Death And The Dancing Footman

Chapter XI Alleyn

“Nicholas,” said Madame Lisse, “come here to me.”

He had been staring through the windows of the green sitting-room at the rain, which still came down like a multitude of rods, piercing all that remained of snow on the drive, filling the house with a melancholy insistence of sound. After she had spoken, though not immediately, he turned from the window and slowly crossed the room.

“Well?” he asked. “Well, Elise?”

She reached out her hand to him, touching his wrist, compelling him with her fingers to come nearer to her. “I am deeply grieved for you. You know that?” she said.

He took the hand and rubbed it between his two palms as if he hoped to get some warmth from it. “If she goes,” he said, “I’ve no one else, no one at all but you.” He stood beside her, still moving her fingers between his hands and peering at her oddly, almost as if he saw her for the first time. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I don’t understand.”

Madame Lisse pulled him down to the footstool beside her chair. He yielded quite obediently.

“We have got to think, to plan, to decide,” said Madame Lisse. “I am, as I have said, deeply grieved for you. If she does not live it will be a great loss, of course. Your mother having always favoured you, one is much puzzled that she should despair to extremity at the death of your brother. For myself I believe her action should rather be attributed to a morbid dread of publicity about the misfortune to her beauty.” Madame Lisse touched her hair with the tips of her fingers. “The loss of beauty is a sufficient tragedy, but to that she had become resigned. Your brother’s threat to expose Francis, as well as the shock she sustained on recognizing Francis, no doubt unhinged her. It is very sad.” She looked down at the top of his head. It was a speculative and even a calculating glance. “Of course,” she said, “I have not seen her letter.” Nicholas’ whole body seemed to writhe. “I can’t talk about it,” he muttered.

“Mr. Royal has taken it?”

“Yes. In case — he said…”

“That was quite sensible, of course.”

“Elise, did you know it was Hart who did it — to her — in Vienna?”

“He told me on Friday night that he had recognized her.”

“My God, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why should I? I was already terrified of the situation between you. Why should I add to your antagonism? No, my one desire was to suppress it, my one terror that she should recognize him and that we should be ruined.” She clenched her hands and beat the arms of her chair. “And now what am I to do! It will all come out. That he is my husband. That you are my lover. He will say terrible things when they arrest him. He will bring me down in his own ruin.”

“I swear you won’t suffer.” Nicholas pressed his face against her knees and began to mutter feverish endearments and reassurances. “Elise… when it’s over — it seems frightful to speak of it… everything different now… Elise… alone together. Elise.”

She stopped him at last, pressing her hands on his head.

“Very well,” she said. “When it’s all over. Very well.”

Dr. Hart leant back on his heels, looked at the prostrate figure on the mattress, bent forward again and slapped the discoloured and distorted face. The eyes remained not quite closed, the head jerked flaccidly. He uttered a disconsolate grunt, turned the figure on its face again, and placed his hands over the ribs. Sweat was pouring down his own face and arms.

“Let me go on,” said Hersey. “I know what to do.”

He continued three or four times with the movements of artificial respiration and then said suddenly: “Very well. Thank you, I have cramp.”

Hersey knelt on the floor.

“It is so long,” said Hart, “since I was in general practice. Twenty-three years. I cannot remember my poisons. The stomach should be emptied, that is certain. If only they can return soon from the chemist. If only they can find the police surgeon!”

“Is there any improvement?” asked Jonathan.

Hart raised his shoulders and arms and let them fall.

“Oh dear, oh dear!” cried Jonathan and wrung his hands. “What possessed her?”

“I cannot understand it. It is the other son to whom she gave her devotion.”

Hersey raised her head for a moment to give Dr. Hart a very direct stare. “Do not stop or hesitate,” he said at once, “steady rhythmic movements are essential — Where is the other son now?”

“Nicholas is downstairs,” Hersey grunted. “We thought it better to keep him out of this. All things considered.”

“Perhaps you are right.” He knelt again, close to Sandra Compline’s head, and stooped down. “Where is that woman? That Pouting, who was to prepare the emetic and find me a tube. She is too long coming.”

“I’ll see,” said Jonathan, and hurried out of the room.

For a time Hersey worked on in silence. Then Hart took the patient’s pulse and respiration. Jonathan came panting back with a tray covered by a napkin. Hart looked at the contents, “A poor substitute,” he said. “We can but try it. It will be better, perhaps, if you leave us, Mr. Royal.”

