Death And The Dancing Footman

Chapter III Contact

“Not very propitious weather for looking at a bathing-pool,” said Mandrake, “but I insist on showing it to you.”

He had sent the guests off at a round pace to go through Highfold Wood, where the rides were heavy with sodden leaves, down to Jonathan’s model farm and back up a steep lane to the north side of the house, where he limped out to meet them. Here they came on a wide terrace. Beneath them, at the foot of a flight of paved steps flanked by bay trees, was a large concrete swimming-pool set in smooth lawns and overlooked by a charming eighteenth-century pavilion, now trimmed, like a Christmas card, with snow. The floor of the pool had been painted a vivid blue, but now the water was wrinkled and, in the twilight of late afternoon, reflected only a broken pattern of repellent steely greys flecked by dead leaves. Mandrake explained that the pavilion had once been an aviary but that Jonathan had done it up in keeping with its Empire style and that when summer came he meant to hold fêtes galantes down there by his new swimming-pool. It would look very Rex Whistlerish, Mandrake said, and would have just the right air of formalized gaiety.

“At the moment,” said Chloris, “it has an air of formalized desolation, but I see what you mean.”

“Wouldn’t you like to come for a nice bracing plunge with me, Chloris, before breakfast to-morrow?” asked Nicholas. “Do say Yes.”

“No, thank you,” said Chloris.

“It would have been awkward for you,” said William, “if Chloris had said Yes.” It was the first remark William had addressed directly to his brother.

“Not at all,” rejoined Nicholas, and he made his stiff little bow to Chloris.

“I’d bet ten pounds,” William said to nobody in particular, “that nothing on earth would have got him into that water before or after breakfast.”

“Would you?” asked Nicholas. “I take you. You’ve lost.”

Mrs. Compline instantly protested. She reminded Nicholas of the state of his heart. William grinned derisively, staring at Chloris; repeated that the bet was on. The absurd conversation began to take an unpleasant edge. Mandrake felt an icy touch on his cheek, and drew attention to a desultory scatter of snowflakes.

“If that was our brisk walk,” said Chloris, “I consider we’ve had it. Let’s go in.”

“Is it a bet?” Nicholas asked his brother.

“Oh, yes,” said William. “You may have to break the ice, but it’s a bet.”

To the accompaniment of a lively torrent of disapprobation from Mrs. Compline they walked towards the house. Mandrake’s interest in William mounted with each turn of the situation. William was as full of surprises as a lucky-bag. His sudden proposal of this ridiculous wager was as unexpected as the attitude which he now adopted. He looked hang-dog and frightened. He hung back and said something to his mother, who set that tragically distorted mouth and did not answer. William gave her a look strangely compounded of malice and nervousness and strode after Chloris, who was walking with Mandrake. Nicholas had joined them and Mandrake felt sure that Chloris was very much aware of him. When William suddenly took her arm she started and seemed to draw back. They returned to the accompaniment of an irritating rattle of conversation from Nicholas.

As soon as they came out on the platform before the house, they found that someone else had arrived. Nicholas’ car had been driven away and in its place stood a very smart three-seater from which servants were taking very smart suit-cases.

“That’s not Hersey Amblington’s car,” said Mrs. Compline.

“No,” said Nicholas. And he added loudly: “Look here, what’s Jonathan up to?”

“What do you mean, darling?” asked his mother quickly.

“Nothing,” said Nicholas. “But I think I recognize the car.” He hung back as the others went into the house, and waited for Mandrake. He still wore Jonathan’s cape over his uniform and it occurred to Mandrake that since Nicholas allowed himself this irregularity he must be very well aware of its effectiveness. He put his hand on Mandrake’s arm. The others went into the house.

“I say,” he said, “is Jonathan up to anything?”

“How do you mean?” asked Mandrake, wondering what the devil Jonathan would wish him to reply.

“Well, it seems to me this is a queerly assorted house-party.”

