Death And The Dancing Footman

Chapter XVI Arrest

Alleyn had asked Mandrake to say nothing of the contents of the letter. “Under ordinary circumstances,” he said, “I would have had another officer with me when I opened it. I want you to fix the contents firmly in your mind, and I want you to be prepared, if necessary, to swear that it is the original letter which I have sealed in this envelope, the letter which I opened in your presence and from which you made this copy. All this may be quite unnecessary but as the most detached member of the party I thought it well to get your assistance. I’ll keep the copy, if you please.”

Mandrake gave him the copy. His hand shook so much that the paper rattled and he muttered an apology.

“It’s horrible,” Mandrake said. “Horrible. Mother love! My God!” He stared at Alleyn. “This sort of thing—” he stammered—”it can’t happen. I never dreamed of this. It’s so much worse — it’s ever so much worse.”

Alleyn watched him for a moment. “Worse than what?” he asked.

“It’s real,” said Mandrake. “I suppose you’ll think it incredible but until now it hasn’t been quite real to me. Not even,” he jerked his head towards the smoking-room door, “not even — that. One works these things out in terms of an aesthetic, but for them to happen…! God, this’ll about kill Nicholas.”

“Yes.”

“To have it before him for the rest of his life! I don’t know why it should affect me like this. After all, it’s better that it should end this way. I suppose it’s better. She’s ended it. No horrible parade of justice. She’s spared him that. But I can’t help suddenly seeing it. It’s as if a mist had cleared, leaving the solid reality of a disfigured woman writing that letter, mixing the poison, getting into bed and then, with God knows what nightmare of last memories, drinking it down.” Mandrake limped about the room and Alleyn watched him. “At least,” said Mandrake, “we are spared an arrest. But Nicholas saw the letter. He knew.”

“He still insists that Dr. Hart killed his brother.”

“Let me see the copy of that letter again.”

Alleyn gave him the copy and he muttered over the phrases. “What else can it mean? ‘You should have been my eldest son!’ ‘Hersey suspects.’ ‘I cannot face it.’ ‘Everything I have done has been for you.’ What else but that she did it? But I can’t understand. Why the other two attempts? It doesn’t make sense.” He looked up. “Alleyn, for God’s sake tell me. Does it make sense?”

“I’m afraid it makes sense, all right,” said Alleyn.

From five o’clock until seven, Alleyn worked alone. First of all he inspected the Charter blocks, handling them with tweezers and wishing very heartily for Bailey, his finger-print expert. The blocks were made of thinnish paper and the impression of heavily pencilled letters appeared on the surfaces of the unused forms. The smoking-room waste-paper baskets had been emptied, but a hunt through a rubbish bin in an outhouse brought to light several of the used forms. The rest, it appeared, had been thrown on the fire by the players after their scores had been marked. Mandrake had told him that after the little scene over the extra form, Jonathan had suddenly suggested that they play some other game, and the Charter pads had been discarded. By dint of a wearisome round of questions, Alleyn managed to identify most of the used forms. Dr. Hart readily selected his, admitting placidly that he had used “threats” as a seven-square word. Alleyn found the ghost of this word on one of the blocks, which he was then able to classify definitely as Hart’s. The Doctor had used a sharp pencil and had pressed hard upon it, so that the marks persisted through two or three of the under-papers. But neither on his used form nor on the rest of the pages did Alleyn find the faintest trace of the words: “You are warned. Keep off.” This was negative evidence. Hart might have been at pains to tear off that particular form and fill it in against the card back on the block, which would take no impression. At this stage Alleyn went to Jonathan and asked if he had a specimen of Hart’s writing. Jonathan at once produced Hart’s note accepting the invitation to Highfold. Alleyn shut himself up again and made his first really interesting discovery: The writing in the note was a script that still bore many foreign characteristics. But in his first Charter form, Dr. Hart had used block capitals throughout, though his experimental scribblings in the margin were in his characteristic script. Turning to the warning message, which was written wholly in script, Alleyn discovered indications that the letters had been slowly and carefully formed, and he thought that it began to look very much like the work of someone who was familiar with Hart’s writing and had deliberately introduced those characteristic letters.

