Death And The Dancing Footman

Chapter XII Recapitulation

Alleyn sat in the back seat and read through Mandrake’s notes. He was parted from Mr. Bewling by a large luncheon basket provided by Dinah Copeland. “We’ll open it,” said Chloris Wynne, “at our first breakdown. If The Others overheard me saying that, I daresay they won’t let us have a breakdown, so that they can collar the lunch.”

“What can you mean?” asked Mandrake.

“Don’t you know about The Others?” said Chloris in a sprightly manner. “They’re the ones that leave nails and broken glass on the road. They hide things when you’re in a hurry. They’ve only got one arm and one leg each, you know. So they take single gloves and stockings, and they’re frightfully keen on keys and unanswered letters.”

“My God, are you being whimsical?” Mandrake demanded, and Alleyn thought he recognized that particular shade of caressing rudeness which is the courtship note among members of the advanced intelligentsia. He was not mistaken. Miss Wynne made a small preening movement.

“Don’t pretend you’re not interested in The Others,” she said. “I bet they take the top of your fountain-pen often enough.” She turned her beautifully arranged head to look at Alleyn. “Bleached,” he thought automatically, “but I daresay she’s quite a nice creature.”

“Do they ever get into Scotland Yard, Mr. Alleyn?” she asked.

“Do they not? They are the authors of most anonymous letters, I fancy.”

“There!” she cried. “Mr. Alleyn doesn’t think I’m whimsical.” He saw, with some misgivings, that Mandrake had removed his left hand from the driving-wheel, and reflected, not for the first time, that affairs of sentiment will flourish under the most unpropitious circumstances. “But she’s rattled all the same,” he thought. “This brightness is all my eye. I wonder how well she knew the young man who is dead.” His reflections were interrupted by James Bewling, who cleared his throat portentously.

“Axcuse me, sir,” said James. “I bin thinking.”

“Indeed?” said Mandrake, apprehensively. “What’s the matter, James?”

“I bin thinking,” repeated James: “Being this-yurr is a lethal matter, and being this gentleman is going into the thick of it with his eyes only half-open like a kitten, and being he’ll be burning in his official heart and soul to be axing you this axing you that, I bin thinking it might be agreeable if I left the party along the Ogg’s Corner.”

“Whatever do you mean, James?” asked Chloris. “You can’t just walk out into a snowdrift from motives of delicacy.”

“It’s not so bad as that, Miss. My wold aunty, Miss Fancy Bewling, bides in cottage along the Ogg’s Corner. Her’s ninety-one yurrs of age and so cantankerous an old masterpiece as ever you see. Reckon her’ll be pleased as Punch to blow me up at her leisure until Mr. Blandish and his chaps comes along, when I’ll get a lift and direct ’em best way to Highfold.”

“Well, James,” said Mandrake, “it’s not a bad idea. We’ll be all right. I know the way and we’ve ploughed a sort of path for ourselves. What do you think, Mr. Alleyn?”

“If there’s any danger of Blandish missing his way,” said Alleyn, “I’d be very glad to think you were there, Bewling.”

“Good enough, sir. Then put me down if you please, souls, at next turning but one. Don’t miss thicky little twiddling lane up to Pen Gidding, Mr. Mandrake, sir, and be bold to rush ’er up when she skiddles.”

So they dropped him by his aunt’s cottage, and it seemed to Alleyn that Miss Wynne watched him go with some regret. She said that Mandrake might despise James, but that she considered he had shown extraordinary tact and forbearance. “He must have been dying to know more about the disaster,” she said, “but he never so much as asked a leading question.”

“We talked pretty freely without him having to bother,” Mandrake pointed out. “However, I agree it was nice of James. Is there anything you want to ask us, Alleyn? By dint of terrific concentration I can manage to keep the car on its tracks and my mind more or less on the conversation.”

Alleyn took Mandrake’s notes from his pocket and at the rustle of paper he saw Chloris turn her head sharply. Something about the set of Mandrake’s shoulders suggested that he too was suddenly alert.

“If I may,” said Alleyn, “I should like to go over these notes with you. It’s fortunate for me that you decided to make this very clear and well-ordered summary. I’m sure it gives the skeleton of events as completely as possible, and that is invaluable. But I should like, with your help, to clothe the bones in a semblance of flesh.”

This was spoken in what Troy called “the official manner,” and it was the first Chloris and Mandrake had heard of this manner. Neither of them answered, and Alleyn knew that with one short speech he had established an atmosphere of uneasy expectation. He was right. Until this moment Chloris and Mandrake had wished above all things for the assurance that Alleyn would take charge. Now that, with a certain crispness and a marked change of manner, he had actually done so, each of them felt an icy touch of apprehension. They had set in motion a process which they were unable to stop. They were not yet nervous for themselves but instinctively they moved a little nearer to each other. They had called in the Yard.

