Wicked Uncle

Chapter XXIX

The evening which ensued was a curious one. If the house party had seemed strangely incompatible whilst still held together by the rich and genial personality of Gregory Porlock, there were, now that he was dead, no longer any points of contact between its various members. If the original bond had been fear, it had been camouflaged by all that social sense could suggest. To vary the metaphor-if the current ran cold below, there had been a certain glitter on the surface. There was now nothing but a collection of frightened and uncomfortable people constrained to one another’s company and dreadfully conscious that the shadow which lay across them was to deepen before it lifted, and that for one of them it would most probably never lift at all.

A little, as it were, on the edge of all this gloom, Justin could approve the manner in which Dorinda played a new and difficult part. She was the hostess, but there should be no stressing of the fact. She carried it quietly and simply-a young girl called to take some older person’s place. She showed a charming consideration to Miss Masterman, with her dark, drawn face, and to Mrs. Tote, more like a mouse than ever-a very unhappy mouse which had been crying its eyes out.

Miss Masterman had no response to make. She was now entirely given up to waiting for a reply to the letter which she had sent. All her intelligence, all her emotions, her whole consciousness, waited ardently for the moment when she would be free from the burden which she had carried for these intolerable months. Alone amongst those present she was not primarily concerned with Gregory Porlock and the manner of his death. There was not really room in her mind for anything except the release for which she waited.

Miss Silver was probably the only person who enjoyed her dinner. She appreciated good food, and even a murder in the house could not obscure the superlative excellence of Mrs. Rodger’s cooking. When they adjourned to the drawing-room she produced her knitting. The pale pink infant’s vest now approaching completion awoke a faint spark of interest in Mrs. Tote. Before she knew where she was she was telling this comfortingly dowdy little person all about Allie and Allie’s baby, and how she hoped there would be another. “Not too soon, because I don’t hold with that, but it doesn’t do to put off too long either, because if it comes to years between like you get nowadays, where’s the company for the children? Every one of them’s an only child, as you may say, and when all’s said and done, what a child wants is company, and not a lot of grownups keeping it on the strain. A child wants other children to tumble about with and fight and make up with. I only had the one myself-at least only the one that lived, but I know what children ought to have.”

Miss Silver agreeing, they became quite cozy over a knitting-stitch.

Miss Masterman took up the paper. She did not read it, but if you hold up a newspaper, people leave you alone, and all she wanted was to be left alone.

Moira Lane turned from the fire, looked for a moment at Dorinda, and said,

“Come and talk to me.” Then she laughed. “For God’s sake let’s be human! I don’t think you did it, and I hope you don’t think I did, but if you do you might as well say so. Let’s get into the other settee and stop being polite and inhibited. Who do you think did do it? I don’t mind saying, whoever the murderer was, he did an uncommonly good job. Greg was poison. If he’s your uncle, you probably know as much about that as I do.”

Dorinda looked into the blue dancing eyes. The dance was a defiant one. She thought about Morgiana dancing in front of the Captain of the Forty Thieves and plunging a dagger up to the hilt in his breast. A feeling of horror came over her. It showed in her voice as she said,

“Not my uncle-my aunt’s husband.”

Moira’s laugh rang out.

“Who cares what he was? He was poison! And you’re just choked up with inhibitions. You’d be a lot more comfortable without them. What were you thinking about just now when you looked as if you’d caught me red-handed?”

Something gave way. Dorinda said,

“Morgiana and the Captain of the Forty Thieves-out of the Arabian Nights, where she stabs him.”

Moira was lighting a cigarette. Her hand was as steady as a rock. The flame of the match caught the paper and crept in along the brown shreds of tobacco. She threw the match into the fire and drew at the cigarette until the whole tip glowed red. Then, and not till then, she turned an interested gaze upon Dorinda.

“Do you know, I believe you’re clever, because I can just see myself doing that. She danced, didn’t she? Well, you could work yourself up like that-couldn’t you? Of course you’d have to hate the man to start with, but however much I hated anyone, I couldn’t stick a knife into him in cold blood-could you? It gives me pins and needles to think of it. But you might be able to work yourself up to it with some good whirling music and the sort of dance that gets faster and faster and faster-” She broke off, rather pale.