“Very well.” Jonathan walked to the door, where he turned and spoke in a high voice. “We are trusting you, Dr. Hart, because we have no alternative. You will remember, if you please, that you are virtually under arrest.”

“Ah! ah!” Hart muttered. “Go away. Don’t be silly. Go away.”

“Honestly!”said Hersey, and then: “You’d better go, Jo. ”

Jonathan went, but no further than the passage, where he paced up and down for some ten minutes. It is a peculiarity of some people to sing when they are agitated or annoyed. Jonathan was one of these. As, with mincing steps, he moved about his guest-wing passage, he hummed breathily: “Il était une bergère…” and beat time with his finger-tips on the back of his hand. Past the niche in the wall where the brass Buddha had stood, as far as the grandfather clock and back down the whole length of the passage, he trotted, with closed doors on each side of him and his figure passing in and out of shadows. Once, he broke off his sentry-go to enter Hart’s room, where he stood at the window, tapping the pane, breathily humming, staring at the rain. But in a moment or two he was back and down the passage, pausing to listen outside Mrs. Compline’s door and then on again to the grandfather clock. Hersey found him at this employment when she came out. She took his arm and fell into step with him.

“Well, Jo,” said Hersey, and her voice was not very steady, “I’m afraid we’re not doing much good. At the moment nothing’s worked.”

“Hersey, she must recover, I–I can’t believe — what’s happening to us, Hersey? What’s happening?”

“Oh, well,” said Hersey, “it’ll be worse in the air raids. Dr. Hart’s doing his best, Jo.”

“But is he? Is he? A murderer, Hersey. A murderer, to stand between our dear old friend Sandra and death! What an incredible — what a frightful situation!”

Hersey stood stock-still. Her hand closed nervously on Jonathan’s arm and she drew in a long breath. “I don’t believe he is a murderer,” she said.

Jonathan pulled his arm away as violently as if she’d pinched it.

“My dear girl,” he said loudly, “don’t be a fool. Great Heaven…!” He checked himself. “I’m sorry, my dear. I was discourteous. You will forgive me. But to suggest that Hart, Hart, who has scarcely attempted to conceal his guilt—”

“That’s not true, Jo. I mean, if he did it, he managed to provide himself with an alibi that none of us can easily break.”

“Nonsense, Hersey. We have broken it. He committed his crime after William had turned on the news, or else he himself turned it on and waited his chance to dart out of the room.”

“Yes, I know. Why didn’t you run into him?”

“Because he took very good care to avoid me.”

“He seems to have done a tidy lot of dodging,” said Hersey dubiously. Jonathan uttered an exasperated noise.

“What has come over you, Hersey? You agreed that he had done it. Of course he did it. Of course he killed William. Killed him brutally and deliberately, believing him to he his brother. Aubrey has made that much clear.”

“I don’t believe he did it,” Hersey repeated, and added shakily: “After all it’s not an easy thing to say. I don’t enjoy facing the implication. But I—”

“Don’t say it again,” whispered Jonathan, and took her by the wrists. “Who else? Who else? What has come over you?”

“It’s seeing him in there, working over Sandra. Why, I believe he’d even forgotten he was accused until you reminded him just now. It’s the one or two things that he’s said while I’ve been in there. I don’t think he was saying them to me so much as to himself. I believe he’s got an idea that if he can save Sandra, it’ll atone, in a queer sort of way, for what he did to her beauty.”

“Good God, what rubbish is this? He wants to save her because he thinks he’ll impress us, as it seems he has impressed you, with his personal integrity. Of course he doesn’t want Sandra to die.”

“If he was guilty of murdering her son? That’s not good reasoning, Jo. Sandra would be one of the most damaging witnesses against him.”

“You must be demented,” Jonathan said breathlessly, and stood looking at her and biting his fingers. “What does all this matter? I suppose you agree that whoever set the booby-trap committed the murder? Only Hart could have set the booby-trap. But I’ll not argue with you, Hersey. You’re distracted, poor girl, distracted, as we all are.”

“No,” said Hersey. “No, Jo, it’s not that.”

“Then God knows what it is,” cried Jonathan, and turned away.

“I think I heard him,” said Hersey. “I must go back.” In a moment she had gone and Jonathan was left to stare at the closed door of Sandra Compline’s room.

“Only five more miles to go,” said Mandrake. “If the snow’s frozen hard all the way I believe we’ll do it.”