“First of all,” said Alleyn, “I should like to go over the notes, putting them into my own words to make quite sure I’ve got hold of the right ends of all the sticks. Will you stop me if I’m wrong? The death of this young man, William Compline, occurred at about ten minutes past ten yesterday evening. He was sitting in a room which communicates with a library, a small sitting-room, and a hall. Just before the discovery of his body, the library was occupied by his host, Mr. Jonathan Royal, by Lady Hersey Amblington, by Miss Chloris Wynne, by Mr. Aubrey Mandrake, and by Mr. Nicholas Compline. The small sitting-room had been occupied by Dr. Francis Hart; but, on his own statement and that of the footman Thomas, it appears that Dr. Hart left the sitting-room — you call it a ‘boudoir,’ I see — at the same time that Thomas came into the hall with a grog tray which he took into the library. That was some minutes after Nicholas Compline had left his brother and joined the party in the libarary, and quite definitely before you all heard the wireless turned on in the smoking-room. The wireless was turned on after the drinks came in. You agreed you would like to hear it, and Nicholas Compline opened the door and called out to his brother. A screen hid William but Nicholas heard someone cross the room and a moment later the wireless struck up ‘Boomps-a-Daisy.’ ”

“That’s it,” said Chloris. “Nick left the door open.”

“Yes. You endured the dance music and in a minute or so the news came on the air. At about this moment Mr. Royal went out to reassure himself that Dr. Hart was not in the ‘boudoir.’ He states that he did not enter the ‘boudoir,’ but saw there was no light under the door. He visited a cloak-room and, having met no one in the hall, returned before the news ended.”

“Yes.”

“All right. Well now, I understand that the wireless had been in use not long before. It’s not likely, then, that the music was delayed by any warming-up process?”

“No,” said Chloris. “I thought of that but it seems that the radio had been switched on all the time and wouldn’t need to warm up. As soon as Bill turned the volume control it’d come up.

“As soon as the volume control was turned, at all events,” said Alleyn, “and it must have been turned.”

“By William,” said Mandrake, “or his murderer. Exactly.”

“And you see,” Chloris added, “we asked for it and it was at once turned on. By Somebody.”

“Yes. We now come to the curious episode of the dancing footman. The music follows Thomas’ re-entry into the hall when he saw Dr. Hart on the stairs. Therefore, it seems, Dr. Hart did not turn up the volume control. Now it appears that Thomas, arrested by the strains of a composition known as ‘Boomps-a-Daisy,’ was moved to dance. As long as the music continued, Thomas, a solitary figure in the hall, capered, clapped his hands, slapped his knees and stuck out his stern in a rhythmic sequence. When the music stopped, so did Thomas. He left the hall as the news bulletin began. Then we have Mr. Royal’s short excursion; and lastly, some minutes later, Lady Hersey Amblington, carrying a tumbler, walked from the library into the smoking-room, re-appeared in the doorway, returned into the smoking-room and switched off the radio. She then called out to her cousin, Mr. Royal, who joined her. Finally she came back to the library and summoned you, Mr. Mandrake. You went into the smoking-room and found William Compline there, dead. It was somewhere about this time that you trod on a drawing-pin which stuck in the sole of your shoe.”

“Yes.”

“The instrument used by the assailant,” said Alleyn with a private grimace over the police-court phrase, “seems to have been a Maori mere which was one of a collection of weapons hanging on the smoking-room wall. Which wall?”

“What? Oh, on the right from the library door. There’s a red leather screen inside the door and this unspeakable club was just beyond it.”

“I see you’ve given me a very useful sketch-plan. Would you mark the position on the wall? I’ll put a cross and you shall tell me if it’s in the right place.”

Chloris took the paper and showed it to Mandrake, who slowed down, glanced at it, nodded, and accelerated. James Bewling had got hold of a set of chains in Chipping, and the wheels bit well into their old tracks.

“Right,” said Alleyn. “During this time, two members of the party were upstairs. They were Mrs. Compline and Madame Lisse, who you tell me is actually Mrs. Francis Hart.” He paused. Neither Chloris nor Mandrake spoke.

“That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Chloris, “that’s it.”

“As far as we know,” said Mandrake unwillingly.

“As far as we know,” Alleyn agreed. “At all events we know that neither of them could have come downstairs while Thomas was there. If it was anybody other than William Compline who turned up the wireless, this person must have entered the room after Nicholas Compline left it and remained there until after Thomas left the hall. If, on the other hand, it was William himself who turned up the wireless, his murderer must have entered the room after Thomas left the hall, and made his get-away before Lady Hersey went in with the drink.”

“Avoiding Jonathan Royal,” added Mandrake. “Don’t forget he crossed the hall twice.”