“Is it? I’m a complete stranger to all the other guests, you know.”

“When did you get here?”

“Last night.”

“Well, hasn’t Jonathan said anything? About the other guests, I mean?”

“He was very pleased with his party,” said Mandrake carefully. “He’s longing for it to be an enormous success.”

“Is he, my God!” said Nicholas. He turned on his heel and walked into the house.

Mrs. Compline and Chloris went up to their rooms; the three men left their overcoats in a downstairs cloak-room where they noticed the twin of Jonathan’s cape. When they came back into the hall they could hear voices in the library. As if by common consent they all paused. There were three voices — Jonathan’s, a masculine voice that held a foreign suggestion in its level inflections, and a deep contralto.

“I thought as much,” said Nicholas, and laughed unpleasantly.

“What’s up?” William asked Mandrake.

“Nothing, so far as I know.”

“Come on,” said Nicholas. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go in.”

He led the way into the library.

Jonathan and his new arrivals stood before a roaring fire. The man had his back turned to the door, but the woman was facing it with an air of placid anticipation. Her face was strongly lit by a wall lamp and Mandrake’s immediate reaction to it was a sort of astonishment that Jonathan could have forgotten to say how spectacular she was. In Mandrake’s world women were either sophisticated and sleek or hideous and erratic. “Artificiality,” he was in the habit of saying, “is a fundamental in all women with whom one falls in love, and to so exquisite an extreme has artifice been carried that it sometimes apes nature with considerable success.” This subtlety of grooming appeared in Madame Lisse. Her hair was straight and from a central parting was drawn back and gathered into a knot at the nape of her neck. It lay close to her head like a black satin cap with blue high-lights. Her face was an oval, beautifully pale; her lashes needed no cosmetic to darken them; her mouth alone proclaimed her art, for it was sharply painted a dark red. Her dress was extremely simple, but in it her body seemed to be gloved rather than clothed. She was not very young, not as young as Chloris Wynne, not perhaps as pretty as Chloris Wynne either, but she had to the last degree the quality that Mandrake, though he knew very little French, spoke of and even thought of as “soignée. And, in her own vein, she was exceedingly beautiful.

“Madame Lisse,” Jonathan was saying, “you know Nicholas, don’t you? May I introduce his brother; and Mr. Aubrey Mandrake? Hart, do you know…” Jonathan’s introductions faded gently away.

Dr. Hart’s bow was extremely formal. He was a pale dark man with a compact paunch and firm white hands. He was clad in the defiant tweeds of a firmly naturalized ex-Central-European. Mandrake gathered from his manner that either he had not met Nicholas Compline and didn’t wish to do so, or else that he had met him and had taken a firm resolve never to do so again. Nicholas, for his part, acknowledged the introduction by looking at a point some distance beyond Dr. Hart’s left ear, and by uttering the words “How do you do?” as if they were a malediction. Madame Lisse’s greeting to Nicholas was coloured by that particular blend of composure and awareness with which Austrian women make Englishmen feel dangerous and delighted. With something of the same air, but without a certain delicate underlining, she held out her hand to William and to Mandrake. Mandrake remembered that Nicholas had known Madame Lisse was coming to the party and saw him take up a proprietary position beside her. “He’s going to brazen it out,” thought Mandrake. “He’s going to show us the sort of dog he is with the ladies, by Heaven.” Mandrake was right. Nicholas, with a sort of defiant showmanship, devoted himself to Madame Lisse. He stood beside her in an attitude reminiscent of a Victorian military fashion-plate, one leg straight and one flexed. Occasionally he placed one hand on the back of her chair, while the other went to his blond moustache. Whenever Dr. Hart glared at them, which he did repeatedly, Nicholas bent towards Madame Lisse and uttered a loud and unconvincing laugh calculated, Mandrake supposed, to show Dr. Hart how vastly Nicholas and Madame Lisse entertained each other. Madame was the sort of woman whose natural habitat was the centre of a group of men and, with the utmost tranquillity, she dominated the conversation and even, in spite of Nicholas, contrived to instil into it an air of genuine gaiety. In this she was ably supported by Jonathan and by Mandrake himself. Even William, who watched his brother pretty closely, responded in his own odd fashion to Madame’s charm. He asked her abruptly if anybody had ever painted her portrait. On learning that this had never been done he started to mutter to himself, and Nicholas looked irritated. Madame Lisse began to talk to Mandrake about his plays, Jonathan chimed in, and once again the situation was saved. It was upon a conversation piece, with Madame Lisse very much in the centre of vision, that Mrs. Compline and Chloris made their entrances. Mandrake thought that Mrs. Compline could not be aware of the affair between Nicholas and Madame Lisse, so composedly did she acknowledge the introduction. But if this was the case, what reason had Chloris given for the broken engagement with Nicholas? “Is it not impossible that everybody but his mother should be aware of l’affaire Lisse?”

