Death And The Dancing Footman

Chapter IX Alibi

William was sitting in a low chair beside the wireless. He was bent double. His face was between his knees and his hands were close to his shoes. His posture suggested an exaggerated scrutiny of the carpet. If Mandrake had walked in casually he might have thought at first glance that William was staring at some small object that lay between his feet. The cleft in the back of his head looked like some ugly mistake, preposterous rather than ghastly, the kind of thing one could not believe. Mandrake had taken in this much before he looked at Jonathan, who stood with his back against the door into the “boudoir.” He was wiping his hands on his handkerchief. Mandrake heard a tiny spat of sound. A little red star appeared on the toe of William’s left shoe.

“Aubrey, look at this.”

“Is he…? Are you sure…?”

“Good God, look at him.”

Mandrake had no wish to look at William but he limped over to the chair. Has anyone measured the flight of thought? In a timeless flash it can embrace a hundred images, and compass a multitude of ideas. In the second that passed before Mandrake stooped over William Compline, he was visited by a confused spiral of impressions and memories. He thought of William’s oddities, of how he himself had never seen any of William’s paintings, of how William’s mouth might now be open and full of spilling blood. He thought, in a deeper layer of consciousness, of Chloris, who must have been kissed by William, of Dr. Hart’s hands, of phrases in detective novels, of the fact that he might have to give his own name if he was called as a witness. The name of Roderick Alleyn was woven in his thoughts and over all of them rested an image of deep snow. He knelt by William and touched his right hand. It moved a little, flaccidly, under the pressure of his fingers, and that shocked him deeply. Something hit the back of his own hand and he saw a little red star like the one on William’s shoe. He wiped it off with a violent movement. He stooped lower and looked up into William’s face and that was terrible because the eyes as well as the mouth were wide open. Then Mandrake rose to his feet and looked at the back of William’s head and felt abominably sick. He drew away with an involuntary sideways lurch and his club-foot struck against something on the floor. It lay in shadow and he had to stoop again to see it. It was a flatfish spatulate object that narrowed to a short handle. He heard Jonathan’s voice babbling behind him —

“It hung on the wall there, you know. I showed it to you. It came from New Zealand. I told you. It’s called a mere. [Pronounced ‘merry.’] I told you. It’s made of stone.”

“I remember,” said Mandrake.

When he turned to speak to Jonathan he found that Nicholas had come into the room.

“Nick,” said Jonathan, “my dear Nick.”

“He’s not dead,” Nicholas said. “He can’t be dead.”

He thrust Jonathan from him and went to his brother. He put his hands on William’s head and made as if to raise it.

“Don’t,” said Mandrake. “I wouldn’t. Not yet.”

“You must be mad. Why haven’t you tried…? Leaving him! You must be mad.” He raised William’s head, saw his face, and uttered a deep retching sound. The head sagged forward again loosely as he released it. He began to repeat William’s name — “Bill, Bill, Bill—” and walked distractedly about the room, making strange uneloquent gestures.

“What are we to do?” asked Jonathan, and Mandrake repeated to himself: “What are we to do?”

Aloud he said: “We can’t do anything. We ought to get the police. A doctor. We can’t do anything.”

“Where’s Hart?” Nicholas demanded suddenly. “Where is he?”

He stumbled to the door beyond Jonathan, fumbled with the key and flung it open. The green “boudoir” was in darkness and the fire there had sunk to a dead glow.

“By God, yes, where is he?” cried Mandrake.

Nicholas turned to the door into the hall and on a common impulse Mandrake and Jonathan intercepted him. “Clear out of my way,” shouted Nicholas.

“Wait a minute, for Heaven’s sake, Compline,” said Mandrake.

“Wait a minute!”

“We’re up against a madman. He may be lying in wait for you. Think, man.”

He had Nicholas by the arm and he felt him slacken. He thought he saw something of the old nervousness come into his eyes.

“Aubrey’s right, Nick,” Jonathan was gabbling. “We’ve got to keep our head, my dear fellow. We’ve got to lay a plan of campaign. We can’t rush blindly at our fences. No, no. There’s — there’s your mother to think of, Nick. Your mother must be told, you know.”

Nicholas wrenched himself free from Mandrake, turned away to the fireplace and flung himself into a chair. “For Christ’s sake leave me alone,” he said. Mandrake and Jonathan left him alone and whispered together.

“Look here,” Mandrake said, “I suggest we lock up this room and go next door where we can talk. Are those two women all right in there? Better not leave them. We’ll go back into the library, then.” He turned to Nicholas. “I’m terribly sorry, Compline, but I don’t think we ought to — to make any changes here just yet. Jonathan, are there keys in all these doors? Yes, I see.”

The door into the “boudoir” was locked. He withdrew the key, locked the door into the hall, and gave both keys to Jonathan. As he crossed the room to open the library door he felt a slight prick in the sole of his normal foot and, in one layer of his conscious thoughts, cursed his shoemaker. They shepherded Nicholas back into the library. Mandrake found that, behind its rows of dummy books, the door into the library also had a lock.