“Oh,” said Alleyn vaguely, “I hadn’t forgotten that. Now before we leave these, the crucial periods as I see them, I pause to remind myself that the communicating door between the smoking-room and the ‘boudoir’ was locked on the smoking-room side.”

“Yes,” said Mandrake. “I ought to have said, I think, that there is nowhere in the smoking-room where anybody could hide. The screen’s no good because of the door into the library. I think I’m right in saying the murderer must have come in by the hall door.”

“It looks like it,” Alleyn agreed. “Avoiding the dancing footman and Mr. Royal.”

“Somebody could hide in the hall,” said Chloris suddenly. “We’d thought of that.”

“There’s still the dancing footman. He defines the periods when it would have been possible for the murderer to enter or leave the smoking-room.”

“Yes,” agreed Mandrake. “Thomas continued his antics until the music stopped, and that leaves a margin of a few minutes before Lady Hersey entered the room. The ‘boudoir’ is no good, because the door was still locked. I know that.”

“Then,” said Chloris slowly, “doesn’t it look as if the crucial time is the time when the murderer left the room? Because, whether he worked the wireless or not, he could only have got away after Thomas had left the hall.”

“Top marks for deduction, Miss Wynne,” said Alleyn.

“It’s a grim notion,” said Mandrake suddenly, “to think of us all sitting there calling for the news. If it was Hart, imagine him having to pull himself together and turn up the wireless!”

“Don’t,” said Chloris.

Alleyn had, with some difficulty in the jolting car, made a series of marginal notes. He now glanced up and found Chloris leaning her arm along the front seat and looking at him.

“I’d like to get Lady Hersey’s movements fixed in my head,” he said. “She went into the smoking-room with the drink, disappeared round the screen, returned to the doorway, said something you couldn’t hear, disappeared again, and called out to Mr. Royal, who then joined her. Finally she re-entered the library and asked you, Mandrake, to go to your host.”

“That’s it.” Mandrake changed down and crawled the car over its own skid marks. Chloris drew in her breath audibly. “It’s all right,” he said. “No trouble this time.” But Alleyn, who had been watching her, knew that it was not their progress that had scared her. She looked quickly at him and away again. “Lady Hersey,” she said, “is an old friend of the Complines. She’s terribly nice and she’s been absolutely marvellous since it happened. She was helping Dr. Hart with Mrs. Compline. She couldn’t be more sorry and upset about it all.”

These somewhat conventional phrases were shot out at nobody in particular and were followed by an odd little pause.

“Ah,” Alleyn murmured, “those are the sort of touches that help to clothe the bare bones of a case. We’ll collect some more, I hope, as we go along. I’m working backwards through your notes, Mandrake, and arrive at the booby-trap. A heavy brass Buddha, of all disagreeable objects, is perched on the top of a door, so that when the door is opened it is bound to fall on the person who pushes the door. The room is Nicholas Compline’s and it is upon his arm the Buddha falls. This trap was set, you say, during a visit Compline paid to Madame Lisse. You’ve worked out a time check on two clocks; the grandfather clock at the top of the stairs and the drawing-room clock which agrees with it. On this reckoning it appears that the trap was set some time between half-past seven, which struck as Nicholas Compline left his room, and a minute or so past twenty to eight, when you heard him cry out as the Buddha struck his arm. You suggest that you have found alibis during this period for everybody but Dr. Hart, who was in the bathroom. Lady Hersey gives Mrs. Compline her alibi, Mr. Royal gives you yours, Mandrake. Can you return the gesture?”

“I can say that I think he arrived in the drawing-room some little time before the crash.”

“Ten minutes before?”

“I feel sure it must have been. I — we were talking. Yes, it must have been at least ten minutes.”

“There’s no way by which you could come a little nearer to it? For example, did he light a cigarette when he came into the room?”

“Let me think. No. No, I don’t believe he did. But I did. I’d forgotten to bring my case down and I was helping myself to one of his when he came into the room. I remember that,” said Mandrake and Alleyn saw the back of his neck go red, “because I felt—” He stopped and made rather a business of adjusting his wind-screen wiper which at that moment was not needed.

“Yes?”

“What? Oh, I merely felt, very stupidly, a little embarrassed.” Mandrake’s voice trailed off and then he said loudly: “I was not born into the purple, Mr. Alleyn. Until a few years ago, I lived in the odour of extreme economy, among people who waited to be invited before they smoked other people’s cigarettes.”

“I should call that a sign of courtesy rather than penury,” said Alleyn, and received a brilliant smile from Miss Wynne. “Well, you lit your cigarette, then. That’s a help. Was it still going when you heard Nicholas Compline yell?”

“Was it, now? Yes. Yes, I remember throwing it in the fire before I went upstairs but it was almost smoked out, I’m sure. Yes, I’m sure of that.”