They were in a narrow lane. The car churned, squeaked, and skidded through snow that packed down under the wheels, mounted in a hard mass between the front bumpers and the radiator, and clogged the axles. Their eyes were wearied with whiteness, Mandrake’s arms and back ached abominably, James Bewling had developed a distressing tendency to suck his teeth.

“Queer though it may seem in these surroundings,” said Mandrake, “the engine’s getting hot. I’ve been in bottom gear for the last two miles. Chloris, be an angel and light me a cigarette.”

“Downhill now, sir, every foot of her,” said Tames.

“That may or may not be an unmixed blessing. Why the hell is she sidling like this? What’s happened to the chains? Never mind. On we go.”

Chloris lit a cigarette and put it between his lips. “You’re doing grand, dearie,” she said in Cockney.

“I’ve been trying to sort things out a little for a quick news bulletin when we get there, always adding the proviso, if we get there. What’s best to do? Shall I, while you push on to the chemist, tell Alleyn in a few badly chosen words, as few as possible, what’s happened; and shall we implore him to come back at once, reading my notes on the way?”

“I suppose so. Perhaps he’ll insist on our going on to Great Chipping for the local experts. Perhaps he won’t play.”

“It’s a poisonous distance to Great Chipping. He can ring up. Surely the lines won’t be down all over this incredibly primitive landscape. We must get back with the things from the chemist.” The rear of the car moved uncannily sideways. “She’s curtseying again. Damn, that’s a bad one. Damn.”

They were nearly into the hedgerow. Mandrake threw out his clutch and rammed on the brake. “I’m going to have a look at those chains.”

“Don’t ’ee stir, sir,” said James. “I’ll see.”

He got out. Chloris leant forward and covered her face with her hands.

“Hullo,” said Mandrake. “Eye-strain?” She didn’t answer but some small movement of her shoulders prompted him to put his arm about them and then he felt her trembling. “I’m so sorry,” he said, “so terribly sorry. Darling Chloris, I implore you not to cry.”

“I won’t. I’m not going to. It’s not what you think, not sorrow. Though I am terribly sorry. It must be shock or something. I’ve been so miserable and ashamed about the Complines. I’ve so wanted to be rid of them. And now — look how it’s happened. It was foul of me to get engaged to Bill on the rebound. That’s what it was, no denying it. And I knew all the time what I was up to. Don’t be nice to me, I feel like a sweep.”

“I can’t be as nice as I’d like to because here, alas, comes Mr. Bewling. Blow your nose, my sweet. There’ll always be an England where there’s a muddy lane, a hoarding by a cowslip field, and curates in the rain. Well, James, what have you discovered?”

“Pesky chain on off hind-wheel’s carried away, sir. Which is why she’s been skittering and skiddling the last mile or so.”

“No doubt. Well, get in James, get in, and I’ll see if I can waddle out of the hedgerow. On mature consideration, perhaps you’d better watch me.”

James hovered over the now familiar process of churning wheels, short jerks and final recoveries. He stood within view of Mandrake and made violent gyratory movements with his hands, while an enormous drop swung from the tip of his nose.

“I have never responded in the smallest degree to rustic charm,” said Mandrake. “All dialects are alike to me. James seems to me to be an extremely unconvincing piece of genre. What does he mean by these ridiculous gestures?”

“He means you’re backing us into the other ditch,” said Chloris, blowing her nose. “Oh, do be careful. Don’t you see, he’s steering an imaginary wheel.”

“His antics are revolting. Moreover he smells. There, you unspeakable old grotesque, is that right?”

James, capering in the snow and unable to hear any of this, innocently nodded and grinned.

“I think you’re beastly about him,” said Chloris, “he’s very kind.”

“Well, he can get in again. Here he comes. Are you all right, James? Have a cigarette.”

“No, thankee, sir,” said James, breathing hard. “I’ve never smoked one of they since I was so high as yer elber. A pipe’s my fancy, sir, and that be too powerful a piece of work for the lady.”

“Not a bit, James,” said Chloris. “Do have a pipe. You’ve earned it.”

James thanked her and soon the inside of the car smelt of nothing but his pipe. For some little time they lurched down the lane in silence but presently Mandrake leant his head towards Chloris and said in a low voice: “I hope you won’t mind my mentioning it, but I never expected to lose my heart to a blonde. The darker the better hitherto, I assure you. Not pitchblack, of course. White faces and black heads have been my undoing.”