Mandrake speculated. “Perhaps she sees him as a sort of irresistible young god, choosing where he will, and, without resentment, accepts Madame as a votaress.” There was no doubt about Chloris’ reaction. Mandrake saw her stiffen and go very still when Jonathan pronounced Madame Lisse’s name. For perhaps a full second neither of the women spoke and then, for all the world as if they responded to some inaudible cue, Chloris and Madame Lisse were extremely gracious to each other. “So they’re going to take that line,” thought Mandrake, and wondered if Jonathan shared his feelings of relief. He felt less comfortable when he saw Mrs. Compline’s reaction to Dr. Hart. She murmured the conventional greeting, looked casually and then fixedly into his face, and turned so deadly white that for a moment Mandrake actually wondered if she would faint. But she did not faint. She turned away and sat in a chair farthest removed from the light. With the effect of entering on a cue, Caper brought in sherry and champagne cocktails.

The cocktails, though they did not perform miracles, helped considerably. Dr. Hart in particular became more sociable. He continued to avoid Nicholas but attached himself to Chloris Wynne and to William. Jonathan talked to Mrs. Compline; Mandrake and Nicholas to Madame Lisse. Nicholas still kept up his irritating performance — now, apparently, for the benefit of Chloris. Whenever Madame Lisse spoke he bent towards her and, whether her remark was grave or gay, he broke out into an exhibition of merriment calculated, Mandrake felt certain, to arouse in Chloris the pangs proper to the woman scorned. If she suffered this reaction she gave no more evidence of her distress than might be discovered in an occasional thoughtful glance at Nicholas, and it seemed to Mandrake that if she reacted at all to the performance, it was pleasurably. She listened attentively to Dr. Hart, who became voluble and bland. Chloris had asked if anyone had heard the latest wireless news. Hart instantly embarked on a description of his own reaction to radio. “I cannot endure it. It touches some nerve. It creates a most disagreeable — an unendurable—frisson. I read my papers and that is enough. I am informed. I assure you that I have twice changed my flat because of the intolerable persecution of neighbouring radios. Strange, is it not? There must be some psychological explanation.”

“Jonathan shares your dislike,” said Mandrake. “He has been persuaded to install a wireless next door in the smoking-room, but I don’t believe he ever listens to it.”

“My respect for my host grows with everything I hear of him,” said Dr. Hart. He became expansive, enlarged upon his love of nature and spoke of holidays in the Austrian Tyrol.

“When it was still Austria,” said Dr. Hart. “Have you ever visited Kaprun, Miss Wynne? How charming it was at Kaprun in those days! From there one could drive up the Gross-Glockner, one could climb into the mountains above that pleasant Weinstube in the ravine, and on Sunday mornings one went into Zell-amsee. Music in the central square. The cafés! And the shops where one might secure the best shoes in the world!”

“And the best cloaks,” said Chloris with a smile.

“Hein? Ah, you have seen the cloak I have presented to our host.”