They found Hersey and Chloris sitting together by the fire. Mandrake saw that Chloris had been crying. “I’m out of this,” he thought, “I can’t try to help.” And, unrecognized by himself, a pang of jealousy shook him, jealousy of William who, by getting himself murdered, had won tears from Chloris.

Mandrake, for the first time, noticed that Jonathan was as white as a ghost. He kept opening and closing his lips, his fingers went continually to his glasses and he repeatedly gave a dry nervous cough. “I daresay I look pretty ghastly myself,” thought Mandrake. Jonathan, for all his agitation, had assumed a certain air of authority. He sat down by Hersey and took her hand.

“Now, my dears,” he began, and though his voice shook, his phrases held their old touch of pedantry, “I know you will be very sensible and brave. This is a most dreadful calamity, and I feel that I am myself, in a measure, responsible for it. That is an appallirg burden to carry upon one’s conscience but at the moment I dare not let myself consider it. There is an immediate problem and we must deal with it as best we may. There is no doubt at all, I am afraid, that it is Dr. Hart who has killed William, and in my mind there is no doubt that he is insane. First of all, then, I want you both to promise me that you will not separate, and also that when we leave you alone together you will lock this door after us and not unlock it until one of us returns.”

“But he’s not going for either of us,” said Hersey. “He’s got nothing against us, surely.”

“What had he against William?”

“William had quite a lot against him,” said Hersey.

“It must have been the radio,” Mandrake said to Nicholas. “He nearly went for you when you turned it on.”

Nicholas said: “I told him to go to hell and locked the door in his face.” He leant his arms on the mantelpiece and beat his skull with his fists.

“You locked the door?” Mandrake repeated.

“He looked like barging in. I was sick of it all. Going for me. Screaming out his orders to me! I wanted to shut him up.”

“I remember now. I heard you lock it. He must have gone out into the hall, and then into the smoking-room through the hall door.”

“I suppose so,” said Nicholas, and drove his fingers through his hair.

“Look here,” Mandrake said slowly, “this makes a difference.”

“If it does,” Jonathan interrupted him, “we can hear what it is later, Aubrey. Nick, my dear chap, I think you must see your mother. And we”—he looked at Mandrake—”must find Hart.” They made a plan of action. The men were to search the house together, leaving the two women in the library with the doors locked on the inside. Nicholas said that his service automatic was in his room. They decided to go upstairs at once and get it. “Bill had his,” Nicholas said, and Jonathan said they would take it for Mandrake.

Hersey offered to go with Nicholas to his mother, and Chloris insisted that she would be all right left by herself in the library. “She’s a good gallant girl,” thought Mandrake, “and I’m in love with her.” He gave her shoulder a pat and thought how out of character his behaviour was.

“Come on,” said Hersey.

The library door shut behind them and they heard Chloris turn the key in the lock. The hall was quiet, a dim hollow place with a dying fire and shadows like the mouths of caverns. Bleached walls faded like smoke up into darkness; curtains, half seen, hung rigidly in the entrance. Pieces of furniture stood about with a deadly air of expectancy.

Jonathan’s hand reached out and a great chandelier flooded the hall with light. The party of four moved to the stairs. Mandrake saw Jonathan take out his pistol. He led the way upstairs and switched on the wall lamps. Hersey and Nicholas followed him and Mandrake, lifting his club-foot more quickly than he was wont to do, brought up the rear. The nail in his right shoe still pricked him and he was dimly irritated by this slight discomfort. Up the first flight was the halfway landing, where the stairs divided into two narrower flights, of which they took the one that turned to their left. They went up to the top landing, where the grandfather clock ticked loudly. Here they paused. Hersey took Nicholas’ arm. He squared his shoulders and with a gesture that for all its nervousness was a sort of parody of his old swagger, brushed up his moustache and went off with her to his mother’s room. Mandrake and Jonathan turned to the right and walked softly down the passage.

They found Nicholas’ automatic where he had told them to look for it, in a drawer of his dressing-table. William’s, Nicholas had said, was in his room, beside a rucksack containing his painting materials.

“His room’s next door to Hart’s,” whispered Jonathan. “If he’s there, he’ll hear us go in. What shall we do?”

“We can’t leave stray automatics lying about, Jonathan. Not with a homicidal lunatic at large.”

“Come on, then.”

William’s room was opposite his brother’s. Mandrake stood on guard in the passage while Jonathan, looking extraordinarily furtive, opened the door by inches and crept in. There was no light under Hart’s door. Was he there behind it, listening, waiting? Mandrake stared at it, half expecting it to open. Jonathan came back carrying a second automatic. He led the way into Mandrake’s room.

“If he’s in there, he’s in the dark,” said Mandrake.

“Quiet! You take this, Aubrey. Nicholas should have had his,” whispered Jonathan. “He should have come here first.”

“Are they loaded? I couldn’t know less about them.”

