Death And The Dancing Footman

Chapter VI Flight

The afternoon was remarkable for an increasing heaviness in the snow-fall, the state of Mandrake’s feelings, and the behaviour of William Compline. Snow mounted from the window-sill in a tapering shroud, light diminished stealthily in Mandrake’s bedroom while he felt too relaxed and too idle to stretch out his hand to the bedside lamp. Yet though his body was fatigued, his brain was active and concerned itself briskly with the problem of his immersion and with speculations on the subject of Chloris Wynne’s strange relations with the Compline brothers. He was convinced that she was not in love with William but less sure that she did not still hanker after Nicholas. Mandrake wondered testily how a young woman who did not try the eyes, and was by no means a ninny, could possibly degrade her intelligence by falling for the brummagem charms of Nicholas Compline. “A popinjay,” he muttered, “a stock figure of dubious gallantry.” And he pronounced the noise usually associated with the word “Pshaw.” He had arrived at this point when he received a visit from William and Lady Hersey.

“We hear you’re better,” Hersey said. “Everybody’s being quite frightful downstairs and William and I thought we’d like a little first-hand information, so we’ve come to call. They’re all saying you think somebody tried to drown you. William’s afraid you might suspect him, so I’ve brought him up to come clean.”

“Do you suspect me?” asked William anxiously. “Because I didn’t, you know.”

“I don’t in the least suspect you. Why should I? We’ve had no difference in opinion.”

“Well, they seem to think I might have mistaken you for Nicholas.”

“Who suspects this?”

“My mama, principally. Because I stuck to the bet, you see. So I thought I’d like to explain that when I got there you were already in the pool.”

“Was Hart there?”

“No. No, he turned up a minute or so later.”

“Did you notice the footprints on the terrace steps?”

“Yes, rather,” said William, unexpectedly. “They were your footsteps. I noticed them because one was bigger than the other.”

“William!” Hersey murmured.

“Well, Hersey, he’d know about that, wouldn’t he? And then, you know, Chloris and Jonathan arrived.”

“Perhaps you’d like my alibi, Mr. Mandrake,” said Hersey. “It’s not an alibi at all, I’m afraid. I sat in the smoking-room and listened to the wireless. The first intimation I had about your adventure was provided by Jonathan who came in shouting for restoratives. I could tell you about the wireless programme, I think.”

Hersey went to the window and looked out. When she spoke again her voice fell oddly on the silence of the room. “It’s snowing like mad,” she said. “Has it struck either of you that in all probability, whether we like it or not, we are shut up together in this house with no chance of escape?”

“Dr. Hart wanted to go after lunch,” William said. “I heard him say so to Jonathan. But Jonathan said they’ve had word that you can’t get over Cloudyfold, and anyway there’s a drift inside the front gates. Jonathan seemed pleased about that.”

“He would be.” Hersey turned and rested her hands behind her on the sill. Her figure appeared almost black against the hurried silence of the storm beyond the window. “Mr. Mandrake,” she said, “you know my cousin quite well, don’t you?”

“I’ve known him for five years.”

“But that doesn’t say you know him well,” she said quickly. “You arrived before all of us. He was up to something, wasn’t he? No, that’s not a fair question. You needn’t answer. I know he was up to something. But whatever his scheme was, it didn’t involve you unless — Yes, William, that must be it, of course: Mr. Mandrake was to be the audience.”

“I don’t like performing for Jonathan,” William said. “I never have.”

“Nor do I, and what’s more I won’t. The Pirate can register fatal woman in heaps all over the house, but she won’t get a rise out of me.”

“I suppose I have performed, Hersey. Chloris and I broke off our engagement before lunch.”

“I thought something had happened. Why?”

William hunched his shoulders and drove his hands into his trousers’ pockets. “She ticked me off about the bet,” he said, “and I ticked her off about Nicholas, so what have you?”

“Well, William my dear, I’m sorry; but honestly, is she quite your cup of tea?” Hersey confronted Mandrake. “What do you think?” she demanded abruptly. He was not very much taken aback. For some reason that he had never been able to understand, Mandrake was a man in whom his fellow-creatures confided. He was by no means obviously sympathetic and he seldom asked for confidences but, perhaps because of these very omissions, they came his way. Sometimes he wondered if his lameness had something to do with it. People were inclined to regard a lame man as an isolated being, set apart by his disability as a priest is set apart by his profession. He usually enjoyed hearing strange confessions and was surprised therefore at discovering in himself a reluctance to receive William’s explanations of his quarrel with Chloris Wynne. He was profoundly glad that the engagement was broken and quite determined to make no suggestions about mending it.

