was given and that you turned up the lights?”
Nigel’s thoughts had been wandering along a strange byway opened up by Mrs. Wilde’s eager corroboration of her husband’s story. He pulled himself together and looked at the Inspector. It struck him that the official manner came easily enough to Alleyn when he chose to assume it
“Yes,” he said. “Yes — I turned on the lights.”
“You found your way downstairs after the two minutes had elapsed?”
“Yes, the others were behind me on the stairs.”
“You got to the main switch and turned it on immediately?”
“Not immediately. The others were calling out from the stairs. I hesitated for a second.”
“Why?” asked Rosamund Grant.
“I really can’t say. It was all rather strange and I felt — I don’t know — somehow reluctant. Then Sir Hubert called out and I pulled down the switch.”
“You were talking to Mr. Wilde right up to the time you left your room?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Yes,” said Arthur Wilde, with a friendly glance towards him, “you were.”
“Did you speak to anyone when you were on the landing?”
“I don’t remember. Everyone was talking in the dark there. I struck a match.”
“Yes,” said Angela quickly, “he struck a match. I was further along the passage and saw his face suddenly lit up from beneath. He must have been just outside his room then.”
“Mr. Bathgate,” said the detective, “your match was still alight, wasn’t it, as you went downstairs?”
“Yes. It went out about half-way down.”
“Did anyone pass you on the stairs?”
“No, nobody passed me.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“Quite positive,” said Nigel.
“Any more questions?” asked Alleyn. Nobody spoke.
Inspector Alleyn turned to Tokareff.
“Doctor Tokareff,” he said, “I shall take you next, if you please.”
“Thank you,” said the Russian pugnaciously.
“You went upstairs with the first detachment — Miss North, Miss Grant, Mrs. Wilde, and Sir Hubert Handesley?”
Tokareff was glaring combatively through his spectacles at the detective.
“Certainly I did,” he said.
“Did you go straight to your room?”
“Yes, immediately. This I can prove for I am in good mood while I am in my room last night, so I sing the Death of Boris fortissimo. I am in distant wing of house but still my voice is robust. Many should have heard.”
“I heard,” said Handesley, and he actually smiled.
“Were you singing the Death of Boris all the time — until the gong sounded and the lights went out?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“A gala performance! You visited a bathroom?”
“Nyit! No! I do not bath at this hour. It is not advisable. Better at night before bed to open the pores. Then a gentle sweat—”
“Yes, quite. You dressed then?”
“I dress. While I dress I sing. When I come to great cry of agony, I interpret in the manner of Fedor Chaliapin—” he suddenly gave tongue to a galvanizing bellow. Mrs. Wilde suppressed a little shriek. “At this moment,” ended Doctor Tokareff, “gong goes and lights go out. It is the game. I cease to sing and count sixty twice in Russian. Then I come out.”
“Thank you very much. I understand that you were the first to realize what had happened to Mr. Rankin?”
“Yes, I was first. I have seen the knoife from the stairs.”
“What happened then?”
“Miss Angela was saying in joking, ‘no one is to touch the body.’ I was agreeing not jokingly because I have seen the man is dead.”
“But I understand you did not examine the body—”
“Excuse me, please,” began the Russian with a great deal of emphasis. Alleyn glanced quickly round the table. A swift wave of consternation and panic seemed to have galvanized the faces of all the guests. Mrs. Wilde was white to the lips and Rosamund Grant was staring fixedly at her. Wilde leant swiftly towards his wife. She spoke suddenly, her voice breathlessly unlike the fashionable squeak that they were all accustomed to.
“Wait a minute, I had better explain.”
“Never mind now, old girl,” said Wilde. Even then the conjugal endearment struck Nigel as being singularly inept.
“It’s all right,” said Marjorie Wilde, “I know what Doctor Tokareff is going to say. I lost my head. I pushed them all aside and knelt down by him. I pulled him over and looked at his face and I tried to call him back; when I saw he wasn’t there any more I tried to call him back, tried to force him to come back. I dragged his shoulders away from the blood and I felt the knife gritting on the floor underneath him, gritting about inside him. He was very heavy, I only moved him a little way. They all said I wasn’t to touch him — I wish I hadn’t, but I did. I touched him.” She stopped as abruptly and breathlessly as she had begun.