“Nicholas,” said Chloris, “wore it when we went for a walk just now.”

Dr. Hart’s eyelids, which in their colour and texture a little resembled those of a lizard, half closed over his rather prominent eyes. “Indeed,” he said.

“I hope,” said Jonathan, “that you visited my swimming-pool on your walk.”

“Nicholas is going to bathe in it to-morrow,” said William, “or hand over ten pounds to me.”

“Nonsense, William,” said his mother. “I won’t have it. Jonathan, please forbid these stupid boys to go on with this nonsense.” Her voice, coming out of the dark corner where she sat, sounded unexpectedly loud. Dr. Hart turned his head and peered into the shadow. When Chloris said something to him it appeared for a moment that he had not heard her. If, however, he had been startled by Mrs. Compline’s voice he quickly recovered himself. Mandrake thought that he finished his cocktail rather rapidly and noticed that when he accepted another it was with an unsteady hand. “That’s odd,” thought Mandrake. “He’s the more upset of the two, it appears, and yet they’ve never met before. Unless — but no! that would be too much. I’m letting the possibilities of the situation run away with me.”

“Lady Hersey Amblington, sir,” said Caper in the doorway.

Mandrake’s first impression of Hersey Amblington was characteristic of the sort of man his talents had led him to become. As Stanley Footling of Dulwich, he would have been a little in awe of Hersey. As Aubrey Mandrake of the Unicorn Theatre, he told himself she was distressingly wholesome. Hersey’s face, in spite of its delicate make-up, wore an out-of-doors look, and she did not pluck her dark brows, those two straight bars that guarded her blue eyes. She wore Harris tweed and looked, thought Mandrake, as though she would be tiresome about dogs. A hearty woman, he decided, and he did not wonder that Madame Lisse had lured away Hersey’s smartest clients.

Jonathan hurried forward to greet his cousin. They kissed. Mandrake felt certain that Jonathan delayed the embrace long enough to whisper a warning in Lady Hersey’s ear. He saw the tweed shoulders stiffen. With large, beautifully shaped hands, she put Jonathan away from her and looked into his face. Mandrake, who was nearer to them than the rest of the party, distinctly heard her say: “Jo, what are you up to?” and caught Jonathan’s reply: “Come and see.” He took her by the elbow and led her towards the group by the fire.

“You know Madame Lisse, Hersey, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Hersey, after a short pause. “How do you do?”

“And Dr. Hart?”

“How do you do? Sandra, darling, how nice to see you,” said Hersey, turning her back on Dr. Hart and Madame Lisse and kissing Mrs. Compline. Her face was hidden from Mandrake, but he saw that her ears and the back of her neck were scarlet.

“You haven’t kissed me, Hersey,” said Nicholas.

“I don’t intend to. How many weeks have you been stationed in Great Chipping and never a glimpse have I had of you? William, my dear, I didn’t know you had actually reached home again. How well you look.”

“I feel quite well, thank you, Hersey,” said William gravely. “You’ve met Chloris, haven’t you?”

“Not yet, but I’m delighted to do so, and to congratulate you both,” said Hersey, shaking hands with Chloris.

“And Mr. Aubrey Mandrake,” said Jonathan, bringing Hersey a drink. “How do you do. Jonathan told me I should meet you. I’ve got a subject for you.”

“Oh, God,” thought Mandrake, “she’s going to be funny about my plays.”

“It’s about a false hairdresser who strangles his rival with three feet of dyed hair,” Hersey continued. “He’s a male hairdresser, you know, and he wears a helmet made of tin waving clamps and no clothes at all. Perhaps it would be better as a ballet.”

Mandrake laughed politely. “A beguiling theme,” he said.

“I’m glad you like it. It’s not properly worked out yet, but of course his mother had long hair and when he was an infant he saw his father lugging her about the room by her pigtail, and it gave him convulsions because he hated his father and was in love with his mother, and so he grew up into a hairdresser and worked off his complexes on his customers. And I must say,” Hersey added, “I wish I could follow his example.”