“You must remember,” he said, “that we met for the first time last night.”

Hersey fixed him with a bright blue eye. “How guarded!” she said. “William, I believe Mr. Mandrake has—”

“Since we are being so frank,” Mandrake interrupted in a great hurry, “I should like to know whether you believe somebody pushed me into that loathsome pond, and if so, who.”

“Nick says it was Hart,” said Hersey. “He’s gone and thrown his mother into a fever by telling her Hart has tried to drown him. He’s behaving like a peevish child.”

“Mightn’t you have been blown in?” William asked vaguely.

“Does a gust of wind hit you so hard on the shoulder-blades that you can feel the bruises afterwards? Damn it, I know. They’re my shoulder-blades.”

“So they are,” Hersey agreed, “and I for one think it was Dr. Hart. After all, we know he was gibbering with rage at Nicholas, and it seems he saw Nicholas go down wearing a cape. I don’t suppose he meant to drown him. He simply couldn’t resist the temptation. I rather sympathize. Nicholas has bounded like a tennis ball, I consider, from the time he got here.”

“But Hart must have known Nick couldn’t swim,” said William. “He kept explaining that was why he wouldn’t go in at the deep end.”

“True. Well, perhaps he meant to drown him.”

“What does Madame Lisse say about it?” Mandrake asked.

“The Pirate?” Hersey helped herself to a cigarette. “My dear Mr. Mandrake, she doesn’t say anything about it. She dressed herself up in what I happen to know is a Chanel model at fifty guineas, and came down for lunch looking like an orchid at a church bazaar. Nicholas and William and Dr. Hart curvet and goggle whenever they look at her.”

“Well, you know, Hersey, she is rather exciting,” said William.

“Does Jonathan goggle?”

“No,” said Hersey. “He looks at her as he looks at all the rest of us — speculatively, from behind those damned glasses.”

“I’ve always wanted,” William observed, “to see a really good specimen of the femme fatale.” Hersey snorted and then said immediately: “Oh, I grant you her looks. She’s got a marvellous skin; thick and close, you can’t beat ’em.”

“And then there’s her figure, of course.”

“Yes, William, yes. I suppose you and your girl didn’t by any chance quarrel over the Pirate?”

“Oh, no. Chloris isn’t jealous. Not of me, at any rate. It is I,” said William, “who am jealous. Of course you know, don’t you, that Chloris broke her engagement to Nick because of Madame Lisse?”

“Is Madame at all in love with your brother, do you suppose?” Mandrake asked.

“I don’t know,” said William, “but I think Chloris is.”

“Rot!” said Hersey. Mandrake suddenly felt abysmally depressed. William walked to the fireplace and stood with his back to them and his head bent. He stirred the fire rather violently with his heel, and through the splutter and rattle of coals they heard his voice.

“… I think I’m glad. It’s always been the same… You know, Hersey: second-best. For a little while I diddled myself into thinking I’d cut him out. I thought I’d show them. My mother knew. At first she was furious but pretty soon she saw it was me that was the mug as usual. My mother thinks it’s all as it should be, Nick having strings of lovely ladies falling for him—le roi s’amuse sort of idea. By God!” said William with sudden violence, “it’s not such fun having a brother like Nick. By God, I wish Hart had shoved him in the pond.”

“William, don’t.”

“Why not? Why shouldn’t I say for once what I think of my lovely little brother? D’you suppose I’d blame Hart, if he was after Nicholas? Not I. If I’d thought of it myself, be damned if I wouldn’t have done it.”

“Stop!” Hersey cried out. “Stop! Something appalling is happening to all of us. We’re saying things we’ll regret for the rest of our lives.”

“We’re merely speaking the truth.”

“It’s the sort that shouldn’t be spoken. It’s a beastly lopsided exaggerated truth. We’re behaving like a collection of neurotic freaks.” Hersey moved to the window. “Look at the snow,” she said, “it’s heavier than ever. There’s a load on the trees; they’re beginning to droop their branches. It’s creeping up the sides of the house, and up the window-panes. Soon you’ll hardly be able to see out of your window, Mr. Mandrake. What are we going to do, shut up in the house together, hating each other? What are we going to do?”