Dorinda said quickly, “You said I was clever. I’m going to tell you you’re stupid. It’s idiotic to talk like that, and you ought to have the sense to know it without being told.”

Moira blew out a little cloud of smoke. Her delicate eyebrows rose.

“Going to tell the police?” Her voice was lazy.

Dorinda said, “Don’t be silly!” as sharply as if they had both been schoolgirls.

“It might interest them,” said the lazy voice.

“I shouldn’t think so.”

Moira laughed.

“Do you know, I like you.”

“Thank you!”

“You needn’t be sarcastic-I meant it. I oughtn’t to, because I suppose you’re my hated rival. Justin’s in love with you, isn’t he?”

“Oh, no!”

Dorinda hadn’t blushed. She had turned rather pale. The gold-brown eyes looked at Moira with inescapable candour.

“Oh, no-he isn’t!”

Moira seemed amused.

“Did he tell you so?”

Dorinda held her head up.

“He is my cousin, and he has been very good to me. I am very fond of him, and I hope he is fond of me.”

Moira said, “Go on hoping!” Then she laughed. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you ought to tell the truth-unless you can put up a really convincing lie? Which you can’t. I can, but I’m not going to. I could have done with Justin myself, but I shan’t get him. I might have done if it hadn’t been for you.” She blew out another little cloud of smoke. “I don’t mean to say that I’m in off the deep end, so you needn’t lock your door in case I creep in in the middle of the night with another of those daggers. But I could have done with Justin, and I’ve an idea that he could have done with me if there hadn’t been any Dorinda Brown. So what a good thing I like you, isn’t it?”

Dorinda looked troubled.

“Moira-”

“Yes?”

“We don’t know each other at all-and we’re talking like this. I think I know why.”

“All right-why?”

Dorinda struck her hands together.

“It’s because it’s all too horrid really. We’ve got to get something else into it-something to make us forget how horrid it is. Making it all seem like nonsense is one way. That’s why you said that idiotic thing about coming into my room with a dagger. And talking about Justin is another. It makes it all-” She hesitated for a moment and came out with, “fantastic. It’s like turning it into a play-it stops it being real and-frightening.”

Moira looked at her. Then she said drily,

“Quite a bright child, aren’t you? In other words we dramatize this sort of thing in order to keep the upper hand of it. So awkward if it took charge and started in to dramatize us!”

Coffee was served in the drawing-room. Pearson having announced that fact to Justin Leigh, the men came wandering in. Miss Silver, to whose prompting the announcement had been due, watched them attentively. Mr. Carroll had drunk quite a lot at dinner. Left to himself, he would probably have drunk a good deal more, hence her hint to Pearson as the ladies crossed the hall. As a gentlewoman, she deplored any degree of intemperance. As a detective, she had no objection to his drinking enough to loosen his tongue, but no possible end would be served by his drinking himself into a stupor in the dining-room. She had wondered to what extent he would be amenable to social pressure, and was relieved when he entered the drawing-room a little flushed and with that crooked look rather more noticeable, but with no other sign that his glass had been filled about twice as often as anyone else’s.

When Mr. Masterman and Justin Leigh came in, she reflected upon the contrast they presented-a contrast all the more marked because the same superficial description could have been applied to either. They were both tall, dark men, but there it ended. Mr. Leigh carried an air of distinction. By common consent, no one had dressed for dinner. Miss Silver congratulated herself upon this. The black and white of a man’s formal evening dress tends to level out those evidences of individual taste which sometimes afford an invaluable clue to character. Mr. Leigh’s grey suit was not only very well cut, but it appeared so completely right as to be almost part of himself. Mr. Masterman had not the same power of relegating his clothes to the background. They gave Miss Silver the impression of being too new, and of their having cost more than he had been accustomed to spend. This may have been because Mr. Masterman himself might have been encountered without surprise in places where his clothes would immediately have attracted attention-such places, for instance, as behind the counter of a bank or in any City office. There was, in fact, a sense of discrepancy.