Of the other players, an exhaustive process of enquiry and comparison showed that Mrs. Compline, Hersey and Jonathan had written too lightly to leave impressions, while William’s and Mandrake’s papers had been burnt after being marked. Alleyn could find no trace of the message on any of the blocks. At last he began to turn back the pages of each one, using his tweezers and going on doggedly, long after the faintest trace had faded, to the last leaf of each block. At the third block, about half-way through, he made his discovery. Here, suddenly, he came upon the indented trace of those five words; and a closer inspection showed him that the page before the one so marked had been torn away. Owing to its position, the perforations had not been followed and when he fitted the crumpled message to the torn edge, the serrations tallied. This, then, was the block upon which the message had been written — and it was not Dr. Hart’s block. He turned back to the first pages and gave a little sigh. They held no impressions. Alleyn got a picture of the writer hurriedly using the mass of pages as a cover, scribbling his message on the central leaf and wrenching it free of the pad. Either this writer had written his legitimate Charters with a light hand, or else he had torn away the additional pages that held an impression. The pad had belonged neither to William nor to Mandrake, for theirs bore marks that Mandrake himself had identified. Two of the remaining pads were marked by certain faint traces, visible through the lens, and these, he thought, must have been used by Madame Lisse and Chloris Wynne, whose finger-nails were long and pointed.

“Not so bad,” he murmured and, whistling softly, put the Charter pads away again.

He went up to Mrs. Compline’s room, taking the not very willing Mandrake with him.

“I like to have a witness,” he said vaguely. “As a general rule we work in pairs over the ticklish bits. It’ll be all right when Fox comes, but in the meantime you, as an unsuspected person, will do very nicely.”

Mandrake kept his back turned to the shrouded figure on the bed and watched Alleyn go through the clothes in the wardrobe. Alleyn got him to feel the shoulders and skirts of a Harris tweed overcoat.

“Damp,” said Mandrake.

“Was it snowing when you went down to the pond?”

“Yes. My God, were they her footsteps? She must have walked down inside my own, as Chloris suggested?”

Alleyn was looking at the hats on the top shelf of the wardrobe.

“This is the one she wore,” he said. “It’s still quite wettish. Blue tweedish sort of affair with a salmon fly as ornament. No, two flies. A yellow-and-black salmon fly, and a rather jaded and very large trout-fly — scarlet-and-green, an Alexandra. That seems excessive, doesn’t it?” He peered more closely at the hat. “Now, I wonder…” he said — and, when Mandrake asked him peevishly what he wondered, sent Mandrake off to find the maid who had looked after Mrs. Compline. She proved to be a Dorset girl, born and bred on the Highfold estate, a chatterbox, very trim and bright and full of the liveliest curiosity about the clothes and complexions of the ladies in Jonathan’s party. She was anxious to become a ladies’ maid, and Mrs. Pouting had been training her. This was the first time she had maided any visitors to Highfold. She burst into a descriptive rapture over the wardrobes of Madame Lisse and Miss Wynne. It was with difficulty that Alleyn hauled her attention round to the less exciting garments of Mrs. Compline. The interview took place in the passage and Alleyn held the tweed hat behind his back while the little maid chattered away about the wet coat.

“Mrs. Compline hadn’t worn that coat before, sir. She arrived in a Burberry like you see at the shooting parties, and when they took a walk on the first evening she wore it again, sir. It was yesterday morning she took out the tweed. When the two gentlemen was going to have that bet, sir,” said the little maid turning pink. “I was in Madam’s room, sir, asking what I should put out for her to wear, when poor Mr. William called out in the passage ‘It’s worth a tenner to see him do it.’ She seemed very upset, sir. She got up and went to the door and looked after him. She called out, but I don’t think he heard her because he ran downstairs. She said she didn’t require me. So I went out and she must have followed him.”

“When did you see her again?”

“Well, after a minute or two, I saw her go downstairs wearing that coat, sir, and a tweed hat, and I called Elsie, the second housemaid, sir, and said we could slip in and make Mrs. Compline’s bed and do her room. So we did. At least—” here the little maid hesitated.

“Yes?” Alleyn asked.

“Well, sir, I’m afraid we did look out of the window because we knew about the bet. But you can’t see the pond from that window on account of the shrubs. Only the terrace. We saw the poor lady cross the terrace. It was snowing very hard. She seemed to stare down towards the pond, sir, for a little while and then she looked round and — and Elsie and I began to make the bed. It wasn’t above two minutes before she was back, as white as a sheet and trembling. I offered to take away her wet coat and hat, but she said, ‘No, no, leave them,’ rather short, so Elsie and I went out. By that time there was a great to-do, down by the pond, and Thomas came in and said one of the gentlemen had fallen in.”

“And while Mrs. Compline was on the terrace, nobody joined her or appeared near her?”

“No, sir. I think Miss Wynne and poor Mr. William must have gone out afterwards, because we heard their voices down there, just before Mrs. Compline got back.”