“If you’re trying to cheer me up,” Chloris rejoined, “you’ve hit on an unfortunate theme. I went ashen for Nicholas and I certainly can’t revoke for you.”

“There!” cried Mandrake triumphantly. “I should have known my instinct was not at fault. You idiot, darling, why did you? Oh, all right, all right. What’s the time?”

“It’s five minutes to twelve. We shan’t be there by midday, after all.”

“We shan’t be much later, I swear. I wonder — Have you ever known anyone who took an overdose of a sleeping-draught?”

“Never. But we had something about them in my home-nursing course. I’ve been trying to remember. I think they’re all barbitones, and I think the lecturer said that people who took too much sank into a coma and might keep on like that for hours or even days. You had to try and get rid of the poison and rouse them. I–I think it’s terribly important that we should be quick. Dr. Hart said so. Aubrey, we’ve got so much to say when we get there and so little time for saying it!”

“I’ve tried to get it down to some sort of coherent form.”

“When you made your notes did you think of anything new, anything that would help to explain about William?”

Mandrake did not answer immediately. They had reached a stretch of road where the snow was less thick and was frozen hard. They had left the Cloudyfold hills behind and to their right, and had come into a level stretch between downlands and within sight of scattered cottages, each with its banner of smoke, the only signals of warmth in that cold countryside. Hedges broke through the snow, like fringes of black coral in an immobile sea. There was no wind down here and the trees, lined with snow, made frozen gestures against a sky of lead. Mandrake was visited by the notion that his car was a little world which clung precariously to its power of movement and he felt as if he himself fought, not against snow and mud, but against immobility. He wrenched his thoughts round to Chloris’ question.

“If you open that attaché-case you’ll find the notes,” he said. “Would you get them out? I don’t know if you can read in this state of upheaval. Try.”

Chloris managed to read the notes. They crept on with occasional wallowings in softer snow, and presently James Bewling said that the next turn in the road would bring them within sight of the spire of Winton St. Giles parish church, and Mandrake himself began to recognize the countryside and distant groups of trees that he had passed on his way from Winton to Cloudyfold. That was on Thursday. And, as he arrived at this point, through the open driving window came the faintest echo of a bell.

“Good Lord!” he thought, “it’s Sunday. Suppose they’re all in church. James,” he called out, “what time is morning service at St. Giles?”

“Ah. Rector do set most store by early service,” James rejoined. “She be at eight. T’others at half-past ten. Reckon he’ll have it to hisself this morning.”

“That’s all right, then. But what’s that bell?”

“Rector do ring bell at noon.”

“The Angelus,” said Mandrake. Chloris looked up from her papers and for a little while they listened to that distant clear-cold voice.

“They’re friends of yours, aren’t they?” said Chloris.

“The Copelands? Yes. Dinah’s beginning to be quite a good actress. She’s going to play in my new thing, if the Blitzkrieg doesn’t beat us to it. I suppose it won’t seem odd to you, but for at least twelve hours I haven’t thought about my play. What do you make of the notes?”

“There are some things I didn’t know about, but not many.” Chloris caught her breath. “You say at the end: ‘Could Hart have set a second booby-trap?’ ” Do you mean could he have done something with that frightful weapon that would make it fall on…? Is that what you mean?”

“Yes. I can’t get any further though. I can’t think of anything.”

“A Busman’s Honeymoon-ish sort of contraption? But there are no hanging flower-pots at Highfold.”

“Well, if you can think of anything! I must tell you I went into the room before we left. I looked all round, trying to see if some little thing was out of order in the arrangement of the room, unusual in any way. I — didn’t enjoy it. I couldn’t see anything remotely suggestive of booby-traps. The ceiling’s a high one. Anyway, how could Hart have dangled a stone weapon from the ceiling?”

As soon as these words had fallen from his lips, Mandrake experienced a strange foreknowledge of how they could be answered. So vivid was this impression that when Chloris did speak, it was to him exactly as though she echoed his thoughts.

“Are you so certain,” she said, “that it must be Dr. Hart?”

And he heard his own voice answer, as if it spoke to a given cue: “I thought I was. Aren’t you?” She didn’t reply and a moment later he said with an air of conviction: “It must be. Who else?” And as she still kept silence: “Who else?”

“Nobody, I suppose. Nobody, of course.”

