Ngaio Marsh - Tied Up in Tinsel

Colonel Forrester was in bed and awake. He was propped up by pillows and had the look of a well-washed patient in a children’s ward. Mrs. Forrester sat before the fire, knitting ferociously.

“Thought you might be Moult,” she said.

Troy explained her errand. At first it looked as if Mrs. Forrester was going to turn her down flat. She didn’t want any dinner, she announced, and in the same breath said they could send up a tray.

“Do go, B,” her husband said. “I’m perfectly well. You only fuss me, my dear. Sitting angrily about.”

“I don’t believe for a moment they’ve really looked for him, I said —”

“All right, then. You look. Go and stir everybody up. I bet if you go, they’ll find him.”

If this was cunning on the part of the Colonel, it was effective. Mrs. Forrester rammed her knitting into a magenta bag and rose.

“It’s very kind of you,” she snarled at Troy. “More than that yellow doll of Hilary’s thought of offering. Thank you. I shall not be long.”

When she had gone the Colonel bit his underlip, hunched his shoulders, and made big eyes at Troy. She made the same sort of face back at him and he gave a little giggle.

“I do so hate fusses,” he said, “don’t you?”

“Yes, I do rather. Are you really feeling better?”

“Truly. And I’m beginning to get over my disappointment though you must admit it was provoking for me, wasn’t it?”

“Absolutely maddening.”

“I hoped you’d understand. But I’m glad Moult did it nicely.”

“When did you decide to let him?”

“Oh — at the last moment. I was actually in the dressing-room, putting on my robe. I got a bit stuck inside it as one can, you know, with one’s arms above one’s head and one’s mouth full of material, and I rather panicked and had a Turn. Bad show. It was a crisis. There had to be a quick decision. So I told him to carry on,” said the Colonel as if he described a tight corner in a military engagement, “and he did. He put me in here and made me lie down and then he went back to the dressing-room to put on the robe. And carried on. Efficiently, you thought?”

“Very. But it’s odd of him not to come back, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is. He should have reported at once. Very poor show indeed,” said the Colonel, drawing himself up in bed and frowning.

“You don’t think he could have gone straight to your dressing-room to take off the robe? There’s a door from the passage into the dressing-room, isn’t there?”

“Yes. But he should have made his report. There’s no excuse.”

“Would you mind if I just looked in the dressing-room? To see if the robe is there?”

“Do, do, do, do,” said the Colonel.

But there was no golden robe in the dressing-room which, as far as Troy could judge, was in perfect order. A little crimson room, it was, with a flock wallpaper and early Victorian furniture. Heavy red curtains on brass rings were drawn across the windows. It might have been a room in Bleak House, and no doubt that was exactly the impression Hilary had intended it to make. She looked in the cupboards and drawers and even under the bed, where she found a rather battered tin box with “Col. F. F. Forrester” painted in white letters on it. Remembering Hilary’s remarks upon their normal luggage she supposed this must contain the Forresters’ valuables.

Somewhere, a long way off, a car door slammed. She thought she could hear voices.

She half opened the curtains and heard more doors slam and engines start up. The guests were leaving. Rays from invisible headlamps played across the snowy prospect, horns sounded, voices called.

Troy rattled the curtains shut and returned to the Colonel.

“Not there,” she said. “I suppose he left it in the cloakroom downstairs. I must ask Cressida — she’ll know. She took his whiskers off.”

“Well, I’m jolly furious with Moult,” said the Colonel, rather drowsily. “I shall have to discipline him, I can see that.”

“Did he show himself to you? In the robe? Before he went downstairs?”

“Eh? Did he, now? Well, yes, but — Well, in point of fact I dozed off after my Turn. I do that, you know,” said the Colonel, his voice trailing away into a drone. “After my Turns. I do doze off.”

He did so now, gently puffing his cheeks in and out and making little noises that reminded Troy of a baby.

It was very quiet in the bedroom. The last car had left and Troy imagined the houseparty standing round the drawing-room fire talking over the evening. Or perhaps, she thought, they are having a sort of hunt-for-Moult game. Or perhaps he’s been found sleeping it off in some forgotten corner.

The Colonel himself now slept very soundly and peacefully and Troy thought there was really no need for her to stay any longer. She turned off all the lights except the bedside lamp and went downstairs.

She found a sort of public meeting going on in the hall. The entire staff was assembled in a tight, apprehensive group being addressed by Hilary. Mrs. Forrester balefully sat beside him as if she was in the chair. Mr. Smith, smoking a cigar, stood on the outskirts like a heckler. Cressida, looking exhausted, was stretched in a porter’s chair with her arms dangling and her feet half out of her golden sandals.

“— and all I have to tell you,” Hilary was saying, “is that he must be found . He must be somewhere and he must be found . I know you’ve got a lot to do and I’m sorry and really it’s too ridiculous but there it is. I don’t know if any of you have suggestions to make. If you have I’d be glad to hear them.”

From her place on the stairs Troy looked at Hilary’s audience. Blore. Mervyn. Nigel. Vincent. Kittiwee. The Boy. Standing further back, a clutch of extra helpers, male and female, brought in for the occasion. Of these last, one could only say that they looked tired and puzzled.

But the impression was very different when she considered the regular staff. Troy was sure she hadn’t concocted this impression and she didn’t think it stemmed from preknowledge. If she hadn’t known anything about their past, she believed, she would still have thought that in some indefinable way the staff had closed their ranks and that fear had inspired them to do so. If they had picked up death masks of their faces and clapped them over their own, they could scarcely have been less communicative. This extravagant notion was given a kind of validity by the fact that — surely — they were all most uncommonly pale? They stared straight in front of themselves as if they were on parade.

“Well,” Hilary said, “Blore? You’re the chief of staff. Any ideas?”

“I’m afraid not, sir. We have made, I think I may say, sir, a thorough search of the premises. Very thorough, sir.”

“Who,” Mrs. Forrester snapped out, “saw him last?”

“Yes. All right. Certainly, Aunt Bed. Good question,” said Hilary, who was clearly flustered.

There was a considerable pause before Cressida said: “Well, I’ve said , sweeties, haven’t I? When he eggzitted after his thing I went back as arranged to the cloakroom and he came in from the outside porch and I took off his robe, wig and makeup and he said he’d go and report to Uncle Fred and I went back to the party.”

“Leaving him there?” Hilary and Mrs. Forrester asked in unison.

“Like I said, for Heaven’s sake. Leaving him there.”

Nobody had paid any attention to Troy. She sat down on the stairs and wondered what her husband would make of the proceedings.

“All right. Yes. Good. All right,” said poor Hilary. “So far so good. Now then. Darling, you therefore came into the hall, here, didn’t you, on your way to the drawing-room?”