“Good. Well, now, Madame Lisse’s alibi is vouched for by Nicholas Compline and looks pretty well cast-iron. William Compline was in the smoking-room listening to the news bulletin. He heard Mr. Royal speak to the butler in the hall, and was prepared to give the gist of the bulletin which does not come on until seven-thirty.”

“Surely that’s of academic interest, only,” said Mandrake, “considering what has happened to William Compline.”

“You are probably quite right, but you know what policemen are. Dr. Hart has no alibi. Wait a bit, I must count up. Who haven’t I got? Oh, there’s you, Miss Wynne.”

“I haven’t got one,” said Chloris quickly. “I was in my room and I had a bath next door and I changed. But I can’t prove it.”

“Oh, well,” said Alleyn, “it’d be an odd state of affairs if everybody could prove all the things they hadn’t done every minute of the day. Is there to be no privacy, not even in the bathroom? That leaves Lady Hersey Amblington.”

“But she was with Mrs. Compline,” said Mandrake. “Nicholas saw her go past his door on her way to Mrs. Compline’s room. It’s there in the notes. We’ve been over that.”

“Have we? Then I’ve got myself into a muddle, no doubt. Lady Hersey gives Mrs. Compline an alibi. Does Mrs. Compline do as much for Lady Hersey? I mean did Mrs. Compline agree that Lady Hersey was in her room from seven-thirty until the alarm?”

“Well, she — Well, I mean she wasn’t there when we talked about alibis. Lady Hersey saw her afterwards and may have spoken about it then.”

“But actually nobody else questioned Mrs. Compline about it?”

“No, but of course it’s all right. I mean it’s out of the question that Lady Hersey—”

“I expect it is,” said Alleyn. “But you see just at the moment we’re dealing with hard facts, aren’t we? And the actual fact, which may be of no importance whatever, is that Lady Hersey vouches for Mrs. Compline but Mrs. Compline doesn’t happen to have corroborated her account. Is that it?”

“She can’t,” said Chloris. “She can’t, now. She may never…”

“We won’t jump that fence,” said Alleyn, “until we meet it.”

So far the return journey had not presented many difficulties. The new set of chains worked well and Mandrake kept to his own tracks where the snow had packed down hard and was already freezing over again. They ran into desultory flurries of snow, but the rain had not crossed Cloudyfold. Beyond the hills, the sky was still terraced with storm-clouds, prolonged at their bases into down-pouring masses, as if some Olympian painter had dragged at them with a dry brush.

At Alleyn’s suggestion they broached Dinah’s luncheon hamper and he continued his examination of Mandrake’s notes in an atmosphere of ham and hard-boiled egg, plying Chloris with food and both of them with questions.

“The oddest thing about this beastly business,” he said, “seems to be your plunge in the pond, Mandrake. You say here that Dr. Hart had the best chance of bringing it off unobserved, and that he saw Compline leave the house wearing Mr. Royal’s cape which is the double of your cape which incidentally seems to be Hart’s cape. Having absorbed those fancy touches, I learn that Nicholas Compline saw you through the window of the pavilion, where he was undressing in order to plunge into the ornamental waters in pursuance of a wager. He recognized you, and exchanged waves. Then comes your plunge, attended by the Compline brothers, Hart, Miss Wynne, and Mr. Royal, in that order. Again Mrs. Compline, Madame Lisse and Lady Hersey are absent. The first two breakfasted in their rooms. Lady Hersey says she was in the smoking-room. I understand you have read these notes, Miss Wynne?”

“Yes.”

“Have you formed any theory about the footprints which Mandrake says he saw in the snow? The small prints that led out of the top of the terrace from the house and returned to the house, suggesting that the person who made them stood on the terrace for a time at a spot from which she — apparently it must have been a woman — had a full view of the pond and the pavilion?”

“I?” said Chloris. “Why, I’ve thought a lot about it ever since Aubrey told me but I’m afraid I’ve no ideas at all. It might have been one of the maids, even, though I suppose that’s not very likely.”

“Did you notice these prints as you went down?”‘

“I’m not sure. I stood on the top of the terrace for a bit and noticed Aubrey’s and some other big footprints — William’s they must have been — and I thought I might walk dawn inside them, do you know? I’ve got a sort of feeling I did notice something out of the tail of my eye. I’ve got a sort of after-flavour of having fancied there must be someone else about but it’s much too vague to be useful. On the way back I was too concerned about Aubrey to notice.”

“Were you?” asked Mandrake with unmistakable fervour. Alleyn waited philosophically through an exchange of inaudible phrases, and remarked the air of complacency that characterizes persons who have arrived at a certain stage of mutual attraction.

“The smoking-room is on that side of the house, isn’t it?” he said at last.

“Yes,” agreed Chloris uncomfortably, “but so are the visitors’ rooms upstairs.”

“Do they overlook the lake and pavilion?”

“Madame Lisse’s room doesn’t,” said Mandrake. “I asked Jonathan that, and he said some tall evergreens on the bank would be in the way. I imagine they’d interrupt Mrs. Compline’s view too.”