“If it was anybody else the original booby-trap goes unexplained. We know that only Hart could have set it. Don’t we?”

“I suppose so. Although, reading your notes, mightn’t it be just possible that one of the alibis…? It’s your evidence.”

“I know what you mean, but it’s beyond all bounds incredible. Why? Not a motive in the wide world! Besides, I can’t believe it, It’s monstrous.”

“Yes, I know. Well then, what about a second booby-trap? The detective stories tell you to look for the unusual, don’t they?”

“I don’t read them,” said Mandrake with some slight return to his professional manner. “However, I did look for the unusual.”

“And found nothing?”

“And found nothing. The room had a ghastly air of interrupted normality.”

They were ploughing through a small drift. The snow yielded, mounted in a wall in front of the radiator and splashed across the wind-screen. They felt a familiar and ominous quiver and in a moment had come to a standstill.

“Out comes wold shovel agin,” said James cheerfully. “She’s not a bad ’un this time, sir.”

Mandrake backed out of the drift and again James set to work.

“There’s one detail,” said Mandrake, “that for some reason annoys me. No doubt there’s nothing in it.”

“What’s that?”

“You saw it. Do you remember the drawing-pin in the sole of my shoe? I picked it up in the smoking-room. There’s dried paint on it and it’s the same as the ones that are stuck in the lid of William’s paint-box.”

“I’m afraid I don’t see…”

“I said there was nothing in it. The only thing is, why should William have had a drawing-pin in the study? He did no painting at Highfold.”

“Yes, he did,” Chloris contradicted. “At least he did a drawing of me yesterday before lunch. It was while he was doing it that we had our row. And the paper was pinned down to a bit of board. And he dropped one of the pins.”

“Oh,” said Mandrake, flatly. “Well, you might add that to the notes. That’s a flop then. What do we think of now?”

“Well, I can’t think of anything,” said Chloris hopelessly.

“What the devil,” said Mandrake, “is that old mountebank doing?”

James Bewling, having cleared a passage in front of the car, had, with great difficulty, climbed the bank under the buried hedgerow and now stood waving his arms and pointing down the road. Mandrake sounded his horn and James instantly plunged down the bank and across the intervening snowdrift to the car. He climbed into the back seat, shouting excitedly as he came.

“Road’s clear, down-along,” shouted James. “There’s a mort of chaps with shovels and one of they scrapers. On ’ee go, sir, us’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Thank God!” said Mandrake and Chloris sincerely.

Dinah Copeland trudged down the side path and pressed her face against the French window, instantly obscuring it with her breath. Alleyn put down his book and let her in.

“You do look wholesome,” he said.

“Did you hear me ring the Angelus?” she demanded. “Was it all right, Daddy?”

“Very nice, my dear,” said the Rector out of the corner of his mouth, “but I mustn’t talk. Mrs. Alleyn’s doing my bottom lip.”

“I’ve finished,” said Troy.

“For the morning?”

“Yes. Would you like to look?”

Dinah kicked off her snow-boots and hurried round the easel. Troy grinned at her husband, who upon that signal joined her. She thrust her thin arm in its painty sleeve through his and with Dinah they looked at the portrait.

“Pleased?” Alleyn asked his wife.

“Not so bad from my point of view, but what about Dinah?”

“It’s Heaven,” said Dinah emphatically.

“Not quite what the church-hen ordered, I’m afraid,” Troy murmured.

“No, thank the Lord. I was wondering if by any chance you’d gone surrealist and would mix Daddy up with some nice symbols. I’ve got rather keen on surrealism since I’ve been working with Aubrey Mandrake. But now I see it, I’m quite glad you haven’t put in any eggshells or phallic trimmings.”

“Dinah!”

“Well, Daddy, everybody recognizes the frightful importance — all right, darling, I won’t. I do wish my young man was here to see it,” said Dinah. “Daddy, aren’t you glad we scraped acquaintance with Mr. Alleyn over our murder?”

“I’m very glad, at all events,” said Troy. “Do you know this is the only time since we were married that he’s let me meet any of his criminal acquaintances?” She laughed, squinted at her work and asked: “Do you think it’s all right, Roderick?”

“I like it,” said Alleyn gravely.

The Rector, who wore the diffident simper of the subject, joined the group at Troy’s easel. Alleyn, gripping his pipe between his teeth and humming gently to himself, began to roll up and put away his wife’s tubes of paint. She lit a cigarette and watched him.