At half-past four that afternoon, Nicholas Compline suddenly announced in a high voice that he must get back to his headquarters at Great Chipping. He sought out Jonathan and, with small regard for plausibility, informed him that he had received an urgent summons by telephone.

“Strange!” said Jonathan, smiling. “Caper tells me that the telephone is out of commission. The lines are down.”

“The order came through some time ago.”

“I’m afraid you can’t go, Nick. There’s a six-foot drift in Deep Bottom at the end of the drive, and it’ll be worse up on Cloudyfold.”

“I can walk over Cloudyfold to Chipping and get a car there.”

“Twelve miles!”

“I can’t help that,” said Nicholas loudly.

“You’ll never do it, Nick. It’ll be dark in an hour. I can’t allow you to try. It’s a soft fall. Perhaps tomorrow, if there’s a frost during the night—”

“I’m going, Jonathan. You used to have a pair of Canadian show-shoes, usen’t you? May I borrow them? Do you know where they are?”

“I gave them away years ago,” said Jonathan blandly.

“Well, I’m going.”

Jonathan hurried up to Mandrake’s room with his piece of news. Mandrake had dressed and was sitting by his fire. He still felt extremely shaky and bemused and stared owlishly at Jonathan, who plunged straight into his story.

“He’s quite determined, Aubrey. Perhaps I had better remember that after all I didn’t give away the snow-shoes. And yet, even with snow-shoes he will certainly lose his way in the dark or smother in a drift. Isn’t it too tiresome?” Jonathan seemed to be more genuinely upset by this turn of events than by anything else that had happened since his party assembled.

“It will ruin everything,” he muttered, and when Mandrake asked him if he meant that the death of Nicholas Compline from exposure would ruin everything, he replied testily: “No, no, his departure. The central figure! The whole action centres round him. I couldn’t be more disappointed.”

“Honestly, Jonathan, I begin to think you are suffering from some terrible form of insanity. The idée fixe. People may drown in your ornamental waters or perish in your snow-drifts, and all you can think of is your hell-inspired party.” Jonathan hastened to protest but in a moment or two he was looking wistfully out of the window and declaring that surely even Nicholas could not be so great a fool as to attempt the walk over Cloudyfold in such a storm. As if in answer to this speech there came a tap on the door and Nicholas himself walked in. He wore his heavy khaki waterproof and carried his cap. He was rather white about the mouth.

“I’m off, Jonathan,” he said.

“Nick, my dear fellow — I implore—”

“Orders is orders. There’s a war on. Will you let me leave my luggage? I’ll collect the car as soon as possible.”

“Do I understand,” said Mandrake, “that you are walking over Cloudyfold?”

“Needs must.”

“Nick, have you considered your mother?”

“I’m not telling my mother I’m going. She’s resting. I’ll leave a note for her. Good-bye, Mandrake. I’m sorry you had the role of my stand-in forced upon you. If it’s any satisfaction you may be quite certain that in a very short space of time I shall be just as wet and possibly a good deal colder than you were.”

“If you persist, I shall come as far as Deep Bottom with you,” said Jonathan, wretchedly. “We’ll have some of the men with shovels, and so on.”

“Please don’t bother, Jonathan. Your men can hardly shovel a path all the way over Cloudyfold.”

“Now listen to me,” said Jonathan. “I’ve talked to my bailiff who came in just now, and he tells me that what you propose is out of the question. I told him you were determined, and he’s sending two of our men—”

“I’m sorry, Jonathan. I’ve made up my mind. I’m off. Don’t come down. Good-bye.”

But before Nicholas got to the door, it burst open and William, scarlet in the face, strode in and confronted his brother.

“What the hell’s this nonsense I hear about you going?” he demanded.

“I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’m going. I’ve got orders to report at—”

“Orders my foot! You’ve got the wind up and you’re doing a bolt. You’re so damn’ frightened, you’d rather die in a snow-drift than face the music here. You’re not going.”

“Unusual solicitude!” Nicholas said, and the lines from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth deepened.

“Don’t imagine I care what happens to you,” said William, and his voice broke into a higher key. He used the clumsy vehement gestures of a man who, unaccustomed to violence of speech or action, suddenly finds himself consumed with rage. He presented a painful and embarrassing spectacle. “You could drown yourself and welcome, if it weren’t for Mother. D’you want to kill her? You’ll stay here and behave yourself, my bloody little Lothario.”

“Oh, shut up, you fool,” said Nicholas and made for the door.

“No you don’t!” William said, and lurched forward. His brother’s elbow caught him a jolt in the chest and the next moment Nicholas had gone.

