‘Mr Alleyn? Thank God! Please come up here, quickly. Please do. Miss Emily’s rooms. I can’t say anything else.’ Alleyn heard a muffled ejaculation. A man shouted distantly and a woman screamed. There was the faint but unmistakable crash of broken glass…‘Please come,’ said Jenny.

‘At once,’ Alleyn said. And to Fox: ‘Leave Pender on the board and you others follow as quick as you can. Room 35 to the right of the stairhead on the first floor.’

Before they had time to answer he was out of the shop and had plunged, head down, into the storm outside.

CHAPTER 9
Storm

It was not raining now but the night was filled with so vast an uproar that there was no room for any perception but that of noise: the clamour of wind and irregular thud and crash of a monstrous tide. It broke over the foreshore and made hissing assaults on the foot of the steps. Alleyn went up them at a sort of shambling run, bent double and feeling his way with his hands. When he reached the last flight and came into range of the hotel windows, his heart pounded like a ram and his throat was dry. He beat across the platform and went in by the main entrance. The night porter was reading behind his desk. He looked up in astonishment at Alleyn who had not waited to put on his mackintosh.

‘Did you get caught, sir?’

‘I took shelter,’ Alleyn said. ‘Good night.’

He made for the stairs and when he was out of sight, waited for a moment or two to recover his wind. Then he went up to the first floor.

The passage had the vacant look of all hotel corridors at night. A wireless blared invisibly. When he moved forward he realized the noise was coming from Miss Emily’s room. A brass band was playing ‘Colonel Bogey.’

He knocked on the door and was not answered. He opened it and went in.

It was as if a tableau had been organized for his benefit; as if he had been sent out of the room while the figures arranged themselves to their best effect. Miss Emily stood on the hearthrug very pale and

grand, with Jenny in support. Margaret Barrimore, with her hands to her mouth, was inside the door on his left. He had narrowly missed striking her with it when he came in. The three men had pride of place. Major Barrimore stood centre with his legs straddled and blood running from his nose into his gaping mouth. Dr Maine faced him and frowned at a cut across the knuckles of his own well-kept doctor’s hand. Patrick, dishevelled, stood between them, like a referee who had just stopped a fight. The wireless bellowed remorselessly. There was a scatter of broken glass in the fireplace.

They all turned their heads and looked at Alleyn. They might have been asking him to guess the word of their charade.