Mr. Tote’s suit had probably cost as much as it is possible for a suit to cost, because one of the main objects in Mr. Tote’s life at this time was to buy where the buying was dearest, a process which he described as “getting the best.” His figure had, unfortunately, proved very unresponsive. It is more than possible that the tailor may have lost heart. He would certainly have done so if he could have foreseen that Mr. Tote would violate the sartorial decencies and insult that discreet dark suiting with a bright green tie lavishly patterned in yellow horseshoes.

Mr. Carroll was in brown. Not quite the right shade of brown. Miss Silver considered that it was a little too marked to be in really good taste. Quite a bizarre shade. And the orange tie, the orange handkerchief-not at all suitable.

She herself was wearing her last summer’s dress dyed prune, with the black velvet coatee which she always brought down to a country house in the winter. Central heating there might be, but sometimes quite unreliable. She had a gold chain about her neck, and wore a brooch of Irish bogoak in the form of a rose with a large pale pearl in the middle of it.

With that nice sense of propriety which enabled him to play his butler’s part with so much decorum, Pearson had set the coffee-tray in front of Miss Brown, having first placed a small table there to receive it. Dorinda, her colour deepening, took up the heavy coffee-pot and began to look from one to the other, waiting to ask about milk and sugar, but with the feeling that the stiff silence which had fallen was harder to break in upon than any buzz of conversation. Mrs. Tote had stopped talking about Allie and the baby as soon as her husband came in. She did not talk about anything else, because none of the other things which filled her thoughts were the kind of things you can talk about in a drawing-room full of strangers. You can’t say, “Perhaps my husband is a murderer,” or even, “Perhaps the police think so.” Yet the minute she stopped talking about Allie the cold darkness of these thoughts rushed in and quenched the light. She sat in the dark and trembled. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one-

Justin had his own ideas about that. He had come to Dorinda’s rescue and solved her problem by handing round the milk and sugar in the wake of Mr. Masterman, who took the cups. When everyone was served except Miss Masterman, who refused coffee with a monosyllable and remained behind her newspaper screen, he came back to put down milk-jug and sugar-basin and take the place which the two girls had left between them on the settee. The silence had, if anything stiffened. Dorinda had the feeling that if anyone were to speak something might break.

It was Miss Silver who said, “What delicious coffee!” She looked round as if she were collecting votes. “Really delicious, is it not?”

Nobody answered her.

Mr. Masterman stood with his back to the fire, his coffee-cup upon the mantelshelf. Mr. Tote had taken an armchair and the Times. Mr. Carroll hovered, cup in hand, rather like an insect looking for a place to settle. He was on the outskirts of the group when he broke into strident laughter.

“Delicious coffee! Delicious company! And, hell-what a delicious evening in front of us!”

Moira threw him a cool glance.

“Going to make a fool of yourself to brighten things up? Quite an idea!”

His small bright eyes held hers for a moment. There was so hot a spark of malice in them that it startled her. If she had been another sort of woman she might have been afraid. As it was, everything in her sat up and took notice. “He’s got something. What has he got? What is he going to do?” Her lips curled in a sarcastic smile.

Leonard Carroll’s left shoulder, which always looked a little higher than the right, gave a quick jerk and he was off. He laughed again in the same edgy manner.

“All right-I’m an entertainer, aren’t I? And now I’m going to entertain you. Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to present an entirely unrehearsed and original act entitled ‘Whodunit?’ Breathless excitement-thrills guaranteed. A nice pat on the back from the police for the person who spots the murderer.”

Justin Leigh made an abrupt movement. He appeared to be about to get to his feet. Before he could do so he encountered Miss Silver’s eye, warning, threatening, and commanding, as in Mr. Wordsworth’s pen-portrait of the perfect woman. Its effect, which was immediate, was to make him lean back again and hold his tongue.

Everyone, with the possible exception of Miss Masterman, was now looking at Leonard Carroll. He had dropped his showman’s manner and proceeded in an easy confidential tone.

“We’re all thinking about Greg, so why not talk about him? You can’t get rid of a corpse by ignoring it-well, I mean, can you? Let’s have the whole thing out and clear the air. There’s only one person who ought to mind. The murderer isn’t going to like it, naturally. And naturally no one’s going to say they don’t like it after that. And now- ‘Ring up the Curtain!’ ” He threw back his head and sang the phrase with which the curtain rises upon Pagliacci, then dropped to a low narrative tone. “Act II, Scene I. The murder has taken place, the lights have just been switched on, the hall is full of people. Leonard Carroll is on the third step from the top of the stairs looking down on them.” His voice went deep into the dark places where things crawl. “He is looking down on all the others, and he has a damned good view.”