“Well done,” said Alleyn. “And is this—” he showed her the tweed hat—“is this the hat she was wearing?”

“That’s it, sir.”

“Looks just the same?”

The little maid took it in her hands and turned it round, eyeing it in a thoughtful bird-like manner. “It’s got two of those feathery hooks,” she said at last. “Funny kind of trimming, I think. Two.”

“Yes?”

“It only had one yesterday. The big yellow-and-black one.”

“Thank you,” said Alleyn, and quite fluttered her by the fervency of his smile.

Detective-Inspector Fox, and Detective-Sergeants Bailey and Thompson, arrived at seven o’clock in a hired car from Pen Gidding. Alleyn was delighted to see them. He set Bailey to work on the brass Buddha, the Charter forms, the Maori mere, and the wireless cabinet. Thompson photographed all the details that Alleyn had already taken with his own camera. And at last the body of William Compline was taken away from the armchair in the smoking-room. There was a ballroom at Highfold. It had been added incontinently to the east side by a Victorian Royal and was reached by a short passage. Here, in an atmosphere of unused grandeur and empty anticipation, Sandra Compline lay, not far removed from the son for whom she had not greatly cared. Alleyn heard Jonathan issuing subdued but emphatic orders for flowers.

Fox and Alleyn went together to the library.

“Sit down, Br’er Fox,” said Alleyn. “Sorry to have hauled you out, but I’m damn’ glad to see you.”

“We had quite a job getting here,” said Fox, taking out his spectacle case. “Very unpleasant weather. Nasty affair this, sir, by the looks of it. What’s the strength of it? Murder followed by suicide, or what?”

“There’s my report. You’d better take a look at it.”

“Ah,” said Fox. “Much obliged. Thank you.” He settled his spectacles rather far down his nose and put on his reading face. Fox had a large rosy face. To Alleyn, his reading expression always suggested that he had a slight cold in the head. He raised his sandy eyebrows, slightly opened his mouth and placidly absorbed the words before him. For some time there was no sound but the crackle of turning leaves and Fox’s breathing.

“Um,” he said when he had finished. “Silly sort of business. Meant to look complicated but isn’t. When do we fix this customer up, Mr. Alleyn?”

“We’ll wait for Bailey, I think. I’d like to arrest on a minor charge, but there isn’t the smell of an excuse so far.”

“Assault on Mr. Mandrake?”

“Well,” said Alleyn, “we might do that. I suppose I haven’t gone wrong anywhere. The thing’s so blasted obvious I keep wondering if there’s a catch in it. We’ll have to experiment, of course, with the business next door. Might do that now, if Bailey’s finished. They’ve taken that poor chap out, haven’t they? All right. Come on, Foxkin.”

They went into the smoking-room. Bailey, a taciturn officer with an air of permanent resentment, was packing away his finger-print apparatus, and Thompson had taken down his camera.

“Finished?” asked Alleyn. “Got a shot of the ash in the grate all right?”

“Yes, sir,” said Thompson. “Made a little find there, Mr. Alleyn. Bailey spotted it. You know this trace in the ash, the sort of coil affair?”

“Yes.”

“Well, sir, it’s what you said all right. String or cord or something. There’s a bit not quite burnt out up at the back. Charred-like but still a bit of substance in it. Seems as if it was green originally.”

“We’ll have it,” said Alleyn. “Good work, Bailey. I missed that.”

The mulish expression on Sergeant Bailey’s face deepened.

“We had a five-hundred-watt lamp on it,” he said. “Looks as if someone’d chucked this string on the fire and pulled those two side logs over it. They must have fallen apart and the stuff smouldered out slowly. Tough, fine-fibred stuff, I’d say. Might be silk. It finishes with a trace of structureless fairly tough black ash that has kept its form and run into lumps. What’s the next job, sir?”

“Well have to get their prints. I don’t for a moment suppose they’ll object. I warned Mr. Royal about it. Thank the Lord I shan’t have to use any of the funny things they brought me from the chemist. Anything to report?”

“There’s a couple of nice ones on that brass image affair, sir. Latent, but came up nicely under the dust. Same as the ones on the stone cosh. There’s something on the neck of the cosh, but badly blurred. As good a set as you’d want on the blade.”

“What about the wireless?”

“Regular mix-up, Mr. Alleyn, like you’d expect. But there’s a kind of smudge on the volume control.” Bailey looked at his boots. “Might be gloves,” he muttered.