Jonathan examined the two automatics. “I think so. I myself—” His voice faded away and Mandrake caught only odd words: “… last resort… most undesirable…” He looked anxiously at Mandrake. ‘The safety catches are on, I think, but be careful, Aubrey. We must not fire, of course, unless something really desperate happens. Let him see we are armed. Wait one moment.”

“What is it?”

A curious smile twisted Jonathan’s lips. “It occurs to me,” he whispered, “that we are at great pains to defend ourselves, Nicholas, and three of the ladies. We have quite overlooked the fourth.”

“But — do you think? Good Heavens, Jonathan—”

“We can do nothing there. It is an abstract point. Are you ready? Let us go, then.”

Outside Hart’s door they paused. William’s automatic sagged heavily in the pocket of Mandrake’s dinner jacket. Nicholas’ automatic was in his right hand. His heart thumped uncomfortably and he thought: This is not my sort of stuff. I’m hating this.

The latch clicked as Jonathan turned the handle. If it’s locked, thought Mandrake, do we break it in, or what?

It was not locked. Jonathan pushed the door open quietly, slipped through, and switched on the light. The room was orderly and rather stuffy. Dr. Hart’s trousers were hung over the back of a chair, his underclothes were folded across the seat, his shoes neatly disposed upon the floor. These details caught Mandrake’s eye before he saw the bed which contained Dr. Hart himself.

Apparently he was fast asleep. He lay on his back, his mouth was open, his face patched with red, and his eyes not quite shut. The whites just showed under the lashes and that gave him so ghastly a look that for a fraction of a second Mandrake’s nerves leapt to a conclusion that was at once dispelled by the sound of stertorous breathing.

Jonathan shut the door. He and Mandrake eyed each other and then, upon a common impulse, approached closer to the sleeping beauty-doctor. Mandrake was conscious of a great reluctance to waken Hart, a profound abhorrence of the scene that must follow the awakening. His imagination called up a picture of terrified expostulations, or, still worse, of a complete breakdown and confession. He found himself unable to look at Hart, his glance wandered from Jonathan’s pistol to the bedside table where it was arrested by a small chemist’s jar, half full of a white crystalline powder, and by a used tumbler, stained with white sediment. “Veronal?” wondered Mandrake, who had once used it himself. “If it is I didn’t know it made you look so repellent. He must have taken a big dose.”

How big a dose Dr. Hart had taken appeared only when Jonathan tried to wake him.

Under other circumstances Jonathan would have cut a comic figure. First, keeping his own pistol pointed at the sleeping Doctor, he called his name. There was no response and Jonathan repeated his effort, raising his voice, finally to a cracked falsetto. “Hart, Dr. Hart! Wake up!”

Hart stirred, uttered an uncouth sound, and began to snore again. With an incoherent exclamation, Jonathan pocketed his pistol and advanced upon the bed.

“Look out,” said Mandrake, “he may be foxing.”

“Nonsense!” said Jonathan crisply. He shook Hart by the shoulder and: “Never heard of such a thing,” said Jonathan, furiously. “Dr. Hart! Wake up.”

“A-a-ah? Was haben sie…” The prominent eyes opened and stared into Jonathan’s. The voice trailed away, the eyes became bored and closed again. There followed a slightly ridiculous scene, Jonathan scolding and shaking Hart, Hart mumbling and sagging off into a doze. Finally Jonathan, his face pink with vexation, dipped a towel in the water jug and slapped the Doctor’s cheeks with it. This did the trick. Hart shuddered and shook his head. When he spoke again his voice was normal.

“Well,” said Dr. Hart, “what in Heaven’s name is all this? What now? May I not sleep, even? What now?”

He touched his head and saw Mandrake. “What are you doing with that thing in your hand?” he demanded. “Do not point at me. It is a firearm. What has happened?” Mandrake fidgeted uneasily with the automatic and curled the toes of his right foot in an attempt to avoid that pestilent shoe-nail. Hart rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth and shook his head vigorously.

Jonathan said: “We are armed because we have come to speak with a murderer.”

Hart uttered a sound of exasperation. “Mr. Royal,” he said, “how often am I to explain that I know nothing about it? Am I to be awakened at intervals during the night to tell you that I was in my bath?”

“What, again!” Mandrake ejaculated.

“Again? Again!” shouted Hart. “I do not know what you mean by again. I was in my bath at the time it was done. I know nothing. I did not sleep all last night. For weeks I have been suffering from insomnia, and tonight I have taken a soporific. If I do not sleep I shall go mad. Leave me alone.”

“There is the body of a murdered man downstairs, Dr. Hart,” said Mandrake. “I think you must stay awake a little longer to answer for it.”

Hart sat up in bed. His pyjama jacket was unbuttoned and the smooth whiteness of his torso made a singularly disagreeable impression on Mandrake. Hart was fully awake, now; on his guard, and sharply attentive.

“Murdered?” he repeated, and to Mandrake’s astonishment he smiled. “I see. So he has done it after all. I did not think he would go so far.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” Jonathan demanded.