“For a long time,” said Troy, “he endured my paint-box in silence, and then one day he asked me if dirt was an essential to self-expression. Since then it’s got more and more like the regulation issue for investigating officers at C.I.”

“Whereas before, it was a test case for advanced students at Hendon. I found,” said Alleyn, “characteristic refuse from Fiji, Quebec, Norway, and the Dolomites. Hullo! What’s that?”

“What’s what?” asked Troy.

“There’s a car struggling outside in the church lane.”

“Church lane!” Dinah ejaculated. “It must be driven by a lunatic if it’s come from anywhere round Cloudyfold. They’ve cleared the lane up to the first turning but above that it’s thick snow. Your car must have come in from the main road, Mr. Alleyn. It’ll very soon have to stop.”

“It has stopped,” said Alleyn. “And I fancy at your gate, Oh, dear me!”

“What’s the matter with you?” asked his wife.

“By the pricking of my thumbs! Well, it can’t be for me, anyway.”

“Somebody’s coming up the side path,” cried Dinah, and a moment later she turned an astonished face upon the others. “It’s Aubrey Mandrake.”

“Mandrake?” said Alleyn sharply. “But he ought to be on the other side of Cloudyfold.”

“It can’t be Mandrake, my dear,” said the Rector.

“But it is. And the car’s driven away. Here he comes. He’s seen me and he’s coming to this window.” Dinah stared at Alleyn. “I think there must be something wrong,” she said. “Aubrey looks — different.”

She opened the French window and in another moment Aubrey Mandrake walked in.

“Alleyn!” said Mandrake. “Thank God you’re here. There’s been a most appalling tragedy at Highfold, and we’ve come to get you.”

“You detestable young man,” said Alleyn.

“So you see,” Mandrake said, “there really was nothing for it but to come to you.”

“But it’s not—” Alleyn protested piteously, “it’s really not my cup of tea. It’s the Chief Constable’s cup of tea, and old Blandish’s. Is Blandish still the Superintendent at Great Chipping, Rector?”

“Yes, he is. This is an appalling thing, Mandrake. I–I simply can’t believe it. William Compline seemed such a nice fellow. We don’t know them very well, they’re rather beyond our country at Penfelton, but I liked what I saw of William.”

“Mrs. Compline’s in desperate case. If we don’t get back quickly—” Mandrake began, and Alleyn cut in crisply: “Yes, of course.” He turned to Mr. Copeland. “I’ve forgotten the name of your Chief Constable, sir.”

“Lord Hesterdon. Miles and miles away to the north; and if, as Mandrake says, the telephone wires over Cloudyfold are down, I’m afraid you won’t get him.”

“I’ll get Blandish if I have to wade to Great Chipping,” Alleyn muttered. “May I use your telephone?”

He went into the hall.

“I’m sorry,” said Mandrake. “He’s livid with rage, isn’t he?”

“Not really,” said Troy. “It’s only his pretty little ways. He’ll do his stuff I expect. He’ll have to be asked, you know, by the local police. C.I. people don’t as a rule just nip in and take a case wherever they happen to be.”

“Red tape,” said Mandrake gloomily. “I guessed as much. Murderers can ramp about country houses, women can kill themselves with overdoses of veronal, well-intentioned guests can wallow in and out of snow-drifts in an effort to help on an arrest, and when, after suffering the most disgusting privations, they win home to the fountain-head, it is only to become wreathed, Laocoön-like, in the toils of red tape.”

“I don’t think,” said Troy, “that it will be quite as bad as that.” And Dinah, who was listening shamelessly at the door, said: “He’s saying: ‘Well, you’ll have to ring up C.I., blast you.’ ”

“Dinah, darling,” said her father, “you really mustn’t.”

“It’s all right,” said Dinah, shutting the door. “He’s cursing freely and asking for Whitehall 1212. When do you think your girl-friend will get back, Aubrey?”

“She’ll have to beat up the Little Chipping chemist. We only remembered it was Sunday when we heard your bell.”

“That was me,” said Dinah. “Mr. Tassy is our chemist and he lives over his shop, so that’ll be all right. The road from here to Chipping has been cleared pretty well but I hear there are masses of frightful drifts beyond, on the way to Great Chipping. So I don’t see how you’ll get the police-surgeon or Mr. Blandish.”

“If you’ll excuse me,” said Troy, “I believe I’ll pack my husband’s bag.”