“Very easily,” said Alleyn. “Now, look here: Mr. Fox and I are going to make an experiment. I’ll get you two to stay in here and look on. If it’s a success, I think we might stage a little show for a select audience.” He squatted down and laid his piece of fishing-line out on the floor. “You might just lock the door,” he said.

“This is a big house,” said Chloris, “and yet there seems nowhere to go. I’ve no stomach for the party in the drawing-room.”

“There’s the ‘boudoir,’ ” Mandrake suggested.

“Aren’t the police overflowing into that?”

“Not now. Alleyn and that vast red man went down to the pond a few minutes ago. Now they’ve gone back into the smoking-room. Let’s try the ‘boudoir.’ ”

“All right, let’s.”

They went into the “boudoir.” The curtains were closed and the lamps alight. A cheerful fire crackled in the grate.

Chloris moved restlessly about the room and Mandrake intercepted a quick glance at the door into the smoking-room. “It’s all right,” she said. “William’s gone, you know, and the police seem to have moved into the library.” There was a sudden blare of radio on the other side of the door, and both Mandrake and Chloris jumped nervously. Chloris gave a little cry. “They’re in there,” she whispered. “What are they doing?”

“I’ll damn’ well see!”

“No, don’t,” cried Chloris, as Mandrake stooped to the communicating door and applied his eye to the keyhole.

“It’s not very helpful,” he murmured. “The key’s in the lock. What can they be doing? God, the noise! Wait a minute.”

“Oh, do come away.”

“I’m quite shameless. I consider they are fair game. One can see a little past the key, but only in a straight line. Keyhole lurking is not what it’s said to be in eighteenth-century literature. Hardly worth doing, in fact. I can see nothing but that red screen in front of the door into the library. There’s no one—” He broke off suddenly.

“What is it?” Chloris said and he held up his hand warningly. The wireless was switched off. Mandrake got up and drew Chloris to the far end of the “boudoir.”

“It’s very curious,” he said. “There are only four of them. I know that, because I saw the others come. There’s Alleyn and the red man and two others. Well, they’ve all just walked out of the library into the smoking-room. Who the devil turned on the radio?”

“They must have gone into the library after they turned it on.”

“But they didn’t. They hadn’t time. The moment that noise started, I looked through the keyhole and I looked straight at the door. Why should they turn on the wireless and make a blackguard rush into the library?”

“It’s horrible. It sounded so like…”

“It’s rather intriguing, though,” said Mandrake.

“How you can!”

He went quickly to her and took her hands. “Darling Chloris,” he said, “it wouldn’t be much use if I pretended I wasn’t interested, would it? You’ll have to get used to my common ways, because I think I might want to marry you. I’m going to alter my name by deed poll, so you wouldn’t have to be Mrs. Stanley Footling. And if you think Mrs. Aubrey Mandrake is too arty, we could find something else. I can’t conceive why people are so dull about their names. I don’t suppose deed polls are very expensive. One could have a new name quite often, I daresay. My dear darling,” Mandrake continued, “you’re all white and trembly and I really and truly believe I love you. Could you possibly love me, or shan’t we mention it just now?”

“We shan’t mention it just now,” said Chloris. “I don’t know why, but I’m frightened. I want to be at home, going to my W.R.E.N. classes, and taking dogs for walks. I’m sick of horrors.”

“But you won’t mix me up with horrors when you get back to your lusty girl-friends, will you? You won’t say: ‘There was a killing highbrow cripple who made a pass at me during the murder’?”

“No. Honestly, I won’t. I’ll ask you to come and stay and we might even have a gossip about the dear old days at Highfold. But at the moment I want my mother,” said Chloris, and her lower lip trembled.

“Well, I expect you’ll be able to go quite soon. I fancy the police have finished with you and me.”

There was a tap on the door and Detective-Sergeant Bailey came in.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said sombrely. “Chief-Inspector Alleyn’s compliments, and he’d be obliged if you’d let me take your finger-prints. Yours and the young lady’s. Just a matter of routine, sir.”

“Oh,” said Chloris under her breath, “that’s what they always say to reassure murderers.”

“I beg pardon, Miss?”

“We should be delighted.”

“Much obliged,” said Bailey gloomily, and laid his case down on a small table. Mandrake and Chloris stood side by side in awkward silence while Bailey set out on the table a glass plate, two sheets of paper, some cotton wool, a rubber roller, a fat tube, and a small bottle which, when he uncorked it, let loose a strong smell of ether.

“Are we to be anaesthetized?” asked Mandrake with nervous facetiousness. Bailey gave him a not very complimentary stare. He squeezed some black substance from the tube onto the plate, and rolled it out into a thin film.