“William!” said Jonathan sharply. “Stay where you are.”

“If anything happens to him, who do you suppose she’ll blame for it? For the rest of her life his damned dead sneer will tell her that but for me… He’s not going.”

“You can’t stop him, you know,” said Mandrake.

“Can’t I! Jonathan, please stand aside.”

“Just a moment, William.” Jonathan’s voice had taken an unaccustomed edge. He stood, an unheroic but somehow rather menacing figure, with his plump fingers on the door-knob and his back against the door. “I cannot have you fighting with your brother up and down my house. He is determined to go and you can’t stop him. I am following him to the first drift in the drive. I am quite convinced that he will not get through it and I do not propose to let him come to any grief. I shall take a couple of men with me. If you can behave yourself you had better accompany us.” Jonathan touched his spectacles delicately with his left hand. “Depend upon it,” he said, “your brother will not leave Highfold to-night.”

Mandrake’s bedroom windows overlooked the last sweep of the drive as it passed the east wing of Highfold and turned into the wide sweep in front of the house. Through the white-leopard mottling on his window-pane he saw Nicholas Compline, head down, trudge heavily through the snow and out of sight. A few moments later, Jonathan and William appeared, followed at some distance by two men carrying long-handled shovels. “Nicholas must have delayed a little, after he left here,” Mandrake thought. “Why? To say good-bye to Madame Lisse? Or to Chloris?” And at the thought of a final interview between Nicholas and Chloris Wynne he experienced an unaccustomed and detestable sensation, as if his heart sank with horrid speed into some unfathomable limbo. He looked after the trudging figures until they passed beyond the range of his window, and then suddenly decided that he could no longer endure his own company but would go downstairs in search of Chloris Wynne.

“The difference,” Jonathan observed, “between a walk in an ordinary storm and a walk in a snow-storm is the difference between unpleasant noise and even more unpleasant silence. One can hear nothing but the squeak of snow under one’s feet. I’m glad you decided to come, William.”

“It’s not for love of dear little Nicholas, I promise you,” William muttered.

“Well, well, well,” said Jonathan equitably.

They plodded on, walking in Nicholas’ steps. Presently Highfold Wood enclosed them in a strange twilight where shadow was made negative by reflected whiteness and where the stems of trees seemed comfortless and forgotten in their naked blackness. Here there was less snow and they mended their pace, following the drive on its twisting course downhill. At first they passed between tall banks and heard the multiple voices of tiny runnels of water, then they came out into open spaces where the snow lay thick over Jonathan’s park. It stretched away before their eyes in curves of unbroken pallor and William muttered: “White, grey, and black. I don’t think I could paint it.” When they entered the lower wood, still going downhill, they saw Nicholas, not far ahead, and Jonathan called to him a shrill “Hello!”that set up an echo among the frozen trees. Nicholas turned and stood motionless, waiting for them to overtake him. With that air of self-consciousness inseparable from such approaches, they made their way towards him, the two farm-hands still some distance behind.

“My dear Nick,” Jonathan panted, “you should have waited a little. I told you I’d see you as far as the first obstacle. See here, I’ve brought two of the men. They know more about the state of affairs than I do. My head shepherd and his brother. You remember James and Thomas Bewling?”

“Yes, of course,” said Nicholas. “Sorry you’ve both been dragged out on my account.”

“If there is a way through Deep Bottom,” said Jonathan, “the Bewlmgs will find it for you. Eh, Thomas?”

The older of the two men touched his cap and moved nearer. “I do believe, sir,” he said, “that without us goes at it hammer and tongs with these yurr shovels for an hour or so, they bain’t no way over Deep Bottom.”

“There, you see, Nick, and in an hour or so it’ll be dark.”

“At least I can try,” said Nicholas stiffly.

Jonathan looked helplessly at William, who was watching his brother through half-closed eyes. “Well,” said Jonathan on a sudden spurt of temper, “it’s beginning to snow quite abominably hard. Shall we go on?”

“Look here,” William said, “you go back, Jonathan. I don’t see why you should be in this. Nor you two Bewlings. Give me your shovel, Thomas.”

“I’ve said I’ll go alone, and I’m perfectly ready to do so,” said Nicholas sulkily.

“Oh, damn!” said Jonathan. “Come on.”

As they moved off downhill, the snow began to fall even more heavily.