“He is killed, you say? Then I am speaking of his brother. I guessed that the brother set that trap. A booby-trap you call it, do you not? He betrayed himself when he reminded them of the tricks they played in their childhood. It was obvious the lady still loved her first choice. He was attractive to women.” He paused and rubbed his lips again. Jonathan and Mandrake found nothing to say. “How was it done?” asked Hart.

Jonathan suddenly began to stutter. Mandrake saw that he was beside himself with rage. He cut in loudly before Jonathan had uttered a coherent phrase —

“Wait a moment, Jonathan.” Mandrake limped nearer to the bed. “He was killed,” he said, “by a blow on the head from a stone club that hung with other weapons on the wall of the smoking-room. He was bending over the wireless. His murderer must have crept up behind him. No, Jonathan, wait a minute, please. A short while before he was killed, Dr. Hart, we were all in the library, and we heard him turn on the radio. You will remember that the smoking-room is between the library and the green sitting-room, called ‘boudoir’—the room that you were in, alone. You will remember that it communicates with both these rooms and with the hall. With the exception of Mr. Royal, who did not enter either of the other two rooms, none of us left the library after we heard the wireless until Lady Hersey went in and found him there— murdered.”

The uneven patches of red in Hart’s cheeks were blotted out by a uniform and extreme pallor.

“This is infamous,” he whispered. “You. suggest that I–I killed him.” With a movement of his hand, Mandrake checked a further outburst from Jonathan.

“I could not,” said Hart. “The door was locked.”

“How do you know?”

“After you had gone, I tried it. He had turned that intolerable thing on again. I could not endure it. I admit — I admit I tried it. When I found it locked I–I controlled myself. I decided to leave that room of torture. I came up here and to bed. The door was locked, I tell you.”

“The door from the hall into the smoking-room was not locked.”

“I did not do it. There must be some proof. It is the brother. The brother hated him as much as I. It is a pathological case. I am a medical man. I have seen it. He had stolen the mother’s love and the girl still adored him.”

“Dr. Hart,” said Mandrake, “it is not Nicholas Compline who is dead. It is his brother, William.”

In the silence that followed Mandrake heard a door, some distance down the passage, open and close. He heard voices, a footfall, somebody coughing.

“William,” repeated Hart, and his hands moved across his chest, fumbling with his pyjama coat. “William Compline? It cannot be William. It cannot.”

They did not have a great deal of trouble with Dr. Hart after that. He seemed at first to be completely bewildered and (the word leapt unbidden into Mandrake’s thoughts) disgusted. Mandrake found himself quite unable to make up his mind whether Hart was bluffing, whether his air of confusion, his refusal to take alarm, and his obstinate denials were false or genuine. He seemed at once to be less panic-stricken and more helpless than he was when he believed, or feigned to believe, that the victim was Nicholas. He also seemed to be profoundly astonished. After a few minutes, however, he roused himself and appeared to consider his own position. He gave them quite a clear account of his own movements, from the time Mandrake left him alone in the green boudoir, until he fell asleep. He said that he had taken some minutes to recover from his breakdown in Mandrake’s presence. He was fully roused by tentative noises from the wireless, not loud but furtive. He found these sounds as intolerable to his raw nerves as the defiant blasts that preceded them. They must have affected Hart, Mandrake thought, in much the same way as he himself was affected by stealthy groping in chocolate boxes at a play. The intermittent noises continued, snatches of German and French, scraps of music, muffled bursts of static. Hart imagined Nicholas Compline turning the dial control and grinning to himself. At last the maddened doctor had rushed to the communicating door and found it locked. He had not, he seemed to suggest, meant to do more than expostulate with Nicholas, turn off the wireless at the wall switch and leave the room. However, the locked door checked him. He merely shouted a final curse at Nicholas and decided to fly from torment. He switched off the lights in the “boudoir,” and went upstairs. As he crossed the hall to the foot of the stairs, he passed the new footman with his tray of glasses. He said the man saw him come out of the “boudoir” and that Hart was about half-way up the first flight when the man returned from the smoking-room and moved about the hall. He was still in the hall, locking up, when Hart reached the half-way landing and turned off to the left-hand flight. “He will tell you,” said Hart, “that I did not enter the smoking-room.”

“You could very easily have finished your work in the smoking-room before the man came,” Jonathan said, icily. “You could have returned to the ‘boudoir’ and come out when you heard the man crossing the hall.”

Mandrake, by a really supreme effort of self-control, held his tongue. He wanted with all his soul to cry out: “No! Don’t you see, don’t you see…” He knew Jonathan was wrong, off the track altogether. He was amazed at Jonathan’s blindness. Yet, because he felt certain that somewhere, beyond his own reach, lay the answer to Hart’s statement, he said nothing. Better, he thought, to wait until he had that answer.