“And you definitely connect these three strange events? You feel certain that the same person is behind all of them?”

“But — yes,” said Chloris blankly. “Of course we do. Don’t you?”

“It looks like it, certainly,” said Alleyn absently.

“Surely,” said Mandrake, acidly, “it would be too fantastic to suppose there has been more than one person planning elaborate deaths for Nicholas Compline during the weekend?”

“For Nicholas Compline?” Alleyn repeated. “Oh, yes. It would, wouldn’t it?”

“I assure you I had no enemies at Highfold. I’d never met a single one of the guests before.”

“Quite so,” said Alleyn mildly. “Going back still farther, we come to the first hint of trouble, the rather childish message on the Charter form which you say Dr. Hart handed to Nicholas Compline, together with a form that had been correctly filled in. ‘You are warned. Keep off.’ You say that there is no question of anyone else handing this paper to Compline.”

“No possibility of it. Nicholas simply took the paper from Hart,” said Mandrake, “and, on looking at it, found this second one underneath. Hart’s explanation was that he must have torn two papers off at once. Nicholas didn’t say, at the time, what was on the paper, but he was obviously very much upset and, later that evening, he told Jonathan he thought he ought to go. The following day, and good God it’s only yesterday, he actually tried to go and nearly drowned himself in a drift.”

“Yes. And that completes the skeleton.” Alleyn folded the notes and put them in his pocket. “As they used to say in Baker Street: ‘You are in possession of the facts.’ I’d like a little news about the people. You say that, with the exception of your host, you had met none of them before. That’s not counting Miss Wynne, of course.”

“Yes, it is,” said Chloris, and with an air of great demureness she added: “Aubrey and I are complete strangers.”

“I don’t suppose I shall know her if I meet her again.” Alleyn sighed as Mandrake once more removed his left hand from the driving-wheel. “He will resent everything I say to her,” thought Alleyn, “and she will adore his resentment. Blow!” However, he introduced the subject of motive, which Mandrake, in his notes, had dealt with illusively, unconsciously supposing the reader would be almost as familiar as himself with the relationships of the eight guests to each other and to their host. In a very short time Alleyn discovered that these two were quite ready to talk about Madam Lisse and Lady Hersey, about Mrs. Compline and Dr. Hart, and about William’s fury when he discovered that Hart was the author of his mother’s disfigurement. They were less ready to discuss in detail Hart’s enmity to Nicholas, though they never tired of stressing it. Hart had threatened Nicholas. Nicholas had goaded Hart until he completely lost control of himself. That was the burden of their song. It was on account of Nicholas’ attentions to Madame Lisse, they said. When Alleyn asked if Nicholas knew that Madame Lisse was Madame Hart, they said they hadn’t asked him, and Chloris added, with a new edge to her voice, that it was highly probable. Alleyn said mildly that it appeared that Nicholas had acted like a fool. “He seems to have baited Hart to the top of his bent and at the same time been rather frightened of him.”

“But that’s Nicholas all over,” said Chloris quickly. “It was exactly that. ‘The small boy tweaking the dog’s tail.’ That’s Nicholas.” Mandrake cut in rather hurriedly but Alleyn stopped him. “You know Compline well, Miss Wynne?” She took so long to answer that he was about to repeat the question, which he was certain she had heard, when without turning her head, she said: “Yes. Quite well. I was engaged to him. You’d better hear all about it, I suppose.”

“I can’t see…” Mandrake began, but this time it was Chloris who stopped him: “It hasn’t anything to do with it, I know, but I think Mr. Alleyn would rather see for himself.”

“An admirable conclusion,” said Alleyn lightly, and he heard without further comment the story of the two engagements. When she had finished, he made her a little speech, saying he was sorry under such tragic circumstances to be obliged to pester her with questions. Nothing could have been more uncomfortable than their reception of this simple offer of sympathy. Their silence was eloquent of embarrassment. Chloris did not turn her head and when Alleyn caught sight of Mandrake’s face in the driving glass it was scarlet and scowling.

“You needn’t bother,” said Chloris in a high voice. “I wasn’t in love with William. Didn’t you guess that? As I have already explained to Aubrey, I did it on the rebound from Nicholas.” In spite of herself, her voice lost composure and she ended up shakily: “That doesn’t say I’m not terribly sorry. I liked old Bill. I liked him tremendously.”

“I liked him too,” said Mandrake. “He was an oddity, wasn’t he?” Chloris nodded, and Alleyn thought that in making this unemphatic comment on William Compline, Mandrake had shown sureness of touch and a certain delicacy of understanding. He went on quietly: “He would have interested you, I believe, Alleyn. He was one of those people who speak a thing almost at the same time as they think it, and as he had a curious simplicity about him, some of the things he said were odd and disconcerting. He was quite like his brother to look at. The shape of his head—” Mandrake stumbled a little and then went on rather hurriedly. “From behind, as I explained in those notes, it was difficult to tell them apart. But they couldn’t have been more unalike in temperament, I should say.”