Deep Bottom was at the foot of a considerable slope beyond the wood and was really a miniature ravine, extending for some two miles inside Jonathan’s demesnes. It was crossed by the avenue which dipped and rose sharply to flatten out on the far side with a level stretch of some two hundred yards, ending at the entrance gates. As they approached it the north wind, from which they had hitherto been protected, drove full in their faces with a flurry of snow.

Thomas Bewling began a long roaring explanation: “She comes down yurr proper blustracious like, sir. What with being druv be the wind and what with being piled up be the natural forces of gravitation, like, she slips and she slides in this-yurr bottom till she’s so thick as you’d be surprised to see. Look thurr, sir. You’d tell me there was nothing but a little tiddly bit of a slant down’ill, but contrariwise. She’s deceptive. She’s a-laying out so smooth and sleek enough to trap you into trying ’er, but she’s deep enough and soft enough to smother the lot on us. You won’t get round her and you won’t make t’other side, Mr. Nicholas, as well you ought to know being bred to these parts.”

Nicholas looked from one to another of the four faces and without a word turned and walked on. Half a dozen strides brought him up to his knees in snow. He uttered a curious inarticulate cry and plunged forward. The next second he was floundering in a drift, spread-eagled and half-buried.

“And over he goes,” William observed, mildly. “Come on.”

He and the two Bewlings joined hands and by dint of extending the shovel handle brought Nicholas out of his predicament. He had fallen face first into the drift and presented a ridiculous figure. His fine moustache was clotted with snow, his cap was askew, and his nose was running.

“Quite the little snow-man,” said William. “Ups-a-daisy.”

Nicholas wiped his face with his gloved hands. It was blotched with cold. His lips seemed stiff and he rubbed them before he spoke.

“Very well,” Nicholas whispered at last. “I give up. I’ll come back. But, by God, I tell you both I’d have been safer crossing Cloudyfold in the dark than spending another night at Highfold.”

“Francis,” said Madame Lisse, “we may not be alone together again this evening. I cannot endure this ridiculous and uncomfortable state of affairs any longer. Why do Nicholas and William Compline and the Wynne girl all avoid you? Why, when I speak of Mr. Mandrake’s accident, do they look at their feet and mumble of other things? Where have they all gone? I have sat by this fire enduring the conversation of Mrs. Compline and the compliments of our host until I am ready to scream, but even that ordeal was preferable to suffering your extraordinary gloom. Where is Nicholas Compline?”

Dr. Hart stood inside the “boudoir” door, which he had closed behind him. In his face was reflected the twilight of the snowbound world outside. This strange half-light revealed a slight tic in his upper lip, a tic that suggested an independent life in one of the small muscles of his face. It was as if a moth fluttered under his skin. He raised his hand and pressed a finger on his lip and over the top of his hand he looked at Madame Lisse.

“Why do you not answer me? Where is Nicholas?”

“Gone.”

“Gone? Where?”

Without shifting his gaze from her face, Hart made a movement with his head as much as to say: “Out there.” Madame Lisse stirred uneasily. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “Come here, Francis.”

He came and stood before her with his hands clasped over his waistcoat and his head inclined forward attentively. There was nothing in his pose to suggest anger but she moved back in her chair almost as if she were afraid he would strike her.

“Ever since we came here,” said Hart, “he has taken pains to insult me by his attentions to you. Your heads together, secret jokes, and then a glance at me to make sure I have not missed it. Last night after dinner he deliberately baited me. Well, now he is gone, and immediately I enter the room, you, YOU, ask for him.”

“Must there be another of these scenes? Can you not understand that Nicholas is simply a type? It is as natural to him to pay these little attentions as it is for him to draw breath.”

“And as natural for you to receive them? Well, you will not receive them again perhaps.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look out there. It has been snowing all day. In a little while it will be dark and your friend will be on those hills we crossed yesterday. Do not try to seem unconcerned. Your lips are shaking.”

“Why has he gone?”

“He is afraid.”

“Francis,” cried Madame Lisse, “what have you done? Have you threatened him? I see that you have and that they all know. This is why they are avoiding us. You fool, Francis. When these people go away from here they will lunch and dine on this story. You will be a figure of fun and what woman will choose to have a pantaloon with a violent temper to operate on her face? And my name, mine, will be linked with yours. The Amblington woman will see to it that I look as ridiculous as you.”

“Do you love this Compline?”

“I have grown very tired of telling you I do not.”

“And I am tired of hearing your lies. His behaviour is an admission.”

“What has he done? What are you trying to suggest?”