“Do you dislike your clients, Lady Hersey?” asked Madame Lisse. “I do not find in myself any antipathy to my clients. Many of them have become my good friends.”

“You must be able to form friendships very quickly,” said Hersey sweetly.

“Of course,” Madame Lisse continued, “it depends very much upon the class of one’s clientele.”

“And possibly,” Hersey returned, “upon one’s own class, don’t you think?” And then, as if ashamed of herself, she turned again to Mrs. Compline.

“I suppose,” said William’s voice close to Mandrake, “that Hersey was making a joke about her subject, wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” Mandrake said hurriedly, for he was startled, “yes, of course.”

“Well, but it might be a good idea, mightn’t it? I mean, people do write about those things. There’s that long play, I saw it in London about four years ago, where the brother and sister find out about their mother and all that. Some people thought that play was a bit thick, but I didn’t think so. I thought there was a lot of reality in it. I don’t see why plays shouldn’t say what people feel in the same way as pictures ought to. Not what they do. What they do in their thoughts.”

“That is my own contention,” said Mandrake, who was beginning to feel more than a little curious about William’s pictures. William gave a rather vapid laugh and rubbed his hands together. “There you are, you see,” he said. He looked round the circle of Jonathan’s guests, and lowered his voice. “Jonathan has played a trick on all of us,” he said unexpectedly. Mandrake did not answer, and William went on: “Perhaps you planned it together.”

“No, no. This party is entirely Jonathan’s.”

“I’ll bet it is. Jonathan is doing in the ordinary way what he does in his thoughts. If you wrote a play of him what would it be like?”

“I really don’t know,” said Mandrake hurriedly.

“Don’t you? If I painted his picture I should make him egg-shaped with quite a merry smile, and a scorpion round his head. And then, you know, for eyes he would have the sort of windows you can’t see through. Clouded glass.”

In Mandrake’s circles this sort of thing was more or less a commonplace. “You are a surrealist, then?” he murmured.

“Have you ever noticed,” William continued, placidly, “that Jonathan’s eyes are quite blank? Impenetrable,” he added, and a phrase from Alice through the Looking-Glass jigged into Mandrake’s thoughts.

“It’s his thick glasses,” he said.

“Oh,” said William, “is that it? Has he told you about us? Nicholas and Chloris and me? And of course, Madame Lisse?” To Mandrake’s intense relief William did not pause for an answer. “I expect he has,” he said. “He likes talking about people and of course he would want somebody for an audience. I’m quite glad to meet Madame Lisse, and I must say it doesn’t surprise me about her and Nicholas. I should like to make a picture of her. Wait a moment. I’m just going to get another drink. My third,” added William, with the air of chalking up a score.

Mandrake had had one drink and was of the opinion that Jonathan’s champagne cocktails were generously laced with brandy. He wondered if in this circumstance lay the explanation of William’s astonishing candour. The rest of the party had already responded to the drinks, and the general conversation was now fluent and noisy. William returned, carrying his glass with extreme care.

“Of course,” he said, “you will understand that Chloris and I haven’t seen Nicholas since we got engaged. I went to the front the day after it was announced, and Nicholas has been conducting the war in Great Chipping ever since. But if Jonathan thinks his party is going to make any difference…” William broke off and drank a third of his cocktail. “What was I saying?” he asked.

“Any difference,” Mandrake prompted.

“Oh, yes. If Jonathan, or Nicholas for that matter, imagine I’m going to lose my temper, they are wrong.”

“But surely if Jonathan has any ulterior motive,” Mandrake ventured, “it is entirely pacific. A reconciliation…”

“Oh, no,” said William, “that wouldn’t be at all amusing.” He looked sideways at Mandrake. “Besides,” he said, “Jonathan doesn’t like me much, you know.”