“Then you think he’ll come?” cried Mandrake.

“Oh, yes,” said Troy vaguely, “he’ll come, all right.”

She went out and as the door opened they heard Alleyn’s voice saying: “I haven’t got a damn’ thing. I’ll ring up the local chemist and get some stuff from him. Is Dr. Curtis there? At the Yard? Well, get him to speak to me. You’d better find out…” The door shut off the rest of his remarks.

“Daddy,” said Dinah, “hadn’t we better give Aubrey a drink?”

“Yes, yes, of course. My dear boy, forgive me, of course you must be exhausted. I’m so sorry. You must have a glass of sherry. Or—”

“You’d better have a whiskey, Aubrey. It’s almost lunch-time, so why not eat while you’re waiting? And if you can’t wait for Miss Wynne, when she comes, we can at least send something out to the car. I’ll bustle them up in the kitchen. Bring him along to the dining-room, Daddy.”

She hurried out and met Alleyn in the hall. “I’m so sorry,” Alleyn said, “Nobody could want to go away less than I do, but here’s Blandish gibbering at Great Chipping with a cracked water-tank in his car and a story of drifts six feet between us and him. He’s going to get hold of a doctor, commandeer a car, and ginger up the road-clearing gang, but in the meantime he wants me to go ahead. I’ve rung up my atrocious superior and he’s all for it, blast his eyes. May Troy stay on, as we originally planned, and finish her portrait?”

“Of course. We’d never forgive you if you put her off her stroke. I say, this is a rum go, isn’t it?”

“Not ’alf,” said Alleyn. “It’s a damned ugly go by the sound of it.”

“Awful. Your wife’s upstairs.”

“I’ll find her.”

He ran to his dressing-room and found his wife on her knees before a small suit-case.

“Pyjamas, dressing-gown, shaving-things,” Troy muttered. “I suppose you’ll be there tonight won’t you? What’ll you do for all those things in the case bag? Squirts and bottles and powders and stuff for making casts?”

“My darling oddity, I can’t think. At least I’ve got a camera and I’ve rung up the chemist at Chipping. Miss Wynne was in the shop. He’s going to give her some stuff for me — iodine and whatnot. Can you lend me a soft brush, darling? One of the sort you use for water colour. And scissors? And some bits of charcoal? For the rest, I’ll have to trust to Fox and Co. getting through by train. They’re looking out a route, now. It’ll be detecting in the raw, won’t it? Case for the resourceful officer.”

“I’m a rotten packer,” said Troy, “but I think that’s all you’ll want.”

“My dear,” said her husband who was at the writing-table, helping himself to several sheets of notepaper and some envelopes, “almost you qualify for the role of clever little wife.”

“You go to the devil,” said Mrs. Alleyn amiably.

He squatted down beside her, looked through the contents of the suit-case, refrained from improving on the pack and from saying that he did not think it likely he would need his pyjamas. “Admirable,” he said. “Now I’d better swathe myself in sweaters and topcoats. Give me a kiss and say you’re sorry I’m going out on a beastly case.”

“Did you ever see such a change in anyone as appears in the somewhat precious Mandrake?” asked Troy, hunting in his wardrobe.

“It takes murder to mould a man.”

“Do you think the statement he’s written is dependable?”

“As regards fact, yes, I should say so. As regards his interpretation of fact, I fancy it wanders a bit. For a symbolic expressionist, he seems to have remained very firmly wedded to a convention. But perhaps that’s the secret of two-dimensional poetic drama. I wouldn’t know. Is that a car?”

“Yes.”

“Then I must be off.” He kissed his wife, who was absently scrubbing at her painty nose with the collar of her smock. She looked at him, scowling a little.

“This is the worst sort of luck,” said Alleyn. ”It was being such a good holiday.”

“I hate these cases,” said Troy.

“Not more than I do, bless you.”

“For a different reason.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said quickly. “I know.”

“No, you don’t, Rory. Not squeamishness, nowadays— exactly. I wish Br’er Fox was with you.”

She went downstairs with him and saw him go off with Mandrake, his hat pulled down over his right eye, the collar of his heavy raincoat turned up, his camera slung over his shoulder and his suit-case in his hand.

“He looks as if he was off on a winter sports holiday,” said Dinah. “I don’t mean to be particularly callous, but there’s no denying a murder is rather exciting.”

“Dinah!” said her father automatically.

They heard the car start up the lane.