“His skull is fractured, you say.” Hart’s voice, more composed than it had been since their last inverview, roused Mandrake to listen. “Very well, then. You must lock up the room. The weapon must not be touched. It may have the assassin’s finger-prints. The door into the hall must be examined by the police. A medical practitioner must be found. Naturally I cannot act in the matter. My own position…”

“You!” Jonathan ejaculated. “Great merciful Heavens, sir—”

Again Mandrake interrupted. “Dr. Hart,” he asked, “suppose the rest of the party agreed, would you be prepared, in the presence of witnesses, to look at the body of William Compline?”

“Certainly,” said Hart promptly. “If you wish, I will do so, though it can serve no purpose. In view of your preposterous accusations, I will not prejudice myself by making an examination, but I am perfectly ready to look. But I repeat you must immediately procure a medical man and communicate with the police.”

“Have you forgotten that we’re isolated?” And repeating the phrase which he had learned to dread, Mandrake added: “It’s snowing harder than ever.”

“This is most awkward,” said Hart primly.

Jonathan burst incontinently into a tirade of abuse. Mandrake had never, until that day, seen him put out of countenance, and it was a strange and disagreeable experience to hear his voice grow shrill and his speech incoherent. His face was scarlet, his small mouth pouted and trembled, and behind those blind glasses of his Mandrake caught distorted glimpses of congested eyeballs. Without a trace of his usual precision he poured out a stream of accusations. “In my house,” he kept repeating, “in my house.” He ordered Hart to admit his guilt, he predicted what would happen to him. In the same breath he reminded him of Mrs. Compline’s ruined beauty, of his threats to Nicholas, and of Mandrake’s immersion. His outburst had the curious effect of steadying Hart. It was as though that house could hold only one hysterical middle-aged man at a time. Finally Jonathan flung himself into a chair, took out his handkerchief, saw a dark stain upon it, and with singular violence hurled it from him. He looked at Mandrake and perhaps he read astonishment and distaste in Mandrake’s face, for when he spoke again it was with something of his old manner.

“You must forgive me, Aubrey. I’m exceedingly upset. Known that boy all his life. His mother’s one of my oldest friends. I beg of you, Aubrey, to tell me what we should do.”

Mandrake said: “I think, if Dr. Hart consents, we should leave him and lock the door after us.”

“If I did not consent,” said Hart, “you would still do so. One thing I shall ask of you. Will you arrange that someone, Lady Hersey perhaps, explains my present dilemma to my wife? If you permit I should like to speak to her.”

“His wife? His wife!”

“Yes, yes, Jonathan,” said Mandrake. “Madame Lisse is Madame Hart. We can’t go into it now. Do you agree to these suggestions?”

Jonathan waved his hands and, taking this as an assent, Mandrake went to the bedside table and picked up the chemist’s jar. “I’ll take charge of this, I think,” he said. “Is it veronal?”

“I most strongly object, Mr. Mandrake.”

“I thought you would. Coming, Jonathan?”

He dropped the jar in his pocket and led the way to the door. He stood aside, allowing Jonathan to go out before him. He removed the key from inside the door. The last thing he saw before closing the door was Dr. Hart, his hands on his chest, staring after him. Then he stepped back over the threshold, pulled-to the door and locked it.

“Jonathan,” he said, “somewhere or another we’ve gone incredibly wrong. Let’s find Nicholas. We’ve got to talk.”

Nicholas, wearing an expression that reminded Mandrake of a nervous colt, stood at the end of the passage outside his mother’s door. He hurried to meet them.

“Well,” he whispered, “for God’s sake, what’s happened? What’s wrong?”

“At the moment, nothing,” said Mandrake.

“But I heard Jonathan shouting. Hart’s in his room, then? Why have you left him?”

“He’s locked up. Come downstairs, Compline. We’ve got to talk.”

“I’m deadly tired,” said Nicholas suddenly. And indeed he looked exhausted. “It was pretty ghastly, telling my Mama, you know.”

“How is she?” asked Jonathan, taking Nicholas’ arm. They moved towards the stairs.

“Hersey’s with her. She’s all to blazes, to be quite frank. She’s got it into her head that it all hangs on — you know. What he did to her face. She thinks it’s because of what Bill said about it. I couldn’t do anything much. Of course she’s — God, it sounds a rotten thing to say but you know how things are — she’s — in a sort of way — glad it’s not me. That makes me feel pretty foul as you may imagine. I’d better tell Hersey it’s safe for her to come out when she wants to.”

He put his head in at his mother’s door and gave this message. They went downstairs to the Library. Chloris was sitting very upright in her chair with her hands pressed together in her lap.

“All right?” Mandrake asked.

“Me? Yes. All right. It’s nice to see you again. What’s happened?”

Jonathan gave Chloris and Nicholas an account of the interview. It was an accurate narrative until he came to Hart’s story. Then his indignation seemed to get the better of him and, abandoning Hart’s statement altogether, Jonathan talked excitedly of preposterous evasions, trumped-up alibis, and intolerable hardihood. Seeing that Chloris and Nicholas grew more and more anxious and bewildered, Mandrake waited until Jonathan had exhausted his store of phrases and then cut in with an explicit account of Hart’s movements according to himself.