This chimed so precisely with Mandrake’s earlier impression that he gave William a startled glance. “Doesn’t he?” he asked helplessly.

“No. He wanted me to marry a niece of his. She was a poor relation and he was very fond of her. We were sort of engaged but I didn’t really like her so very much, I found, so I sort of sloped off. He doesn’t forget things, you know.” William smiled vaguely. “She died,” he said. “She went rather queer in the head, I think. It was very sad, really.”

Mandrake found nothing to say, and William returned to his theme. “But I shan’t do anything to Nicholas,” he said. “Let him cool his ardour in the swimming-pool. After all, I’ve won, you know. Haven’t I?”

“He is tight,” thought Mandrake, and he said with imbecile cheerfulness: “I hope so.” William finished his drink. “So do I,” he said doubtfully. He looked across to the fireplace where Nicholas, standing by Madame Lisse’s chair, stared at Chloris Wynne.

“But he always will try,” said William, “to eat his cake and keep it.”

Madame Lisse fastened three of Jonathan’s orchids in the bosom of her wine-coloured dress, and contemplated herself in the looking glass. She saw a Renaissance picture smoothly painted on a fine panel — black, magnolia, and mulberry surfaces, all were sleek and richly glowing. Behind this magnificence, in shadow, was reflected the door of her room, and while she still stared at her image this door opened slowly.

“What is it, Francis?” asked Madame Lisse without turning her head.

Dr. Hart closed the door and in a moment his figure stood behind hers in the long glass.

“It was unwise to come in,” she said, speaking very quietly. “That woman has the room next to yours and Mrs. Compline is on the other side of this one. Why have you not changed? You will be late.”

“I must speak to you. I cannot remain in this house, Elise. I must find some excuse to leave immediately.”

She turned and looked fixedly at him.

“What is it now, Francis? Surely you cannot be disturbed à cause de Nicholas Compline. I assure you…”

“It is not solely on his account. Although…”

“What, then?”

“His mother’s!”

“His mother’s!” she repeated blankly. “That unfortunate woman? Have you ever seen a more disastrous face? What do you mean? I wondered if perhaps Mr. Royal had thought that by inviting her he might do you a service.”

“A service,” Dr. Hart repeated. “A service! Gott im Himmel!”

“Could you not do something?”

“What you have seen,” said Dr. Hart, “I did.”

“You! Francis, she was not…?”

“It was in my early days. In Vienna. It was the Schmitt-Lipmann treatment — paraffin wax. We have long ago abandoned it, but at that time it was widely practised. In this case — as you see.”

“But her name. Surely you remembered her name?”

“She did not give her own name. Very often they do not. She called herself Mrs. Nicholas after her accursed son, I suppose. Afterwards of course she made a great scene. I attempted adjustments, but in those days I was less experienced, the practice of plastic surgery was in its infancy. I could do nothing. When I came to England my greatest dread was that I might one day encounter this Mrs. Nicholas.”

Dr. Hart uttered a sort of laugh. “I believe my first suspicions of that young man arose from the associations connected with his name.”

“Obviously, she did not recognize you.”

“How do you know?”

“Her manner was perfectly calm. How long ago was this affair?”

“About twenty-five years.”

“And you were young Doktor Franz Hartz of Vienna? Did you not wear a beard and moustaches then? Yes. And you were slim in those days. Of course she did not recognize you.”

“Franz Hartz and Francis Hart, it is not such a difference. They all know I am a naturalized Austrian and a plastic surgeon. I cannot face it. I shall speak, now, to Royal. I shall say I must return urgently to a case—”

“—And by this behaviour invite her suspicion. Nonsense, my friend. You will remain and make yourself charming to Mrs. Compline and, if she now suspects, she will say to herself: ‘I was mistaken. He could never have faced me.’ Come now,” said Madame Lisse, drawing his face down to hers, “you will keep your head, Francis, and perhaps to-morrow, who knows, you will have played your part so admirably, that we shall change places.”