“He mistook Mandrake for me. He tried to drown me.”

“What nonsense is this! I have heard the account of the accident. Nicholas saw Mr. Mandrake through the pavilion window and recognized him. Nicholas told me that he recognized Mandrake and that Mandrake himself realizes that he was recognized.”

“Then you have seen Compline. When did you see him?”

“Soon after the affair at the swimming-pool.”

“You did not appear until nearly lunch-time. He came to your room. You had forbidden me and you received him. Is that true? Is it?”

“Cannot you see—” Madame Lisse began, but he silenced her with a vehement gesture and, stooping until his face was close to hers, began to arraign her in a sort of falsetto whisper. She leant away from him, pressing her shoulders and head into the back of her chair. The movement suggested distaste rather than fear, and all the time that he was speaking her eyes looked over his shoulder from the door to the windows. Once she raised her hand as if to silence him but he seized her wrist and held it, and she said nothing.

“… you said I should see for myself, and lieber Gott have I not seen? I have seen enough and I tell you this. He was wise to go when he did. Another night and day of his insolence would have broken my endurance. It is well for him that he has gone.”

He was staring into her face and saw her eyes widen. He still had her by the wrist but with her free hand she pointed to the window. He turned and looked out.

He was in time to see Jonathan Royal and William Compline trudge past laboriously in the snow. And three yards behind them, sullen and bedraggled, trailed Nicholas Compline.

Hersey Amblington, Mrs. Compline, Chloris Wynne and Aubrey Mandrake were in the library. They knew that Dr. Hart and Madame Lisse were in the “boudoir,” separated from them by the small smoking-room. They knew, too, that Jonathan and William had gone with Nicholas on the first stage of his preposterous journey. Hersey was anxious to have a private talk with Sandra Compline, Mandrake was anxious to have a private talk with Chloris Wynne; but neither Mandrake nor Hersey could summon up the initiative to make a move. A pall of inertia hung over them all and they spoke, with an embarrassing lack of conviction, about Nicholas’ summons to his headquarters in Great Chipping. Mrs. Compline was in obvious distress and Hersey kept assuring her that if the road was unsafe Jonathan would bring Nicholas back.

“Jonathan shouldn’t have let him go, Hersey. It was very naughty of him. I’m extremely displeased with William for letting Nicholas go. He should never have allowed it.”

“William did his best to dissuade him,” said Mandrake drily.

“He should have come and told me, Mr. Mandrake. He should have used his authority. He is the elder of my sons.” She turned to Hersey. “It’s always been the same. I’ve always said that Nicholas should have been the elder.”

“I don’t agree,” said Chloris quickly.

“No,” Mrs. Compline said. “I did not suppose you would.” And Mandrake, who had thought that Mrs. Compline’s face could express nothing but its own distortion, felt a thrill of alarm when he saw her look at Chloris.

“I speak without prejudice,” said Chloris, and two spots of colour started up in her cheeks. “William and I have broken off our engagement.”

For a moment there was silence and Mandrake saw that Mrs. Compline had forgotten his existence. She continued to stare at Chloris and a shadow of a smile, painful and acrid, tugged at her distorted mouth. “I am afraid you are too late,” she said.

“I don’t understand.”

“My son Nicholas—”

“This has nothing whatever to do with Nicholas.”

“Hersey,” Mrs. Compline said, “I am terribly worried about Nicholas. Surely Jonathan will bring him back. How long have they been gone?”

“It has nothing whatever to do with Nicholas,” Chloris said loudly.

Mrs. Compline stood up. “Hersey, I simply cannot sit here any longer. I’m going to see if they’re coming.”

“You can’t, Sandra. It’s snowing harder than ever. There’s no need to worry, they’re all together.”

“I’m going out on the drive. I haven’t stirred from the house all day. I’m stifled.”

Hersey threw up her hands and said: “All right. I’ll come with you. I’ll get our coats. Wait for me, darling.”

“I’ll wait in the hall. Thank you, Hersey.”

When they had gone, Mandrake said to Chloris: “For God’s sake, let’s go next door and listen to the news. After this party, the war will come as a mild and pleasurable change.”

They moved into the smoking-room. Mrs. Compline crossed the hall and entered the drawing-room, where she stood peering through the windows for her son, Nicholas. Hersey Amblington went upstairs. First she got her own raincoat and then she went to Mrs. Compline’s room to fetch hers. She opened the wardrobe doors and stretched out her hand to a heavy tweed coat. For a moment she stood stock-still, her fingers touching the shoulders of the coat.