“A monstrous conglomeration of lies!” Jonathan fumed.

“I don’t think we can altogether dismiss them, Jonathan. I take it that we none of us doubt his guilt, but I’m afraid it’s not going to be easy to get over that business of his meeting the footman — supposing, of course, that the man confirms Hart’s story. There must be an explanation, of course, but—”

“My god, Aubrey,” cried Jonathan, “of course there’s an explanation. When he encountered Thomas — it was all over. That’s your explanation.”

“Yes, but it isn’t, you know. Because it was after Thomas came in with the drinks that we heard William turn up the wireless.”

There was a rather stony silence, broken by Jonathan. “Then he came downstairs and slipped into the smoking-room.”

“But he says Thomas stayed in the hall.”

“He says, he says. The answer is that he waited in the shadows on the stairs until Thomas left the hall.”

“Do you remember,” Mandrake asked the other two, “the sequence of events? You, Compline, came out of the smoking-room leaving your brother — where?”

“He was over by the fire, I think. He wouldn’t talk much but I remember he did say he was damned if Hart was going to stop him getting the news. It wasn’t quite time for it. I’d heard Hart switch off the light in the ‘boudoir’ and I said he’d evidently gone, so it’d be all right. I didn’t want to hear the damn’ news myself and I’d told you I’d pipe down, so I came away.”

“Exactly. As I remember you came in and shut the door. Later, when you opened it and called out to him about the news, could you see him?”

“No. The screen hid him. But he grunted something and I heard him cross the room.”

“Right. And a moment later he turned on the wireless.”

“I maintain,” said Jonathan, “that it was Hart we heard in there. Hart had murdered him, and when he heard Nick ask for the news he turned it on and got out of the room.”

“By that time Hart, according to himself, had met Thomas coming with the tray, had got some way up the stairs, and had seen Thomas re-enter the hall. It was only a matter of a minute or two after Thomas left that Lady Hersey went into the smoking-room. Does that give Hart time to return and do — what he did?”

“It was longer than that,” said Johathan, “the news had run for some minutes before Hersey went in.”

“But…” Chloris made a sudden movement.

“Yes?” asked Mandrake.

“I suppose it’s no good, but a wireless does take a little time to warm up. Could Dr. Hart have switched it on, after — after he’s — after it was over, and then hurried out of the room so that it would sound like Bill tuning in? Do you see what I mean?”

“By Heaven!” Nicholas said, “I believe she’s got it.”

“No,” said Mandrake slowly, “no, I’m afraid not. The wireless was still warm. It was only a few minutes since it had been switched off. Even when they’re cold they don’t take longer than fifteen to twenty seconds, I fancy. For that idea to work, Hart would have had to switch it on before Thomas came in with the drinks and we didn’t hear the thing until after Thomas left. And what’s more it gives a still smaller margin of time for the actual crime. It would have to be done after you, Compline, left your brother, and before Thomas appeared with the glasses. Remember he had to leave the ‘boudoir’ by the door into the hall, enter the smoking-room by its door into the hall, seize his weapon, steal up — I’m sorry, but we’ve got to think of these things, haven’t we? — do what he did, turn on the radio, return to the ‘boudoir’ and come out of it again in time for Thomas to see him.”

“It takes much longer to describe these things than to do them,” said Jonathan.

“No,” said Chloris, “I think Aubrey’s right, Mr. Royal. It doesn’t seem to fit.”

“My dear child, you can’t possibly tell.”

“What do you think, Nicholas?” This was the first time Chloris had spoken to Nicholas. He shook his head and pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’m no good. Just about all in.”

Mandrake suppressed a feeling of irritation. He found Nicholas in sorrow as difficult to stomach as Nicholas in good form. He realized that his impatience was unkind and his feeling of incredulity, unjust. Nicholas was upset. He was white and distraught, and it would have been strange if he had not been so affected. Mandrake realized with dismay that his own annoyance arose not from Nicholas’ behavior but from the compassionate glance that Chloris had given him. “Good Heavens,” Mandrake thought, “I’m a pretty sort of fellow!” And to make amends to his conscience he joined Chloris and Jonathan in urging Nicholas to go to bed. Hersey Amblington came in.

“Your mother’s a little calmer, Nick,” she said. “But I’m afraid she’s not likely to sleep. Jonathan, are there any aspirins in this house? I haven’t got any.”

“I–I really don’t know. I never use them. I can ask the servants. Unless any of you…?”

Nobody had any aspirins. Mandrake remembered Dr. Hart’s veronal and groped in his pocket.

“There’s this,” he said. “Hart had taken as much or more than was good for him and I removed it; It’s got the correct dosage on the label. It’s veronal preparation, I think, and is evidently a proprietary sample of sorts. The kind of thing they send out to doctors. Would it do?”

“It couldn’t hurt, could it? She could try a small dose. I’ll see, anyway.”