“What do you mean?”

Madame Lisse laughed softly. “I may be jealous of Mrs. Compline,” she said. “No, no, you are disarranging my hair. Go and change and forget your anxiety.”

Dr. Hart moved to the door and paused. “Elise,” he said, “suppose this was planned.”

“What do you mean?”

“Suppose Jonathan Royal knew. Suppose he deliberately brought about this encounter.”

“What next! Why in the world should he do such a thing?”

“There is something mischievous about him.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “Go and change.”

“Hersey, I want to speak to you.”

From inside the voluminous folds of the dress she was hauling over her head Hersey said: “Sandra, darling, do come in. I’m longing for a gossip with you. Wait a jiffy. Sit down.” She tugged at the dress and her head, firmly tied up in a strong net, came out at the top. For a moment she stood and stared at her friend. That face, so painfully suggestive of an image in some distorting mirror, was the colour of parchment. The lips held their enforced travesty of a smile but they trembled and the large eyes were blurred by tears.

“Sandra, my dear, what is it?” cried Hersey.

“I can’t stay here. I want you to help me. I’ve got to get away from this house.”

“Sandra! But why?” Hersey knelt by Mrs. Compline. “You’re not thinking of the gossip about Nick and the Pirate, blast her eyes?”

“What gossip? I don’t know what you mean. What about Nicholas?”

“It doesn’t matter. Nothing. Tell me what’s happened.” Hersey took Mrs. Compline’s hands between her own and, feeling them writhe together in her grasp, was visited by an idea that the distress which Mrs. Compline’s face was incapable of expressing had flowed into these struggling hands. “What happened?” Hersey repeated.

“Hersey, that man, Jonathan’s new friend, I can’t meet him again.”

“Aubrey Mandrake?”

“No, no. The other.”

“Dr. Hart?”

“I can’t meet him.”

“But why?”

“Don’t look at me. I know it’s foolish of me, Hersey, but I can’t tell you if you look at me. Please go on dressing and let me tell you.”

Hersey returned to the dressing-table and presently Mrs. Compline began to speak. The thin exhausted voice, now well-controlled, lent no colour to the story of despoiled beauty. It trailed dispassionately through her husband’s infidelities, her own despair, her journey to Vienna, and her return. And Hersey, while she listened, absently made up her own face, took off her net, and arranged her hair. When it was over she turned towards Mrs. Compline but came no nearer to her.

“But can you be sure?” she said.

“It was his voice. When I heard of him first, practising in Great Chipping, I wondered. I said so to Deacon, my maid. She was with me that time in Vienna.”

“It was over twenty years ago, Sandra. And his name—”

“He must have changed it when he became naturalized.”

“Does he look at all as he did then?”

“No. He has changed very much.”

“Then—”

“I am not positive, but I am almost positive. I can’t face it, Hersey, can I?”

“I think you can,” said Hersey, “and I think you will.”

Jonathan stood in front of a blazing fire in the drawing-room. Brocaded curtains hung motionless before the windows, the room glowed with reflected light and, but for the cheerful hiss and crackle of burning logs, was silent. The night outside was silent, too, but every now and then Jonathan heard a momentary sighing as if the very person of the north wind explored the outer walls of Highfold. Presently one of the shutters knocked softly at its frame and then the brocaded curtains stirred a little, and Jonathan looked up expectantly. A door at the far end of the room opened and Hersey Amblington came in.

“Hersey, how magnificent! You have dressed to please me, I believe. I have a passion for dull green and furs. Charming of you, my dear.”

“You won’t think me so charming when you hear what I’ve got to say,” Hersey rejoined. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you, Jo.”

“What an alarming phrase that is,” said Jonathan. “Will you have a drink?”

“No, thank you. Sandra Compline has been threatening to go home.”

“Indeed? That’s vexing. I hope you dissuaded her?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Splendid. I’m so grateful. It would have quite spoiled my party.”

