Ngaio Marsh - Death And The Dancing Footman

“Anyway,” said William looking complacently at Mandrake, “the drawing is quite nice. Don’t you think so?”

Mandrake was saved from making a reply by Nicholas who at that moment uttered a sharp ejaculation.

“What’s up, Nick?” asked Jonathan.

Nicholas had turned quite pale. In his left hand he held two of the Charter forms. He separated them and crushed one into a wad in his right hand.

“Have I made a mistake?” asked Dr. Hart softly.

“You’ve given me two forms,” said Nicholas.

“Stupid of me. I must have torn them off the block at the same time.”

“They have both been used.”

“No doubt I forgot to remove an old form and tore them off together.”

Nicholas looked at him. “No doubt,” he said.

“You can see which is the correct form by my long word. It is ‘threats.’ ”

“I have not missed it,” said Nicholas, and turned to speak to Madame Lisse.

Mandrake went to his room at midnight. Before switching on his light he pulled aside the curtains and partly opened the window. He saw that at last the snow had come. Fleets of small ghosts drove steeply forward from darkness into the region beyond the window-panes, where they became visible in the firelight. Some of them, meeting the panes, slid down their surface and lost their strangeness in the cessation of their flight. Though the room was perfectly silent, this swift enlargement of oncoming snowflakes beyond the windows suggested to Mandrake a vast nocturnal whispering. He suddenly remembered the black-out and closed the window. He let fall the curtain, switched on the light, and turned to stir his fire. He was accustomed to later hours and felt disinclined for sleep. His thoughts were busy with memories of the evening. He was filled with a nagging curiosity about the second Charter form which had caused Nicholas Compline to turn pale and to look so strangely at Dr. Hart. He could see Nicholas’ hand, thrusting the crumpled form down between the seat and the arm of his chair. “Perhaps it is still there,” Mandrake thought, “Without a doubt it is still there. Why should it have upset him so much? I shall never go to sleep. It is useless to undress and get into bed.” And the prospect of the books Jonathan had chosen so carefully for his bedside filled him with dismay. At last he changed into pyjamas and dressing-gown, visited the adjoining bathroom, and noticed that there was no light under the door from the bathroom into William’s bedroom at the further side. “So William is not astir.” He returned to his room, opened the door into the passage, and was met by the indifferent quiet of a sleeping house. Mandrake left his own door open and stole along the passage as far as the stairhead. In the wall above the stairs was a niche from which a great brass Buddha, indestructible memorial to Jonathan’s Anglo-Indian grandfather, leered peacefully at Mandrake. He paused here, thinking. “A few steps down to the landing, then the lower flight to the hall. The smoking-room door is almost opposite the foot of the stairs.” Nicholas had sat in the fourth chair from the end. Why should he not go down and satisfy himself about the crumpled form? If by any chance someone was in the smoking-room, he could get himself a book from the library next door and return. There was no shame in looking at a discarded paper from a round game.

He limped softly to the head of the stairs. Here, in the diffused light, he found a switch and turned it on. A wall-lamp halfway down the first flight came to life. Mandrake descended the stairs. The walls sighed to his footfall, and near the bottom one of the steps creaked so loudly that he started and then stood rigid, his heart beating hard against his ribs. “This is how burglars and illicit lovers feel,” thought Mandrake, “but why on earth should I?” Yet he stole cat-footed across the hall, pushed open the smoking-room door with his finger-tips, and waited long in the dark before he groped for the light-switch and snapped it down.

There stood the nine armchairs in a semicircle before a dying fire. They had an air of being in dumb conclave and in their irregular positions were strangely eloquent of their late occupants. There was Nicholas Compline’s chair, drawn close to Madame Lisse’s and turned away contemptuously from Dr. Hart’s saddleback. Mandrake actually fetched a book from a sporting collection in a revolving case before he moved to Nicholas’ chair, before his fingers explored the crack between the arm and the seat. The paper was crushed into a tight wad. He smoothed it out on the arm of the chair and read the five words that had been firmly pencilled in the diagram.

The fire settled down with a small clink of dead embers, and Mandrake, smiling incredulously, stared at the scrap of paper in his hand. It crossed his mind perhaps he was the victim of an elaborate joke, that Jonathan had primed his guests, had invented their antipathies, and now waited maliciously for Mandrake himself to come to him, agog with his latest find. “But that won’t wash,” he thought. “Jonathan could not have guessed I would return to find the paper. Nicholas DID change colour when he saw it. I must presume that Hart DID write this message and hand it to Nicholas with the other. He must have been crazy with fury to allow himself such a ridiculous gesture. Can he suppose that Nicholas will be frightened off the lady? No, it’s too absurd.”

But, as if in answer to his speculations, Mandrake heard a voice speaking behind him: “I tell you, Jonathan, he means trouble. I’d better get out.”

For a moment Mandrake stood like a stone, imagining that Jonathan and Nicholas had entered the smoking-room behind his back. Then he turned, found the room still empty, and realized that Nicholas had spoken from beyond the door into the library, and for the first time noticed that this door was not quite shut. He was still speaking, his voice raised hysterically.

“It will be better if I clear out, now. A pretty sort of party it’ll be! The fellow’s insane with jealousy. For her sake — don’t you see — for her sake—”

The voice paused, and Mandrake heard a low murmur from Jonathan, interrupted violently by Nicholas.

“I don’t give a damn what they think.” Evidently Jonathan persisted, because in a moment Nicholas said: “Yes, of course I see that, but I can say… ” His voice dropped, and the next few sentences were half lost. “… It’s not that… I don’t see why… urgent call from headquarters… Good Lord, of course not!.. Miserable, fat little squirt, I’ve cut him out and he can’t take it.” Another pause, and then: “I don’t mind if YOU don’t. It was more on your account than… But I’ve told you about the letter, Jonathan… not at first… Well, if you think… Very well, I’ll stay,” And for the first time Mandrake caught Jonathan’s words: “I’m sure it’s better, Nick. Can’t turn tail, you know. Good night.”

“Good night,” said Nicholas, none too graciously, and Mandrake heard the door from the library to the hall open and close. Then from the next room came Jonathan’s reedy tenor —

“ Il était une bergère .

Qui ron-ton-ton, petit pat-a-plan .”

Mandrake stuck out his chin, crossed the smoking-room and entered the library by the communicating door. “Jonathan,” he said, “I’ve been eavesdropping.”

Jonathan was sitting in a chair before the fire. His short legs were drawn up, knees to chin, and he hugged his shins like some plump and exultant kobold. He turned his spectacles towards Mandrake and, by that familiar trick of light, the thick lenses obscured his eyes and glinted like two moons.

“I’ve been eavesdropping,” Mandrake repeated.

“My dear Aubrey, come in, come in. Eavesdropping? Nonsense. You heard our friend Nicholas? Good! I was coming to your room to relate the whole story. A diverting complication.”