“I’ll just clean your fingers with a drop of ether, if you please,” he said.

“Our hands are quite clean,” cried Mandrake.

“Not chemically,” Bailey corrected. “There’ll be a good deal of perspiration, I daresay. There usually is. Now, sir. Now, Miss.”

“It’s quite true,” said Chloris. “There is a good deal of perspiration. Speaking for myself, I’m in a clammy sweat.”

Bailey cleaned their fingers and seemed to cheer up a little. “Now, we’ll just roll them gently on the plate.” he said, holding Mandrake’s forefinger. “Don’t resist me.”

Chloris was making her last finger-print, and Mandrake was cleaning the ink off his own fingers, when Fox came in and beamed upon them.

“Well, well,” said Fox. “So they’re fixing you up according to the regulations? Quite an ingenious little process, isn’t it, sir?”

“Quite.”

“Yes. Miss Wynne won’t care for it so well, perhaps. Nasty dirty stuff isn’t it? The ladies never fancy it for that reason. Well now, that’s very nice,” continued Fox, looking at Chloris’ prints on the paper. “You wouldn’t believe how difficult a simple little affair like this can be made if people resist the pressure. Never resist the police in the execution of their duty. That’s right, isn’t it, sir?” Bailey looked enquiringly at him. “In the drawing-room,” said Fox in exactly the same tone of voice. Bailey wrote on the papers, put them away in his case, and took himself and his belongings out of the room.

“The Chief,” said Fox, who occasionally indulged himself by alluding to Alleyn in this fashion, “would be glad if you could spare him a moment in about ten minutes’ time, Mr. Mandrake. In the library, if you please.”

“All right. Thanks.”

“Do I stay here?” asked Chloris in a small voice.

“Wherever you like, Miss Wynne,” rejoined Fox, looking mildly at her. “It’s not very pleasant waiting about. I daresay you find the time hangs rather heavy on your hands. Perhaps you’d like to join the party in the drawing-room?”

“Not much,” said Chloris, “but I can tell by your style that I’m supposed to go. So I’d better.”

“Thank you, Miss,” said Fox simply. “Perhaps Mr. Mandrake would like to go with you. We’ll see you in the library then, in about ten minutes, sir. As soon as Bailey has finished in the drawing-room. He’ll give you the word when to come along. You might quietly drop a hint to Mr. Royal and Mr. Compline to come with you, if you don’t mind.”

He held the door open and Mandrake and Chloris went out.

“Well, Br’er Fox,” said Alleyn, looking up from the library desk, “did that pass off quietly?”

“Quite pleasantly, Mr. Alleyn. Bailey’s in the drawing-room now, doing the rest of the party. I unloosed the Doctor. It seemed silly, him being up there behind a lock a moron could fix in two minutes. So he’s in with the rest. His good lady doesn’t much fancy being printed.”

Alleyn grinned. “The expression ‘His good lady’ as applied to la belle Lisse-Hart,” he said, “is perfect, Fox.”

“I put the young couple in with the others,” Fox continued. “I’ve got an idea that Mr. Mandrake was a bit inquisitive about what we were doing in the smoking-room. He kept looking over at the door and when he saw I’d noticed, he looked away again. So I told him to come along and bring the other two with him as soon as we tip him the wink. You want independent witnesses, I suppose, sir?”

“Yes. What about Lady Hersey?”

“I haven’t said anything. We can fetch her away when we want her.”

“We’ll send Bailey to fetch her away, fetch her away, fetch her away,” Alleyn murmured under his breath. And then: “I’ve never felt less sympathy over a homicide, Br’er Fox. This affair is not only stupid but beastly, and not only beastly but damn’ cold-blooded and unnatural. However, we must watch our step. There’s a hint of low cunning in spite of the mistakes. I hate the semipublic reconstruction stunt — it’s theatrical and it upsets all sorts of harmless people. Still, it has its uses. We’ve known it to come off, haven’t we?”

“We have so,” said Fox sombrely. “I wonder how Bailey’s getting on with that mob in there.”

“See here, Fox, let’s make sure we’ve got it right.”

Fox looked benignly at his chief: “It’s all right sir. You’ve worked it out to a hair. It can’t go wrong. Why, we’ve tried it half-a-dozen times.”

“I meant the case as a whole.”

“You’ve got your usual attack of the doubts, Mr. Alleyn. I’ve never seen a clearer case.”

Alleyn moved restlessly about the room. “Disregard those two earlier farces and we’ve still got proof,” he said.