It was soaking wet.

And through her head ran the echo of Sandra Compline’s voice: “I haven’t stirred from the house all day.”

In the days that followed that week-end Mandrake was to trace interminably the sequence of events that in retrospect seemed to point so unmistakably towards the terrible conclusion. He was to decide that not the least extraordinary of these events had been his own attitude towards Chloris Wynne. Chloris was not Mandrake’s type. If, in the midst of threats, mysteries, and mounting terrors, he had to embark upon some form of dalliance, it should surely have been with Madame Lisse. Madame was the sort of woman to whom Aubrey Mandrake almost automatically paid attention. She was dark, sophisticated, and — his own expression— immeasurably soignée. She was exactly Aubrey Mandrake’s cup of tea. Chloris was not. Aubrey Mandrake was invariably bored by pert blonds. But — and here lay the reason for his curious behaviour — Stanley Footling adored them. At the sight of Chloris’ shining honey-coloured loops of hair and impertinent blue eyes, the old Footling was roused in Mandrake. Bloomsbury died in him and Dulwich stirred ingenuously. He was only too well aware that in himself was being enacted a threadbare theme, a kind of burlesque, hopelessly out of date, on Jekyll and Hyde. It had happened before but never with such violence, and he told himself that there must be something extra special in Chloris so to rouse the offending Footling that Mandrake scarcely resented the experience.

He followed her into the smoking-room and tuned in the wireless to the war news which, in those now almost forgotten days, largely consisted of a series of French assurances that there was nothing to report. Chloris and Mandrake listened for a little while and then he switched off the radio, leant forward, and kissed her.

“Ah!” said Chloris. “The indoor sport idea, I see.”

“Are you in love with Nicholas Compline?”

“I might say: ‘What the hell’s that got to do with you?’ ”

“Abstract curiosity.”

“With rather un-abstract accompaniments.”.

“When I first saw you I thought you were a little nit-wit.”

Chloris knelt on the hearthrug and poked the fire. “So I am,” she said, “when it comes to your sort of language. I’m quite smartish but I’m not at all clever. I put up a bluff but you’d despise me no end if you knew me better.”

She smiled at him. He felt his mouth go dry and with a sensation of blank panic he heard his own voice, distorted by embarrassment, utter the terrible phrase.

“My real name,” said Mandrake, “is Stanley Footling.”

“Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry,” said Chloris. He knew that for a moment, when she recovered from her astonishment, she had nearly laughed.

“STAN-LEY FOOT-LING,” he repeated, separating the destestable syllables as if each was an offence against decency.

“Sickening for you. But after all you’ve changed it, haven’t you?”

“I’ve never told anyone else. In a squalid sort of way it’s a compliment.”

“Thank you. But lots of people must know, all the same.”

“No. All my friendships occurred after I changed it. I got a hideous fright last night at dinner.”

Chloris looked up quickly. “Why, I remember! I noticed. You went all sort of haywire for a moment. It was something Nicholas said, something about—”

“My having given up footling.”

“Oh Lord!” said Chloris.

“Go on — laugh. It’s screamingly funny, isn’t it?”

“Well, it is rather funny,” Chloris agreed. “But it’s easily seen that you don’t get much of a laugh out of it. I can’t quite understand why. There are plenty of names just as funny as Footling.”

“I’ll tell you why. I can’t brazen it out because it’s got no background. If we were the Footlings of Fifeshire, or even the Footlings of Furniture Polish, I might stomach it. I’m a miserable snob. Even as I speak to you I’m horrified to hear how I give myself away by the very content of what I’m saying. I’m committing the only really unforgivable offence. I’m being embarrassing.”

“It seems to me you’ve merely gone Edwardian. You’re all out of focus. You say you’re a snob. All right. So are we all in our degree, they say.”

“But don’t you see it’s the degree I’m so ashamed of. Intellectual snob I may be; I don’t care if I am. But to develop a really bad social inferiority complex — it’s so degrading.”

“It seems a bit silly, certainly. And anyway I don’t see, accepting your snobbery, what you’ve got to worry about. If it’s smartness you’re after, isn’t it smart to be obscure nowadays? Look at the prizefighters. Everybody’s bosoms with them.”

“That’s from your point of view. De haut en bas. I want to be the haut, not the bas,” Mandrake mumbled.