Hersey went away and returned in a few minutes to say that she had given Mrs. Compline half the amount prescribed. Nicholas offered to go up to his mother, but Hersey said she thought it better not to disturb her.

“She locked her door after me,” Hersey said. “She’s quite safe and I hope she’ll soon be asleep.”

Hersey asked for an account of the interview with Hart and Mandrake gave it to her. She listened in silence to the story of Thomas and the encounter in the hall.

“What about the Pirate?” she asked suddenly. “Is she enjoying her beauty-sleep under a good dollop of her own skin food, or does she know what’s happened?”

“If you mean Madame Lisse,” said Nicholas with a return to his old air of sulkiness, “I’ve told her. She’s frightfully upset.”

“That’s just too bad,” said Hersey.

“She’s Hart’s wife,” said Mandrake drearily. “Haven’t we told you?”

“What?”

“Don’t ask me why it was a secret. Something to do with face-lifting. It’s all too fantastically involved. Perhaps you knew, Compline?”

“I didn’t know. I don’t believe it,” said Nicholas dully, and nothing, Mandrake thought, could have shown more clearly the shock of William’s death than the amazing apathy with which this news was received. They discussed it halfheartedly and soon returned to the old theme.

“What I can’t understand,” said Chloris, “is why he did it. I know Bill had talked wildly about exposing him, but after all we knew about the Vienna business too. He couldn’t hope to frighten us into silence.”

“I think he’s mad,” said Nicholas. “I think it was simply that last outburst of anger at the wireless that sent him off at the deep end. I think he probably went into the room with the idea of screaming out at Bill as he had already screamed at me. And I think he had a sort of hysterical crisis and grabbed the nearest weapon and—” He caught his breath in a sort of sob and for the first time Mandrake felt genuinely sorry for him. ‘That’s what I think,” said Nicholas, ”and you can imagine what it feels like. I’d deliberately goaded him with the wireless. You heard me, Mandrake.” He looked from one to another of his listeners. ”How could I know? I suppose it was a silly thing to do, a rotten thing to do, if you like, but he’d been pretty foul with his threats and his booby-traps. It was me he was after, wasn’t it? How could I know he’d take it out on old Bill. How could I know?”

“Don’t, Nick,” said Hersey. “You couldn’t know.”

Mandrake said: “You needn’t blame yourself. You’ve got it wrong. Don’t you see, all of you? He came in at the hall door. William was sitting with his back to the door, bending over the radio. All Hart could see from there was the back of his tunic and the nape of his neck. A few minutes before, he had heard you, Compline, tell him, face to face, that you were going to use the radio if you wanted to. A few seconds later both Hart and I heard you say: ‘Oh, all right. Go to bed, Bill.’ There, when he entered the room, was a man in uniform bending over the controls. The only light in the room was over by the fireplace. Don’t you understand, all of you? When he struck at William Compline he thought he was attacking his brother.”

“Aubrey, my dear fellow,” said Jonathan. “I believe you are right. I am sure you are right. It is quite masterly. An admirable piece of reasoning.”

“It doesn’t get us over the hurdle, though,” said Mandrake. “He’s been too clever for us. You’ll have to talk to that man, Jonathan. If he saw Hart go upstairs and remained in the hall for any length of time afterwards, Hart’s got an alibi that we’re going to have a devilish job to break. What’s the time?”

“Five past eleven,” said Chloris.

“They won’t be in bed, yet, will they? You’d better send for him, Jo,” said Hersey.

Jonathan fidgeted and made little doubtful sounds.

“My dear Jo, you’ll have to tell the servants sometime.”

“I’ll go and speak to them in the servants’ hall.”

“I wouldn’t,” said Hersey. “I’d ring and speak to them here. I think we ought to be together when you talk to Thomas.

“After all,” said Hersey, ”I suppose if we can’t break Dr. Hart’s alibi, we’re all under suspicion.”

“My dear girl, that’s utterly preposterous. Please remember we were all together in this room when William produced the war news on the wireless. Or, which I think more likely, when Hart produced it.”

“No,” said Mandrake. “We’ve tried that. It won’t work. Jonathan, you went into the hall after the news began. Was Thomas there, then?”

“No,” shouted Jonathan, angrily, “of course he wasn’t. The hall was empty and there was no light in the ‘boudoir.’ I crossed the hall and went into the downstairs cloak-room. When I returned it was still empty.”

“Then perhaps his story about Thomas—”

“For Heaven’s sake,” cried Hersey, “let’s ask Thomas.”

