Ngaio Marsh - Death And The Dancing Footman

“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.

With the return of Nicholas the house-party entered upon a new phase. From then onwards little attempt was made by anybody to pretend there was nothing wrong with Jonathan Royal’s week-end. Jonathan himself, after a half-hearted effort to treat the episode as a mere inconvenient delay, fluttered his hands, surveyed the apprehensive faces of his guests, and watched them break away into small groups. Nicholas muttered something about a bath and change and followed his mother upstairs. Dr. Hart and Madame Lisse, who had come out of the boudoir on the arrival of the outdoors’ party, returned to it; Mandrake and Chloris returned to the smoking-room. The others trailed upstairs to change.

Darkness came with no abatement of the storm. A belated pilot of the Coastal Command, who had flown off his map, battled over Cloudyfold through a driving misery of snow and, for a fraction of time, passed through the smoke from Jonathan’s chimneys. Peering down, he discerned the vague shapes of roofs and pictured the warmth and joviality of some cheerful week-end party. Just about cocktail-time, he thought — and was gone over the rim of Cloudyfold.

It was cocktail-time down at Highfold. Jonathan ordered the drinks to be served in the drawing-room. Mandrake joined him there. He was filled with a strange lassitude — the carry-over, he supposed, from half-drowning. His thoughts clouded and cleared alternately. He was glad of the cocktail Jonathan brought him,

“After all,” Jonathan said as they waited, “we’ve got to meet at dinner, so we may as well assemble here. What am I to do with them, Aubrey?”

“If you can prevent them from getting at each other’s throats, you will have worked wonders. Jonathan, I insist on your telling me. Who do you suppose tried to drown me, and who do you suppose they thought I was?”

“It’s an interesting point. I must confess, Aubrey, that I am now persuaded that an attack was made.”

“Thank you. If you had felt—”

“I know, I know. I agree that you could not have been mistaken. I also agree that whoever made the attempt believed it to be made upon someone other than yourself. Now, let us, perfectly cold-bloodedly, examine the possibilities. You wore a cloak, and for this reason might have been taken for Nicholas, for Hart, or for myself. If you were mistaken for Nicholas then we must suppose that the assailant was Hart, who resents his attentions to Madame Lisse and who threatened him, or William who resents his attentions to Miss Chloris, or possibly Miss Chloris herself, whose feelings for Nicholas—”

“Don’t be preposterous!”

“Eh? Ah well, I don’t press it. If you were mistaken for Hart, then, as far as motive goes, the assailant might have been Nick himself—”

“Nicholas knew Hart was indoors. He saw him looking out of the bedroom window.”

“He might have supposed Hart had hurried down by the shorter route.”

“But I swear Nicholas recognized me through the pavilion window, and over and above all that, he knew I had the cloak.”

“I agree that Nicholas is unlikely. I am examining motive only. Who else had motive, supposing you were thought to be Hart?”

“Madame Lisse?”

“There, we cannot tell. What are their relations? Could Madame have risen from her bed and picked her way down to the pavilion without being seen by anybody? And why, after all, should she do so? She, at least, could not have known anyone was going down singly or otherwise.”

“She might have seen me from her window.”

“In which case she would have realized that you were yourself, and not Hart. No, I think we may dismiss Madame as a suspect. There remains Sandra Compline.”

“Good God, why Mrs. Compline?”

Jonathan blinked and uttered an apologetic titter. “A little point which I could not expect you to appreciate. My housekeeper, the excellent Pouting, is a sworn crony of Sandra’s maid. It seems that when Hart first arrived in our part of the world, this maid, who was with Sandra at the time of the catastrophe in Vienna, thought she recognized him. She said nothing to her mistress, but she confided her news to Pouting. And I, in my turn, did a little gleaning. The Viennese surgeon was a Doktor Franz Hartz, I learnt, and I knew that Hart, when he changed his nationality also changed his name. The temptation was too great for me, Aubrey. I brought them together.”

“It was a poisonous thing to do.”

“You think so? Perhaps you are right. I am quite ashamed of myself,” said Jonathan, touching his spectacles.

“There’s one thing I’d rather like to hear from you, Jonathan. How did you find out my name was Stanley Footling?” Mandrake watched his host and saw him give a little inward start.

“My dear fellow!” Jonathan murmured.

“It’s only a point of curiosity. I should be amused to know.”

A pink flush mounted from Jonathan’s chin up into his bald pate. “I really forget. It was so long ago. In the early days of our delightful association. Somebody connected with your theatre. I quite forget.”

“Ah, yes,” said Mandrake. “And is Lady Hersey in the joke?”

“No. No, I assure you. Word of honour.”

“What about Nicholas Compline? He knows. You’ve told him.”

“Well, I–I—really Aubrey — I—”

“You put him up to saying what he did at dinner.”

“But without any intention of hurting you, Aubrey. I had no idea your secret—”

“You asked me the other night what sort of man I considered you to be. I didn’t know then, and I’m damned if I know now.”

The light flickered on Jonathan’s spectacles “In a sense,” he said, “you might call me an unqualified practitioner.”

“Of what?”

“The fashionable pursuit, my dear Aubrey. Psychology.”

Madame Lisse dressed early that evening, and got rid of the maid Mrs. Pouting had sent to help her. She sat by her fire listening intently. She heard a delicate sound as if someone tapped with his finger-nails at her door. She turned her head quickly but did not rise. The door opened and Nicholas Compline came in.

“Nicholas! Are you certain…?”

“Quite certain. He’s in his bath. I listened outside the door.”