“I told her not to give you the satisfaction of knowing you had scored.”

“Now that really is unfair,” cried Jonathan.

“No, it’s not. Look here, did you know about Sandra and your whey-faced boy-friend?”

“Mandrake?”

“Now, Jo, none of that nonsense. Sandra confides in her maid, and she tells me the maid is bosom friends with your Mrs. Pouting. You’ve listened to servants’ gossip, Jo. You’ve heard that Sandra thought this Hart man might be the Dr. Hartz who made that appalling mess of her face.”

“I only wondered. It would be an intriguing coincidence.”

“I’m ashamed of you, and I’m furious with you on my own account. Forcing me to be civil to that blasted German.”

“Is she a German?”

“Whatever she is, she’s a dirty fighter. I’ve heard on excellent authority she’s started a rumour that my Magnolia Food Base grows beards. But never mind about that. I can look after myself.”

“Darling Hersey! If only you had allowed me to perform that delightful office!”

“It’s the cruel trick you’ve played on Sandra that horrifies me. You’ve always been the same, Jo. You’ve a passion for intrigue wedded to an unholy curiosity. You lay your plans and when they work out and people are hurt or angry, nobody is more sorry or surprised than you. It’s a sort of blind patch in your character.”

“Was that why you refused me, Hersey, all those years ago?”

Hersey caught her breath and for a moment was silent.

“Not that I agree with you, you know,” said Jonathan. “One of my objectives is a lavish burial of hatchets. I hope great things of this week-end.”

“Do you expect the Compline brothers to become reconciled because you have given Nicholas an opportunity to do his barn-yard strut before Chloris Wynne? Do you suppose Hart, who is obviously in love with the Pirate, will welcome the same performance with her, or that the Pirate and I will wander up and down your house with our arms round each other’s waists, or that Sandra Compline will invite Hart to have another cut at her face? You’re not a fool, Jo.”

“I had hoped for your co-operation,” said Jonathan wistfully.

“Mine!”

“Well, darling, to a certain extent I’ve had it. You made a marvellous recovery from your own encounter with Madame Lisse, and you tell me you’ve persuaded Sandra to stay.”

“Only because I felt it was better for her to face it.”

“Don’t you think it may be better for all of us to face our secret bogey-man? Hersey, I’ve collected a group of people each one of whom is in a great or small degree hag-ridden by a fear. Even Aubrey Mandrake has his little bogey-man.”

“The poetic dramatist? What have you nosed out from his past?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“No,” said Hersey, turning pink.

“You are sitting beside him at dinner. Say in these exact words that you understand he has given up footling, and see what sort of response you get.”

“Why should I use this loathsome phrase to Mr. Mandrake?”

“Why, simply because, although you won’t admit it, darling, you have your share of the family failing — curiosity.”

“I don’t admit it. And I won’t do it.”

Jonathan chuckled. “It is an amusing notion. I shall make the same suggestion to Nicholas. I believe it would appeal to him. To return to our cast of characters: Each of them— Sandra Compline to an extreme degree — has pushed his or her fear into a cupboard. Chloris is afraid of her old attraction to Nicholas, William is afraid of Nicholas’ fascination for Chloris and for his mother, Hart is afraid of Nicholas’ fascination for Madame Lisse, Sandra is afraid of a terrible incident in her past, Madame Lisse, though I must say she does not reveal her fear, is perhaps a little afraid of both Hart and Nicholas. You, my dearest, fear the future. If Nicholas has a fear it is that he may lose prestige, and that is a terrible fear.”

“And you, Jo?”

“I am the compère. Part of my business is to unlock the cupboards and show the fears to be less terrible in the light of day.”

“And you have no bogey-man of your own?”

“Oh, yes, I have,” said Jonathan, and the light gleamed on his spectacles. “His name is Boredom.”

“And therein am I answered,” said Hersey.