“Cast-iron proof.”

“In a funny sort of way it all hangs on this damned cheerful fellow, Thomas. The dancing footman. He defines the limit of the time factor and the possible movements of the murderer. Add to this the ash, H. St. J. W. R.’s fishing-line, the stuff on the wireless, and William’s drawing-pin, and there’s our case.”

“And a very pretty case, too.”

“Not so pretty,” Alleyn muttered. And then: “I’ve never asked for your views on this war, Foxkin.”

Fox stared at him. “On the war? Well, no sir, you haven’t. My view is that it hasn’t started.”

“And mine. I believe that in a year’s time we shall look back on these frozen weeks as on a strangely unreal period. Does it seem odd to you, Fox, that we should be here, so solemnly tracking down one squalid little murderer, so laboriously using our methods to peer into two deaths, while over our heads are stretched legions of guns? It’s as if we stood on the edge of a cracking landslide, swatting flies.”

“It’s our job.”

“And will continue to be so. But to hang someone — now! My God, Fox, it’s almost funny.”

“I see what you mean.”

“It’s nothing. Only one of those cold moments. We’ll get on with our cosy little murder. Here comes Bailey.”

Bailey came in carrying his gear.

“Well,” said Alleyn, “have you fixed that up?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any objections?”

“The foreign lady. She didn’t like the idea of blacking her fingers. Or that’s what she said. Gave quite a bit of trouble in a quiet way.”

“And the rest of the party?”

“Jumpy,” said Bailey. “Not saying much for stretches at a time and then all talking at once, very nervous and quick. Mr. Royal and Mr. Compline seem unfriendly to the Doctor and keep looking sideways at him. He’s the coolest of the lot, though. You’d think he wasn’t interested. He doesn’t take any notice of the lady except to look at her as if he was surprised or something. Will you see the prints, Mr. Alleyn?”

“Yes, we’ll look at them and check them with what you found on the rest of the stuff. It won’t be very illuminating but it’s got to be done. Then we’ll have those four in here, and try for results. It’ll do no harm to keep them guessing for a bit. Come on, Fox.”

“What’s the time?” asked Nicholas. Hersey Amblington looked at her wrist-watch. “A quarter past eight.”

“I have explained, haven’t I,” said Jonathan, “that there’s a cold buffet in the dining-room?”

“You have, Jo,” said Hersey. “I’m afraid none of us feels like it.”

“I am hungry,” Dr. Hart observed. “But I cannot accept the hospitality of a gentleman who believes me to be a murderer.” Jonathan made an angry little noise in his throat.

“My dear Dr. Hart,” Hersey ejaculated, “I really shouldn’t let a point of etiquette hold you off the cold meats. You can’t starve.”

“I expect to be released tomorrow,” said Hart, “and a short abstinence will be of no harm. I habitually overeat.” He looked at his wife, who was staring at him with a sort of incredulous wonder. “Do I not, my dear?” asked Dr. Hart.

Nicholas moved to her side. She turned to him and very slightly shrugged her shoulders.

“It is strange,” continued Dr. Hart, “that when my wife would not acknowledge our relationship I was plagued with the desire to make it known. Now that it is known, I take but little satisfaction in the privilege.”

Nicholas produced a cliché. “There is no need,” he said stiffly, “to be insulting.”

“But whom do I insult? Not my wife, surely. Would it not be more insulting to deny the legal status?”

“This is too much,” Jonathan burst out, but Hersey said: “Oh, let it go, for pity’s sake, Jo.”

“I cannot expect,” said Madame Lisse, “that Lady Hersey will neglect to find enjoyment in my humiliation.”

“I don’t see that you are particularly humiliated.”

“A husband who has committed the most—” began Madame Lisse, but Dr. Hart interrupted her.

“Do you know what she has said, this woman?” he demanded of nobody in particular. “She has told me that if she knew of a grain of evidence against me she would use it. I tell you this — if I was accused of the murder of this poor simpleton and if she, without doing harm to herself, could speak the word that would hang me, she would speak it. This is the woman for whom I have tortured myself. You are all thinking it is not nice to make a scene by speaking of her, it is not what an English gentleman would do. You are right. I am not English and I am not a gentleman. I am an Austrian peasant with a little of the South in my veins, and I have suddenly awakened. I am angry when I remember all the idiotic sorrow that I have wasted on this cold and treacherous wife.”

“You bloody murderer!” Nicholas burst out, and Madame Lisse seized his arm.

“No,” she said, “no, Nicholas. For my sake.”