After a good deal of demurring, Jonathan finally rang the bell. Caper answered it and accepted the news of sudden death and homicide with an aplomb which Mandrake had imagined to be at the command only of family servants in somewhat dated comedies. Caper said “Indeed, sir?” some five or six times with nicely varied inflexions. He then went in search of Thomas, who presently appeared, wearing the air of one who had crammed himself hastily into his coat. He was a pale young man with damp waves in his hair. Evidently he had been primed by Caper, for he was not quite able to conceal a certain air of avidity. He answered Jonathan’s questions promptly and sensibly. Yes, he had met Dr. Hart in the hall as he brought the tray. Dr. Hart come out of the “boudoir” as Thomas walked up the passage and into the rear of the hall. He was quite positive it was the “boudoir.” He had noticed that the lights were out. He had noticed light coming from under the door into the smoking-room. Before Thomas entered the library Dr, Hart had reached the stairs and he turned on the wall switch belonging to the stair lamps. When Thomas came out of the library Dr. Hart had reached the. visitors’-room flight. Thomas stayed in the hall. He locked the front doors, made up the fire and tidied the tables. In answer to a question from Mandrake, he said that he heard music from the radio in the smoking-room.

“What sort of music?” asked Mandrake.

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“Did you recognize the music?”

“Boomps-a-Daisy, sir,” said Thomas unhappily.

“Well, go on, go on,” said Jonathan. “You went away then, I suppose.”

“No, sir.”

“What the devil did you do with yourself, hanging about the hall?” demanded Jonathan, who was beginning to look extremely uneasy.

“Well, sir, excuse me, sir, I–I…”

“You what?”

“I went through the movements, sir. ‘Hands, knees,’ in time to the music, sir. I don’t know why, I’m sure, sir. It just came over me. Only for a minute, like, because the music only lasted a very short time, sir, and then it was turned off.”

“Cavorting about the hall like a buck-rabbit!” said Jonathan.

“I’m sure I’m very sorry, sir.”

For a moment Jonathan seemed to be extraordinarily put out by this confession of animal spirits on the part of Thomas, but suddenly he made one of his quick pounces and cried out triumphantly: “Aha! So you were dancing, Thomas, were you? An abrupt attack of joie de vivre? And why not? Why not? You were intent upon it, I daresay. Turning this way and that, eh? I suppose it would take you right across the hall. I’m not very familiar with the dance, I must confess, but I imagine it’s pretty lively, what?”

“Yes, sir. Rather lively, sir.”

“Rather lively,” repeated Jonathan. “Quite so. You’d be so taken up with it, I daresay, that you wouldn’t notice if somebody came into the hall, um?”

“Beg pardon, sir, but nobody came into the hall, sir. The music stopped and the news started and I went back to the servants sitting-room, sir, but nobody came into the hall while I was there.”

“But, my good Thomas, I–I put it to you. I put it to you that while you were clapping your hands and slapping your knees and all the rest of it, it would have been perfectly easy for someone to cross the hall unnoticed. Come now!”

“Look here, Thomas,” said Mandrake. “Let’s put it this way: Somebody did come downstairs while you were in the hall. This person came downstairs and went into the smoking-room. Don’t you remember?”

“I’m very sorry, sir, to contradict you,” said Thomas, turning a deep plum-colour, “but I assure you they didn’t. They couldn’t of. I was close by the smoking-room door, sir, and facing the stairs. What I mean to say, I just ’eard, heard the tune, sir, and, I’m sure I don’t know why, I did a couple of hands, knees, and boomps; well, for the fun of it, like.”

“Thomas,” Mandrake said, “suppose you were in a court of law and were asked to swear on the Bible that nobody was in the hall from the time you came out of the library until the time you went back to your own quarters. What about it?”

“I’d swear, sir.”

“There’s nothing to be gained by going on with this, Aubrey,” said Jonathan. “Thank you, Thomas.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Thomas, and retired.

“There’s only one explanation,” said Nicholas. “He must have come back after that chap went back to his quarters.”

“All the way downstairs and across the hall?” said Mandrake. “I suppose it’s possible. In that case he avoided running into Jonathan and did the whole thing while that short news bulletin was being read. It was all over, and he’d bolted, when Lady Hersey went into the smoking-room and turned off the radio. It’s a close call.”

He bent down and slipped a finger inside his shoe. “Damn!” he said. “Does anyone mind if I take off my shoe? I’ve got a nail sticking into my foot.”

He took off the shoe and noticed how they all glanced at his sound foot and away again quickly. He groped inside the shoe. “There it is,” he muttered, “a damn’ great spike of a thing.”

“But there’s something in the sole of your shoe,” said Chloris. “Look.”

Mandrake turned the shoe over. “It’s a drawing-pin,” he said.

“There’s some explanation,” said Nicholas with a real note of despair in his voice. “He’s upstairs there, lying in his bed, by God, and laughing at us. Somehow or other he worked it. During the news. It must have been then. Somehow or other. When I think about it, I’m sure it was Bill who worked the wireless. I know you’ll say it was easy for anybody to grunt and cross the room, but somehow, I can’t explain why, I believe it was Bill — it sort of felt like Bill.”

“Ssh!” said Hersey suddenly. “Listen!”

They stared at her. Her hand was raised and her head tilted. Into the profound silence that fell upon them came a wide vague drumming. The shutters of the library windows creaked. As they listened, the room was filled with that enveloping outside noise.

“It’s beginning to rain,” said Jonathan.