LITMIR.BIZ

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who, if he considers that you are likely to prejudice yourself by answering any question, will advise you not to do so.’

      ‘I know very well,’ said Lady Wutherwood, ‘by what means I may be brought to betray myself into a confession of things I have not done and words I have never uttered. But I remember Marguerite Loundman of Begweiler, and Anna Ruffa of Douzy. As for a solicitor, I have no need or desire for such protection. I am well protected. I am in no danger.’

      ‘In that case,’ said Alleyn equitably, ‘you will not object, perhaps, to answering one or two questions.’

      She did not reply. He waited for a moment and had time to notice the scandalized expression of Mr Fox, and the alert and speculative glances of the two doctors.

      ‘Lady Wutherwood,’ said Alleyn, ‘who took you down in the lift?’

      She answered at once: ‘It seemed to be one of his nephews.’

      ‘Seemed?’

      Lady Wutherwood laughed. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘seemed.’

      ‘I don’t understand that,’ said Alleyn. ‘Lady Charles Lamprey asked for one of her sons to take you down in the lift, didn’t she?’

      Lady Wutherwood nodded.

      ‘And one of them came out of the flat and, in fact, entered the lift and took you down? You saw him come out? And you stood close beside him in the lift? It was one of the twins, wasn’t it?’

      ‘I thought so, then.’

      ‘You thought so, then,’ Alleyn repeated and was silent for a moment. Lady Wutherwood laughed again and her laughter, Alleyn thought, was for all the world like the cackle of one of the witches in a traditional rendering of Macbeth. This idea startled him and he went back in his mind over the string of inconsequent statements to which she had treated them. He was visited by an extremely odd notion.

      ‘Lady Wutherwood,’ he began, ‘do you think it is possible that somebody impersonated one of the twin brothers?’

      She gave him an extraordinary look and with a movement that startled them all by its abruptness and shocking irrelevancy, wrapped her arms across her breast and hugged herself. Then with a sidelong glance, horridly knowing, she nodded again very slightly.

      ‘Was there any recognizable mark?’ asked Alleyn.

      Her right hand crept up to her neck and round to the back of it. She moved her head slightly and, catching sight of the nurse, hurriedly withdrew her hand and laid one of her fingers across her lips. And through Alleyn’s thoughts ran the memory of three lines:

       ‘You seem to understand me

       By each at once her choppy finger laying

       Upon her skinny lips.’

      ‘Only,’ thought Alleyn, ‘Lady Wutherwood’s finger is not choppy nor are her lips skinny. Damnation, what the devil is all this!’ And aloud he said: ‘He stood with his back towards you in the lift?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And you noticed the mark on the back of his neck?’

      ‘I saw it.’

      ‘Just there?’ asked Alleyn, pointing to the startled Fox.

      ‘Just there. It was a sign. Ssh! He does that sometimes.’

      ‘The Little Master?’ asked Alleyn.

      ‘Ssh! Yes. Yes.’

      ‘Do you think it happened before you were there? The attack on your husband, I mean.’

      ‘He sat huddled in the corner, not speaking. I knew he was angry. He called for me in an angry voice. He had no right to treat me as he did. He should have been more careful. I warned him of his peril.’

      ‘Did you speak to him when you entered the lift?’

      ‘Why should I speak to him?’ This was unanswerable. Alleyn pressed his questions, however, and gathered that Lady Wutherwood had scarcely glanced at her husband who was sitting in the corner of the lift with his hat over his eyes. With an unexpected turn for mimicry she slumped down in her own chair and sunk her chin on her chest. ‘Like that,’ she said, looking slyly at them from under her brows. ‘He sat like that. I thought he was asleep.’ Alleyn asked her when she first noticed that something was amiss. She said that when the lift was halfway down she turned to rouse him. She spoke to him and finally, thinking he was asleep, put her hand on his shoulder. He fell forward. When she had reached this point in her narrative she began to speak with great rapidity. Her words clattered together and her voice became shrill. Dr Kantripp gave the nurse a warning signal and they moved nearer to Lady Wutherwood.

      ‘And there he was,’ she gabbled, ‘with a ring in his eye and a red ribbon on his face. He was yawning. His mouth was wide, wide open. To see him like that! Wasn’t it wonderful, Tinkerton? Tinkerton, when I saw him, I knew it was all true and I opened my mouth like Gabriel and I screamed and screamed –’

      ‘She’s off,’ said Dr Curtis gloomily, and rose to his feet. Lady Wutherwood’s voice soared in the indecent crescendo of hysteria. Fox began methodically to shut the windows. Dr Kantripp issued crisp orders to Tinkerton who showed signs of following the example of her mistress, and was thrust out of the room by the nurse. The nurse suddenly became a dominant figure, bending in an authoritative manner over her patient. Alleyn went to the sideboard, dipped a handkerchief in a jug of water, and looked on with distaste while Dr Kantripp slapped it across and across the screaming face. The screams were broken by gasps and the disgusting sound of gnashing teeth. Kantripp who had his fingers on her wrist said loudly: ‘You’ll have to bring me that jug of water, nurse, if you please.’

      Alleyn fetched the water. Curtis said: ‘Unfortunate for the carpet,’ and pulled a grimace. The nurse said in a firm, brightly genteel voice: ‘Now, Lady Wutherwood, I’m afraid we must pour this all over you. Isn’t that a shame?’ Lady Wutherwood scarcely seemed to be aware of this impending disaster yet her paroxysms began to abate and in a few minutes she was led away by Dr Kantripp and the nurse.

      III

      ‘Open the window again, Br’er Fox, if you please,’ said Alleyn. ‘Let’s get some air into the room. That was a singularly distasteful scene.’

      ‘I suppose you know what you were both talking about?’ said Dr Curtis, ‘but I’m damned if I did.’

      ‘What’s your opinion of her, Curtis? No sign of epilepsy, was there?’

      ‘None that I could see. Plain hysteria. That doesn’t say there’s nothing wrong mentally, of course.’

      ‘No. What about it? Think she’s ga-ga?’

      ‘Ah,’ said Dr Curtis, ‘you’re wondering if she’s the answer to the detective’s prayer for a nice homicidal lunatic.’

      ‘Well,’ said Alleyn, ‘what about it? Is she?’

      Dr Curtis pulled down his upper lip. ‘Well, my dear chap, you know how tricky it is. She seemed to speak very wildly, of course, although I must say you appeared to take an intelligent hand in the conversation.’

      ‘What was she getting at, Mr Alleyn?’ asked Fox. ‘All that stuff about having a powerful protector and it seemed to be one of the twins. You don’t seriously suggest anybody impersonated one of those young fellows?’

      ‘I don’t, Fox, but she does.’

      ‘Then she must be dotty. What was the big idea, anyway?’

      ‘It’s so damned preposterous that I hardly dare to think I’m on the right track. However, I’ll tell you what I imagine was the burden of her song.’

      Dr Kantripp returned. ‘The nurse and the

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