“For all our sakes,” said Mandrake suddenly, “let’s have no more scenes.” And a kind of murmur, profoundly in agreement, came from Hersey, Chloris, and Jonathan. Dr. Hart smiled and made a little bow. “Very well. By all means, no more scenes. But you”—he pointed a short white finger at Nicholas—”will have cause to remember what I have said.”

The door opened and Bailey looked in. “Mr. Alleyn’s compliments, sir,” he said to Jonathan, “and he’d be glad to see you if you’re free.” His glance travelled to Mandrake and Nicholas. “Thank you, gentlemen,” he said, and held open the door. The three men went out. “Mr. Alleyn would be obliged if the rest of the party stayed where they are,” said Bailey. “Sergeant Thompson is on duty in the hall.”

He closed the door gently, leaving the three women and Dr. Hart together.

“Before we go any further,” said Alleyn, “I must explain that we have arrived at a definite conclusion in this case. It is therefore my duty to tell you that the questions I shall now put to you are of importance and that your answers may possibly be used in evidence. I have asked you to come into the library in order that we may go over the events immediately preceding the discovery of Mr. William Compline’s body in the next room. I have not asked those members of the party who were upstairs to be present. They cannot help us. I have left Miss Wynne out of the experiment. Her part was entirely negative and there is no need to distress her. I’m afraid that we shall have to ask Lady Hersey to come in, but I thought that first of all I should explain to you, sir, and to Mr. Compline, exactly what we mean to do. You have all heard of police reconstructions. This very short experiment may be regarded as a reconstruction, and if we are at fault in the smallest detail, we ask you to put us right. That’s all quite clear, I hope. Now, I must ask you if you have any objection to helping us in this way.”

“Do you mean,” asked Jonathan, “that you want us to do everything we did last night?”

“Yes, if you will.”

“I’m — I’m not sure that I recollect precisely the order of events.”

“Mr. Mandrake and Mr. Compline will, I hope, help you.”

“God, I can remember!” said Nicholas. “I’ll never forget.”

“And I,” said Mandrake. “I think I remember.”

“Good. Then, will you help us, Mr. Royal?”

“Very well,” said Jonathan, and Mandrake and Nicholas said they too were ready to help.

“We’ll begin,” said Alleyn, “at the moment when Lady Hersey had returned from the smoking-room, where she had talked for a time with you, Mr. Compline, and with your brother. Mr. Mandrake is in the green ‘boudoir’ beyond, talking to Dr. Hart. Lady Hersey has left the two brothers together. The door into the ‘boudoir’ is now locked on the. smoking-room side. The door from here into the smoking-room is shut, as you can see. Right, Fox.” Fox went out.

“Will you please take up your positions?” said Alleyn. “Mr. Mandrake, you are not here yet. Mr. Compline, you are in the next room. Sergeant Bailey is there, and I’ll get you to tell him, as well as you can remember, exactly where you were and what you and your brother did.”

Alleyn opened wide the door into the smoking-room. The red leather screen still hid the interior, which seemed to be very dimly lit. Nicholas hung back, white and nervous.

“Not too pleasant,” he muttered, and then: “It wasn’t dark like that.”

“The small shaded lamp by the fireside is turned on,” said Alleyn. “There are no bulbs in the other lamps.”

“Why?” Nicholas demanded.

“Because we’ve removed them,” said Alleyn blandly. “Will you go in?”

From behind the screen Bailey gave a slight cough. Nicholas said: “Oh, all right, and went into the smoking-room. Alleyn shut the door. At the same moment Fox came in with Hersey Amblington. Evidently he had explained the procedure, because she went straight to a chair opposite Jonathan’s and sat down. “That’s what I did when I came in,” said Hersey. “I’d left Nicholas and William in the smoking-room, and I came here by way of the hall. Is that what you wanted to know, Mr. Alleyn?”

“The beginning of it,” said Alleyn. “What next?”

“In a few minutes,” said Jonathan, “Aubrey came in. He went to that chair on the far side of the fire. Miss Wynne was sitting there.”

Alleyn looked at Mandrake, who at once walked to the chair. “I’d come directly from the ‘boudoir’ by way of the hall, leaving Dr. Hart alone in the ‘boudoir,’ ” he said.

“And then?”

“We discussed the situation,” said Hersey. “I reported that I’d left the two brothers talking quite sensibly, and then Mr. Mandrake told us how Dr. Hart and Nicholas had had a row over the wireless and how Nicholas had slammed the door, between the ‘boudoir’ and the smoking-room, in Dr. Hart’s face.”