“And he painted?”

“Yes. I haven’t seen any of his works.”

“They were queer,” Chloris said. “You might like them, Aubrey. They might be quite your cup of tea, but most people thought his pictures too embarrassingly bad. I must say I always felt rather shy when I saw them. I never knew what to say.”

“What are they like?” asked Alleyn.

“Well, a bit as if a child had done them, but not quite like that.”

“Very thick oil paint,” said Mandrake, under his breath.

“Why, have you seen one?” asked Chloris, in astonishment.

“No. He told me. He said it rather quaintly. If there was something childlike in his painting, it must have come from himself.”

“Yes, that’s true,” said Chloris, and they began quite tranquilly to discuss William. Alleyn wondered how old they were. Miss Wynne was not more than twenty, he thought, and he remembered a critique of one of Mandrake’s poetic dramas in which the author had been described as extremely young. Perhaps he was twenty-six. They were fortified with all the resilience that youth presents to an emotional shock. In the midst of murder and attempted suicide, they had managed, not only to behave with address and good sense, but also to fall in love with each other. Very odd, thought Alleyn, and listened attentively to what they had to say about William Compline. They were discussing him with some animation. Alleyn was pretty sure they had almost forgotten his presence. This was all to the good, and a firm picture of the murdered and elder Compline began to take form. With owlish gravity, Chloris and Mandrake discussed poor William’s “psychology” and decided that unconscious jealousy of Nicholas, a mother-fixation, an inferiority complex, and a particularly elaborate Œdipus complex were at the bottom of his lightest action and the sole causes of his violent outburst against Hart. “Really,” said Mandrake, “it’s the Ugly Duckling and Cinderella themes. Extraordinarily sound, those folk tales.”

“And of course the painting was simply an effort to overcome the inferiority complex — er, on the pain-pleasure principle,” added Chloris uncertainly. Mandrake remarked that Mrs. Compline’s strong preference for Nicholas was extremely characteristic, but of what Alleyn could not quite make out. However he did get a clear picture of two unhappy people dominated by the selfish, vain, and, according to the two experts in the front seat, excessively oversexed Nicholas. Shorn of intellectual garnishings it was still a sufficiently curious story. One phrase of Chloris’ struck him as being particularly illuminating. “I would have liked to be friends with her,” she said, “but she hated me from the beginning, poor thing. First because I was engaged to Nick, and secondly and even more violently, because, as she made herself suppose, I jilted him for William. I think she knew well enough that Nick hadn’t been exactly the little gent, but she wouldn’t let herself believe that he could do anything that wasn’t perfect. For her he just had to be heroic, don’t you know, and she had a fantastic hatred for anyone who made him look shabby.”

“Did she know about l’affaire Lisse, do you suppose?” asked Mandrake.

“I don’t know. I daresay he kept it dark. He could be pretty quiet about his philanderings when it suited him. But even if she did know I believe she would have taken it as a perfectly natural obsession on Madame Lisse’s part. In her eyes, Nicholas was really rather like one of those Greek gods who lolled about on clouds and said ‘I’ll have that one!’ ”

Alleyn coughed, and Miss Wynne became aware of him. “I suppose,” she said, “you think it revolting of us to talk about him like this.”

“No,” he said, “I would find a show of excessive distress much more disagreeable.”

“Yes, I know. All the same it’s pretty ghastly not being able to get back quicker. I suppose you can’t rush her up a bit, Aubrey, can you? It’s terribly important that Dr. Hart should get these things. I mean, in a sort of way, everything depends on us.”

“I’m banging along as fast as I dare. There’s Pen Gidding ahead. We’re making much better time. Look, there’s the rain still over the Highfold country. We’ll be running into it again soon. If I stick in Deep Bottom it’s only about half a mile from the house.”

“Return to horror,” said Chloris, under her breath.

“Never mind, my dear,” whispered Mandrake. “Never mind.”

“There’s one thing that strikes me as being very odd,” said Alleyn, “and that is the house-party itself. What persuaded your host to collect such a gang of warring elements under his roof? Or didn’t he know they were at war?”

“Yes,” said Mandrake, “he knew.”

“Then why—”

“He did it on purpose. He explained it to me on the night I arrived. He wanted to work out his æsthetic frustration in a flesh-and-blood medium.”

“Good Lord!” Alleyn ejaculated. “How unbelievably rum!”

