Free A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh Page B

invaluable to Handesley and to Angela North, had succeeded in getting Tokareff to stop talking and go to bed, and had silenced Mrs. Wilde’s hysterics when her husband had thrown up his hands in despair and left her to it. The Inspector considered Ethel’s statement that she had actually seen Nigel in his room as the lights went out good enough proof of his integrity. However, he examined the room carefully.
    Conrad’s
Suspense
lay on the bedside table. The butts of two Sullivan Powell cigarettes were in the ash tray. An inquiry showed that these were the last in the cigarette box at seven-thirty the evening before, and Ethel, recalled, repeated that she had noticed the box empty and Mr. Bathgate smoking the last on her dramatically terminated visit. Mr. Bathgate’s own cigarettes were of a less expensive variety. “Exit Mr. Bathgate,” murmured the detective to himself. “He couldn’t smoke two cigarettes, commit a murder, and talk to a housemaid while he was doing it, in ten or twelve minutes.” He had come to this conclusion when the door opened and in walked Nigel himself.
    At the sight of the Yard man in his room Nigel immediately felt as guilty as he would have done if his hands had been metaphorically drenched in his cousin’s blood.
    “I’m sorry,” he stammered, “I didn’t realize you were here — I’ll push off.”
    “Don’t go,” said Alleyn amiably. “I’m not going to put the handcuffs on you. I want to ask you a question. Did you by any chance hear anything outside in the passage while you were dressing last night?”
    “What sort of thing?” asked Nigel, overwhelmed with relief.
    “Well, what does one hear in passages? Any sound of a footfall for instance?”
    “No, nothing. You see, I was talking to Wilde all the time and his bath was running, too — I wouldn’t have been able to hear anything.”
    “I understand Mrs. Wilde was in her room all this time. Do you remember hearing her voice?”
    Nigel considered this carefully.
    “Yes,” he said at last, “yes, I am positive I heard Mr. Wilde call out to her and I heard her answer him.”
    “At what precise moment? Before or after the lights went out?”
    Nigel sat on the bed with his head in his hands.
    “I can’t be certain,” he said at last. “I’ll swear on oath I heard her voice and I
think
it was before
and
after the lights went out. Is it important?”
    “Everything is important, but taken in conjunction with the icy Florence’s statement, your own is useful as a corroboration. Now, look here, show me Tokareff’s room, will you?”
    “I think I know where it is,” said Nigel. He led the way down the passage into the back corridor and turned to the left. “Judging from my recollection of his vocal efforts, I should say this was it.”
    Alleyn opened the door. The room was singularly tidy. The bed had been slept in, but was little disturbed. Dr. Tokareff would have appeared to have passed a particularly tranquil night. On the bedside table lay a Webster’s Dictionary and a well-thumbed copy of
The Kreutzer Sonata
in English.
    “Thank you so much, Mr. Bathgate,” said Alleyn, “I can carry on here.”
    Nigel withdrew, thankful to leave the atmosphere of official investigation and yet, paradoxically, conscious of a sense of thwarted curiosity.
    Inspector Alleyn opened the wardrobe and drawers and noted down the contents, then turned his attention to the suitcase that had been neatly bestowed under one of the cupboards. In this he found a small leather writing case with a lock that responded at once to the attentions of a skeleton key. The case contained a number of documents typewritten in Russian, a few photographs, mostly of the doctor himself, and a small suède pouch in which he found a little seal set in a steel mount. Alleyn took it to the writing table, inked it and pressed it down on a piece of paper. It gave a tolerably clear impression of a long-bladed dagger. The Inspector whistled softly between his