“Well, intellectually you are.” Chloris shifted her position and faced him squarely, looking up, her pale hair taking a richness from the fire. “I say,” she said, “Mr. Royal knows all about it, doesn’t he? About your name?”

“No. Why?”

“Well, I thought last night…I mean after Nicholas dropped that brick, I sort of felt there was something funny and I noticed that he and Lady Hersey and Mr. Royal looked at each other.”

“By God, he put them up to it! I wondered at the time. By God, if he did that I’ll pay him for it!”

“For the love of Heaven, why did I go and say that? I thought you and I were going to remain moderately normal. Nobody else is. Do snap out of being all Freudian over Footling. Who cares if you’re called Footling? And anyway I must say I think ‘Aubrey Mandrake’ is a bit thick. Let’s talk about something else.”

The invitation was not immediately accepted, and in the silence that followed they heard Hersey Amblington come downstairs into the hall and call Mrs. Compline —

“Sandra! Where are you? Sandra!” They heard an answering voice and in a moment or two the front doors slammed.

Mandrake limped about the room inwardly cursing Jonathan Royal, Chloris Wynne, and himself. Most of all, himself. Why had he given himself away to this girl who did not even trouble to simulate sympathy, who did not find even so much as a pleasing tang of irony in his absurd story, who felt merely a vague and passing interest, a faint insensitive amusement? He realized abruptly that it was because she made so little of it that he wanted to tell her. An attitude of sympathetic understanding would have aggravated his own morbid speculations. She had made little of his ridiculous obsession, and for the first time in his life, quite suddenly, he saw it as a needless emotional extravaganza.

“You’re perfectly right, of course,” he said. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“You needn’t think I’ll shrink from you on account of your name, and I won’t tell anyone else.”

“Not even Nicholas Compline?”

“Certainly not Nicholas Compline. At the moment I never want to see a Compline again. You needn’t think you’re the only one to feel sick at yourself. What about me and the Complines? Getting engaged to William on the rebound from Nicholas.”

“And continuing to fall for Nicholas’ line of stuff?”

“Yes. All right! I’ll admit it. Up to an hour ago I knew Nicholas was faithless, horrid-idle, a philanderer, a he-flirt— all those things, and not many brains into the bargain. But as you say, I fell for his line of stuff. Why? I don’t know. Haven’t you ever fallen for a little bit of stuff? Of course you have. But when we do it, you hold up your hands and marvel.”

Through Mandrake’s mind floated the thought that not so long ago he had considered himself in much the same light in relation to Chloris. He began to feel ashamed of himself.

“What does attract one to somebody like Nicholas?” Chloris continued. “I don’t know. He’s got ‘It,’ as they say. Something in his physical make-up. And yet I’ve often gone all prickly and irritated over his physical tricks. He does silly things with his hands and he’s got a tiresome laugh. His idea of what’s funny is too drearily all on one subject. He’s a bit of a cat, too, and bone from the eyes up if you try to talk about anything that’s not quite in his language. And yet one more or less went through one’s paces for him; played up to his barn-door antics. Why?”

“Until an hour ago, you said.”

“Yes. I met him in the hall when he was going. He was in a blue funk. That tore it. I suppose the barndoor hero loses his grip when he loses his nerve. Anyway, I’m cured of Nicholas.”

“Good.”

“You know, I’m quite certain that Dr. Hart did think you were Nicholas and shoved you in the pond. I think Nicholas was right about that. We ought to be making no end of a hullabaloo, staying in the same house with a would-be murderer, and all we do is let down our back hair and talk about our own complexes. I suppose it’ll be like that in the air raids.”

“Nicholas was making a hullabaloo, anyway.”

“Yes, I’m afraid he’s a complete coward. If he’d brazened it out and stayed I daresay I shouldn’t have been cured, but he scuttled away and that wrecked it. I wonder if the Lisse feels the same.”

“Poor Nicholas,” said Mandrake. “But I’m glad he didn’t stay.”

“WHAT’S THAT?”

Chloris scrambled to her feet. She and Mandrake stood stock-still gaping at each other. The hall was noisy with voices, Mrs. Compline scolding, Jonathan explaining, Hersey Amblington asking questions. It went on for some seconds and then Mandrake limped to the door and threw it open.

Outside in the hall was a group of five: Jonathan, Mrs. Compline, Hersey, William, and, standing apart, bedraggled, patched with snow, white-faced and furtive, Nicholas. Mandrake turned and stared at Chloris.

“So now, what?” he asked.