There was no wind over Cloudyfold that afternoon, but the rain poured down inexorably. By half-past two the rooms at Highfold had begun to assume a stealthy dimness. The house itself, as well as the human beings inside it, seemed to listen and to wait. Highfold was dominated by two rooms. Behind the locked doors of the smoking-room, William Compline now sat as rigidly as if he had been made of iron, his hands propped between his feet and his head fixed between his knees. In the principal visitor’s room lay his mother in bed, breathing very slowly, scarcely responding, now, to Dr. Hart when he slapped the face he had marred twenty years ago, or when he advanced his own white face close to hers and called her name as if he cried for admittance at the door of her consciousness. Hersey Amblington, too, cried out to her old friend. Three times Nicholas had come. It had been difficult for Nicholas to obey Hart and call loudly upon his mother. At first his voice cracked grotesquely into a sobbing whisper. Hart kept repeating: “Loud. Loudly. To rouse her, you understand. She must be roused.” And Hersey: “If she hears it’s you, Nick, she may try. You must, Nick, you must.” Mrs. Pouting in her sitting-room, and Thomas in the hall, and Caper in the pantry, and Madame Lisse in the green “boudoir,” and Jonathan Royal on the stairs had all heard Nicholas shout as though across a nightmare of silence: “Mother! It’s Nicholas! Mother!” They had all waited, listening intently, until his voice cracked into silence and they became aware once more of the hard beat of rain on the house. Jonathan, from his place on the stairs, had heard Nicholas leave his mother’s room and cross the landing. He had seen him stop at the stairhead, raise his clasped hands to his lips, and then, as if some invisible cord had been released, jerk forwards until his head rested on his arms across the balustrade. Jonathan started forward, but at the sound of harsh sobbing paused and finally stole downstairs, unseen by Nicholas. He crossed the hall, and after some hesitation, entered the green “boudoir.”

Between Hersey Amblington and Dr. Hart there had arisen a curious feeling of comradeship. Hersey had proved herself to be an efficient nurse, obeying Hart’s instructions without a question or fuss. There were certain unpleasant things that could be attempted and between them they had made the attempts. Hart had not pretended to any experience of veronal poisoning. “But the treatment must be on general common-sense lines,” he said. “There, we cannot go wrong. Unfortunately there has not been the response. We have not eliminated the poison. If only they would return from the chemist!”

“What’s the time now?”

“Nearly two o’clock. They should have returned.”

He bent over the bed. Hersey watched him and in a minute or two she said: “Am I mistaken, Dr. Hart, or is there a change?”

“You are not mistaken. The pupils are now contracted, the pulse is 120. Do you notice the colour of the finger-nails, a dusky red?”

“And her breathing.”

“It is gravely impeded. We shall take the temperature again. God be thanked that at least this old Pouting had a thermometer.”

Hersey fetched the thermometer and returned to the window where she waited, looking through rain across the terrace and down to the bathing-pool. Cypress trees had been planted at intervals along the terrace, and one of these hid the far end of the pool and the entrance to the pavilion. “She could not have seen Mandrake go overboard,” thought Hersey, “but she could have seen him leave the house and go down.” And she looked at the wardrobe where yesterday she had found a wet coat.

“The temperature is 102.8°,” said Hart. “It has risen two points. Well, we must try the emetic again, but I am afraid she is now quite unable to swallow.”

Hersey rejoined him, and again they worked together to no avail. After a time she suggested that he should leave her in charge. “You’ve eaten nothing and you haven’t sat down since they brought you here hours ago. I can tell you if there’s any change.” Hart glanced up with those prominent eyes of his and said: “And where should I go, Lady Hersey? To my room? Should I not be locked up again? Ever since I came to the patient, I believe there has been someone on guard in the passage or on the stairs. Is that not so? No, let me remain here until the car returns. If they have brought a medical man I shall go back to my cell.”

“I don’t believe you killed William Compline,” Hersey said abruptly.

“No? You are a sensible woman. I did not kill him… There is no doubt, I am afraid, that the condition is less satisfactory. She is more comatose. The reflexes are completely abolished. Why do you look at me in that fashion, Lady Hersey?”

“You seem to have no thought for your own position.”

“You mean that I am not afraid,” said Dr. Hart, who was again stooping over his patient. “You are right, Lady Hersey, I am an Austrian refugee and a Jew, who has become a naturalized Briton. I have developed what I believe you would call a good nose for justice. Austrian justice, Nazi justice, and English justice. I have learned when to be terrified and when not to be terrified. I am a kind of thermometer for terror. At this moment I am quite normal. I do not believe I shall be found guilty of a murder I did not commit.”

“Do you believe,” asked Hersey Amblington, after a long pause, “that the murderer will be arrested?”

“I do believe so.” He straightened his back, but he still watched his patient.

“Dr. Hart,” Hersey said harshly, “do you think you know who killed William Compline?”

“Oh, yes,” said Hart, and for the first time he looked directly at her. “Yes. I believe I know. Do you wish me to say the name?”

“No,” she said. “Let us not discuss it.”