A bright, crooked glance zig-zagged from one to the other of the group which faced him. This group was, in point of fact, a half circle fanning out from where Mr. Masterman leaned against the mantelpiece. Leonard Carroll stood in the open side of the half circle and let his malicious glance run to and fro, flicking over the hands with which Miss Masterman held up her newspaper screen, over the congested face of Mr. Tote, who had dropped the Times across his knees, over Miss Silver and her knitting, over Mrs. Tote with her reddened eyelids, past Mr. Masterman’s frown, to where Justin Leigh was leaning back with an abstracted air between a girl who had flushed and a girl who was pale.

Dorinda looked sideways and saw that Justin was angry. When he looked like that it meant that he was very angry indeed. It meant that he was holding himself in. The foolish, useless wish came into her mind that the evening might be over and everyone safe in bed. And all this just a dream to wake up from next day, and say, “How silly!” and say, “It doesn’t matter how silly it is, as long as it isn’t true.”

Leonard Carroll’s flickering glance came home again. He repeated his last words in a meditative tone.

“A damned good view. Leigh was so very quick, wasn’t he? He may have been a thought too quick for someone. It’s just possible-well, isn’t it? And Leonard Carroll on that third step from the top of the stairs would have such a damned good view. If there was anything to see, he could hardly have missed it-well, could he?”

Mr. Tote lifted his heavy bulk, flinging round in the padded chair to fix small angry eyes upon Carroll’s face. It was a look which might have given some men pause.

“What’s all this hinting? Why don’t you come and sit down and behave yourself? If you’ve got anything to say, why don’t you say it and have done? And if you haven’t, what’s the good of hinting that you have?”

Carroll laughed.

“Oh, you mustn’t be too hard on my poor entertainment. A little mystery-a little conjecture-a sprinkle of what you call hints-I’m afraid we can’t do without them. For instance, take your own case. I’m not saying what I saw, or what I didn’t see, but-now who was it was telling me you threw a pretty dart?… Oh, yes-it was your wife.”

Mr. Tote’s neck became quite alarmingly red.

“What’s that to you?”

Carroll’s lips twisted in a smile.

“To me? Oh, nothing. To Gregory Porlock perhaps a great deal. That dagger could have been thrown-well, I mean, couldn’t it? And I’m still not saying what I saw or didn’t see from my balcony stall.”

“Look here-” Mr. Tote’s voice choked with fury on the second word.

Miss Silver glanced brightly across her clicking needles and said,

“Dear me-how extremely interesting! Such an original entertainment! But quite impersonal of course-is it not, Mr. Carroll?”

He returned her look with one of light contempt. It changed to sparkling malice as he shifted it to Geoffrey Masterman.

“How very fortunate to have a balcony stall-isn’t it? So pleasantly removed from the struggling herd in the pit. You know, that light really did come on a bit sooner than it was meant to-just a bit sooner. Just a bit too soon for somebody.” His glance moved on, touching Dorinda, passing Justin, settling on Moira Lane. “Odd how you see things when the lights come on suddenly like that. Extraordinary sharp and clear. Pitch dark one minute, and then biff-everything hits you in the eye. Quite an odd experience, and-yes, that’s the word-unforgettable. Quite, quite unforgettable.” He walked over to the tray and set down his coffee-cup. “And now, as you are all so pressing, I will entertain you upon the piano. Our lamented Gregory having engaged me for that purpose, I imagine that I shall have a claim upon his estate for my fee.”

There certainly was a slight drag in his step as he walked over to the grand piano and opened it. The silence which had followed what might be called the first part of his entertainment persisted. Nobody moved, nobody spoke. More than one person must have been thinking furiously.

Carroll had a charming touch on the piano. A few chords came into the silence, followed by a light malicious voice in the words and the tune of an old nursery rhyme:

“Who killed Cock Robin?

I said the Sparrow,

With my bow and arrow,

I killed Cock Robin.”