Ngaio Marsh - Death And The Dancing Footman

“I assure you I am speaking the truth.”

“There is one explanation that seems to have occurred to nobody.” Jonathan raised his hands to his spectacles and adjusted them slightly. “I myself wear a Tyrolese cape, your own gift, my dear Hart, and a delightful one. Is it not at least possible that somebody may have thought it would be amusing to watch me flounder in my own ornamental pool?”

“But who the hell?” Mandrake objected.

“It might be argued,” said Jonathan, smiling modestly, “almost every member of my house-party.”

When they had left him alone, Mandrake surrendered himself to a curious state of being, engendered by exhaustion, brandy, speculation, and drowsiness. His thoughts floated in a kind of hinterland between sleep and wakefulness. At times they were sharply defined, at times nebulous and disconnected, but always they circled about the events leading to his plunge into the swimming-pool. At last he dozed off into a fitful sleep from which he was roused, as it seemed, by a single clear inspiration. “I must see William Compline,” he heard himself say. “Must see William Compline.” He was staring at the ridge of snow that had begun to mount from the sill up the window-pane, when his door moved slightly and Chloris Wynne’s beautifully groomed head appeared in the opening.

“Come in.”

“I thought you might be asleep. I called to enquire.”

“The report is favourable. Sit down and have a cigarette. I haven’t the remotest idea of the time.”

“Nearly lunch-time.”

“Really? What are you all doing?”

“I’ve known house-parties go with a greater swing. Nicholas is sulking by the radio in the smoking-room. Lady Hersey and Mr. Royal seem to be having a quarrel next door in the library, and when I tried the boudoir on the other side of the smoking-room I ran into Dr. Hart and Madame Lisse, both quite green in the face and obviously at the peak of an argument. My ex-future-mother-in-law has developed a bad cold and I have had a snorter of a row with William.”

“Here!” said Mandrake. “What is all this?”

“I ticked him off for harping on about the bet with Nicholas, and then he said some pretty offensive things about Nicholas and me, and I said he was insane, and he huffed and puffed and broke off our engagement. I don’t know why I tell you all this, unless it’s to get in first with the news bulletin.”

“It’s all very exciting, of course, but I consider the human interest really centres about me.”

“Because you fell in the pool?”

“Because I was pushed in.”

“That’s what we’re quarreling about, actually. So many people seem to think it was all a mistake.”

“The fact remains, I was pushed in.”

“Oh, they’ve stopped saying it was an accident . But each of the men seems to think you were mistaken for him.”

“Does William think that?”

“No. William confines himself to saying he wishes it had been Nicholas. He’s made Nicholas pay him the ten pounds.”

“I suppose,” said Mandrake, “ you didn’t push me in?”

“No, honestly I didn’t. When I got to the top of the steps William and Nicholas and Dr. Hart were all down by the pool, screaming instructions to you. I got a frightful shock. I thought you were Mr. Royal drowning in his own baroque waters.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Oh, because of the cloak, I suppose. It was floating about like a large water-lily leaf, and I said to myself: ‘Crikey, that’s Jonathan Royal.’ ”

Mandrake sat up in bed and bent his most austere gaze upon Miss Wynne. “How did you feel,” he asked, “when you knew it was I?”

“Well, when Mr. Royal came up behind me, I knew it was thee, if that’s the right grammar. And then I saw you clinging to that bathing bird and your hair was over your face like seaweed and your tie was round at the back of your neck, and so on and—” her voice quivered slightly, “and I was terribly sorry,” she said.

“No doubt I was a ludicrous figure. Look here, from what you tell me it seems that you were the last to arrive.”

“No, Mr. Royal came after me. He’d been round at the front of the house, I think. He overtook me on the steps.”

“Will you tell me something? Please try to remember. Did you notice the footprints on the terrace and the steps?”

“I say ,” said Miss Wynne, “are we going to do a bit of ’teckery? Footprints in the snow!”

“Do leave off being gay and amusing, I implore you, and try to remember the footprints. There would be mine of course.”

“Yes. I noticed yours. I mean I—”

“You saw the marks of my club-foot. You needn’t be so delicate about it.”

“You needn’t be so insufferably on the defensive,” said Chloris with spirit, and immediately added: “Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry. At least let there not be a quarrel up here by your bed of sickness. Yes, I saw your footprints, and I think I saw — no, I can’t remember except that there were others. William’s, of course.”

“Any coming back to the house?”

“No, I’m sure not. But—”

“Yes?”

“Well, you’re wondering, aren’t you, if somebody could have gone down and shoved you overboard and then come back up the steps and then sort of pretended they were going down for the first time? I’d thought of that. You see, as I went down I stepped in your footprints because it was easier going. Anybody else might have done that. It was snowing so hard nobody would have noticed the steps within the steps.”

“Hart came by a different path from the front of the house, William came down the terrace steps, then you, then Jonathan. I don’t think William would have had time unless he came hard on my heels. I’d only just got there when it happened. Nicholas didn’t do it because he gave me the cloak and therefore couldn’t have mistaken me for anyone else. I believe Nicholas is right. I believe Hart did it. He saw Nicholas, wearing his cloak, go by the front way, and followed him. Then he skulked round the corner of the pavilion, saw a figure in a cloak standing on the kerb, darted out through the snow and did his abominable stuff. Then he darted back and reappeared, all surprise and consternation, when he heard Nicholas yell. By that time William was coming down the steps, no doubt, and you, followed by Jonathan, were leaving the house. Hart’s our man.”

“Yes, but why ?”

“My dear girl—”

“All right, all right. Because of Madame Lisse. We only met last night and you talk as if I were a congenital idiot.”

“There’s nothing like attempted murder to bring people together.”

“Nicholas is a fool.”

“You ought to know. I thought you still seemed to get a flutter out of him.”

“Now that ,” said Chloris warmly, “I do consider an absolutely insufferable remark.”

“It’s insufferable because it happens to be true. Nicholas Compline is the sort of person that all females get self-conscious about and all males instinctively wish to award a kick in the pants.”

“Barn-yard jealousy.”

“You know,” said Mandrake, “you’ve got more penetration than I first gave you credit for. All the same,” he said, after a long pause, “there’s one little thing that doesn’t quite fit in with my theory. It doesn’t exactly contradict it, but it doesn’t fit in.”

“Well, don’t mumble about it. Or aren’t you going to tell me?”

“When they brought me back up those unspeakable steps, I was sick.”

“You don’t need to tell me that. I was looking after you.”

“I’m damned if I know how I came to notice them, but I did notice them. At the top of the terrace, leading out from the house, coming round from the front door and stopping short at the edge of the terrace. You didn’t see them when you went down. Neither did I. Which proves—”