“I agree,” said Dr. Hart.

Down in the green sitting-room, Jonathan Royal listened to Madame Lisse. An onlooker with a taste for irony might have found something to divert him in the scene, particularly if he liked his irony laced with a touch of the macabre. A nice sense of the fitness of things had prompted Madame to dress herself in black, a dead crapy black that gloved her figure with adroitness. She looked and smelt most expensive. She had sent a message to her host by Mrs. Pouting, asking for an interview. Jonathan, fresh from seeing Nicholas Compline’s breakdown on the upstairs landing, eyed his beautiful guest with a certain air of wariness.

“It is so kind of you to see me,” said Madame Lisse. “Ever since this terrible affair I have felt that of all our party you would remain the sanest, the best able to control events, the one to whom I must instinctively turn.”

Jonathan touched his glasses and said that it was very nice of her. She continued in this strain for some time. Her manner conveyed, as an Englishwoman’s manner seldom conveys, a sort of woman-to-man awareness that was touched with camaraderie. With every look she gave him, — and her glances were circumspect, — she flattered Jonathan, and, although he still made uncomfortable little noises in his throat and fidgeted with his glasses, he began to look sleek; into his own manner there crept an air of calculation that would have astonished his cousin Hersey or Chloris Wynne. He and Madame Lisse were very polite to each other, but there was a hint of insolence in their civility. Madame began to explain her reasons for keeping her marriage to Hart a secret. It had been her idea, she said. She had not wished to give up her own business, which was a flourishing one, but on the other hand Dr. Hart, before they met, had, under his own name, published a book in which he exposed what he had called the “beauty-parlour racket.”

“The book has had considerable publicity and is widely associated with his name,” she said. “It would have been impossible for me as his wife to continue my business. Both of us would have appeared ridiculous. So we were married very quietly, in London, and continued in our separate ménages.”

“An ambiguous position,” Jonathan said with a little smile.

“Until recently it has worked quite well.”

“Until Nicholas Compline was transferred to Great Chipping, perhaps?”

“Until then,” she agreed, and for a time both of them were silent while Jonathan looked at her steadily through those blank glasses of his. “Ah, well,” said Madame Lisse, “there it is. I was quite powerless. Francis became insanely jealous. I should never have allowed this visit, but he guessed that Nicholas had been asked and he accepted. I had hoped that Nicholas would be sensible and that Francis would become reassured. But as it was, both of them behaved like lunatics. And now the brother and the disfigured mother too, perhaps — it is too horrible. I shall blame myself to the end of my life. I shall never recover from the horror,” said Madame Lisse, delicately clasping her hands, “never.”

“Why did you wish to speak to me?”

“To explain my own position. When I heard last night of this tragedy, I was shattered. All night I stayed awake thinking — thinking. Not of myself, you understand, but of that poor gauche William, killed, as it seems, on my account. That is what people will say. They will say that Francis mistook him for Nicholas and killed him because of me. It will not be true, Mr. Royal.”

At this remarkable assemblage of contradictory data, Jonathan gaped a little, but Madame Lisse leant towards him and gazed into his spectacles, and he was silent.

“It will not be true,” she repeated.

“But — who do you suggest—”

“Do not misunderstand me. There can be no doubt who struck the blow. But the motive — the motive! You heard that unfortunate young man cry out that all the world should learn it was Francis who ruined his mother’s beauty. Why did she try to kill herself? Because she knew that it was on her account that Francis Hart had killed her son.”

Jonathan primmed his lips. Madame Lisse leant towards him. “You are a man of the world,” said this amazing lady, “you understand women. I felt it the first time we met. There was a frisson—how shall I describe it? We were en rapport. One is never mistaken in these things. There is an instinct.” She continued in this vein for some time. Presently she was holding one of Jonathan’s hands in both her own, and imperceptibly this state of affairs changed into Jonathan holding both hers in one of his. Her voice went on and on. He was to understand that she was the victim of men’s passions. She could not help it. She could not stop Nicholas falling in love with her. Her husband had treated her exceedingly ill. But the murder had nothing to do with her or with Nicholas. There were terrible days ahead, she would never recover. But — and here she raised Jonathan’s hand to her cheek — he, Jonathan, would protect her. He would keep their secret. “What secret?” cried Jonathan in alarm. The secret of Nicholas’ infatuation. Her name need never be brought into the picture. “You ask the impossible!” Jonathan exclaimed. “My dear lady, even if I—” She wept a little and said it was evident he did not return the deep, deep regard she had for him. She swayed very close indeed and murmured something in his ear. Jonathan changed colour and spluttered: “If I could… I should be enchanted, but it is beyond my power.” He wetted his lips. “It’s no good,” he said. “Mandrake knows. They all know. It’s impossible.”

While he still stared at her they both heard the sound of a car coming slowly up the last curve of the drive.