“We talked for perhaps a minute and then Nicholas came in.” She looked from Jonathan to Mandrake. “It wasn’t longer, was it?”

“I should say about a minute,” Mandrake agreed.

Fox tapped on the door into the smoking-room. There was a pause. Hersey Amblington caught her breath in a nervous sigh. Mandrake heard his own heart-beat in the drums of his ears.

The door opened slowly into the smoking-room and Nicholas stood on the threshold, his face like parchment against the dim scarlet of the screen. Bailey came past him and sat on a low stool just inside the door.

“Did you come straight in?” Alleyn asked Nicholas.

“I don’t know. I expect I did.”

“Does anyone else remember?”

“I do,” said Mandrake. “I remember, Compline, that you came in and shut the door. I suppose you paused for a moment with your hand on the knob.”

“Is it agreed that Mr. Compline shut the door?” Alleyn asked.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Jonathan cried out shrilly. “It was shut.”

“Then will you please go on?” said Alleyn quietly.

“Will somebody be very kind,” said Nicholas in a high voice, “and tell me precisely what I did next? It would be a pity if I stepped off on the wrong foot, wouldn’t it?”

“We may as well keep our tempers, Nick,” said Hersey.

“You made a face as if to say Bill was still pretty tricky. I did ‘Thumbs up?’ and you did ‘Thumbs down,’ and then you sat in that chair by the door and we talked about Bill. After a bit, Jo offered you a drink.”

“Agreed?”

“Agreed,” said Mandrake. Jonathan uttered an impatient sound and added very querulously: “Yes. Oh, yes.” Nicholas said: “Oh, by all means, agreed,” and laughed.

“There’s the chair,” said Alleyn.

Nicholas dropped into the armchair on the opposite side of the door from Bailey’s stool.

“Jonathan asked me to ring for drinks,” said Mandrake, “but, before I could do so, we heard a clink of glasses in the hall and—”.

He stopped short. Fox had opened the door into the hall and in the complete silence that followed they all heard the faint jingling of glasses.

Thomas came in with the grog tray.

He set it on the table and went out, shutting the door behind him.

“He is now tidying the hall,” said Alleyn.

“I’m not enjoying this,” said Hersey Amblington loudly. “I’m hating it.”

“It will not be much longer,” said Alleyn. Mandrake heard his own voice saying: “But it is horrible. We’re creating it all over again. It’s as if we were making something take form — in there.”

“Oh, don’t,” Hersey whispered.

“There is no one in the smoking-room,” said Alleyn, and he spoke with unexpected emphasis. “The other doors are locked. There is no one in there. Please go on. Did you have your drinks?”

Nobody answered. At last Mandrake forced himself to speak. “Jonathan poured them out and then he said: ‘What about William?’ ”

“One moment. You should be at the table, then, Mr. Royal.”

Jonathan went to the table. Mandrake’s voice went on: “He said: ‘What about William?’ meaning would he like a drink, and Compline stuck his head in at the door and sang out: ‘Coming in for a drink, Bill?’ ”

Nicholas reached out and opened the door. He made an attempt to speak, boggled over it, and finally said: “I asked him to come in. I think he sort of grunted. Then I asked him to turn on the news. Mandrake had suggested that we might listen to it.”

“What exactly did you say?”

“I can’t remember the precise words.”

“I can,” said Mandrake. “Or pretty nearly. You said: ‘D’you mind switching on the wireless? It’s time for the news and we’d like to hear it.’ Then there was a slight pause.”

Nicholas said: “I waited, and heard someone walk across the floor; and I called out: ‘Thanks!’ ”

Another heavy silence fell upon the room. Fox stood motionless by the door into the hall, Bailey by the door into the smoking-room, Alleyn close to Jonathan by the table.

“And then?” Alleyn asked.

“And then we heard the wireless,” said Mandrake.

Bailey’s hand moved.

And in the empty smoking-room a voice roared —

Jonathan Royal screamed out an oath and backed away from the table, his hand to his mouth.

He was almost knocked over. Nicholas had stumbled towards the door, where he was checked by Bailey. He struck at Bailey, turned, and made for the door into the hall, where Alleyn barred the way. Nicholas mouthed at him.

“Steady,” said Alleyn. Nicholas stretched out his uninjured arm, pointing back to the empty room: “I didn’t touch it,” he gabbled, “I didn’t touch it. Hart did it. It’s the second booby-trap. Don’t look at me like that. You can’t prove anything against me.” He fell back a pace. Alleyn made a move and Nicholas sprang at him. Bailey and Fox closed in on Nicholas Compline.