Swing, Brother, Swing by Ngaio Marsh

Author:Ngaio Marsh
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781937384494
Publisher: Felony & Mayhem Press

He crossed over to the wall and switched up the lights. Without moving, Carlisle watched him. When he returned he still held the envelope. She put her hand to her burning face and said unsteadily: ‘You think I’m up to no good, I suppose. I suppose you want an explanation.’

‘I should be glad of an answer to my question. Is this what you want?’

He held the envelope up, but did not give it to her. She looked at it doubtfully. ‘I don’t know—I don’t think—’

‘The envelope is mine. I’ll tell you what it contains. A letter that had been thrust down between the seat and the arm of the chair you have been exploring.’

‘Yes,’ Carlisle said. ‘Yes. That’s it. May I have it, please?’

‘Do sit down,’ Alleyn rejoined. ‘We’d better clear this up, don’t you think?’

He waited while she rose. After a moment’s hesitation, she sat in the chair.

‘You won’t believe me, of course,’ she said, ‘but that letter—I suppose you have read it, haven’t you—has nothing whatever to do with this awful business tonight. Nothing in the wide world. It’s entirely personal and rather important.’

‘Have you even read it?’ he asked. ‘Can you repeat the contents? I should like you to do that, if you will.’

‘But—not absolutely correctly—I mean—’

‘Approximately.’

‘It—it’s got an important message. It concerns someone—I can’t tell you in so many words—’

‘And yet it’s so important that you return here at three o’clock in the morning to try and find it.’ He paused, but Carlisle said nothing. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘didn’t Miss de Suze come and collect her own correspondence?’

‘Oh, dear!’ she said. ‘This is difficult.’

‘Well, for pity’s sake keep up your reputation and be honest about it.’

‘I am being honest, damn you!’ said Carlisle with spirit. ‘The letter’s a private affair and—and—extremely confidential. Félicité doesn’t want anyone to see it. I don’t know exactly what’s in it.’

‘She funked coming back herself?’

‘She’s a bit shattered. Everyone is.’

‘I’d like you to see what the letter’s about,’ said Alleyn after a pause. She began to protest. Very patiently he repeated his usual argument. When someone had been killed the nicer points of behaviour had to be disregarded. He had to prove to his own satisfaction that the letter was immaterial, and then he would forget it. ‘You remember,’ he said, ‘this letter dropped out of her bag. Did you notice how she snatched it away from me? I see you did. Did you notice what she did after I said you would all be searched? She shoved her hand down between the seat and arm of that chair. Then she went off to be searched and I sat in the chair. When she came back she spent a miserable half-hour fishing for the letter and trying to look as if she wasn’t. All right.’

He drew the letter from the envelope and spread it out before her. ‘It’s been fingerprinted,’ he said, ‘but without any marked success. Too much rubbing against good solid chair-cover. Will you read it or—’

‘Oh, all right,’ Carlisle said angrily.

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