Ngaio Marsh - Death And The Dancing Footman

“But to try anything else, when he knows perfectly well we suspect him!” Hersey exclaimed. “It’d be the action of a madman.”

“He is a madman,” said Nicholas.

“I say,” said William. “Has anybody done anything about that Buddha? I mean, it’s probably smothered in his finger-prints. If we’re going to give him in charge…”

“But are we going to give him in charge?” asked Hersey uneasily.

“I will,” said William. “If Nick doesn’t, I will.”

“I don’t think you can. It’s not your business.”

“Why not?” William demanded. Jonathan cut in hurriedly, asking William if he proposed to make his mother’s tragedy into front-page publicity. The conversation became fantastic. William showed a tendency to shout and Nicholas to sulk. Chloris turned upon Mandrake a face so eloquent of misery and alarm that he instantly took her hand and found more reality in the touch of her fingers, moving restlessly in his grasp, than in anything else that was happening. Jonathan began to explain that he had locked the Buddha away in his room. He reminded them of the nature of the trap. When Nicholas had returned to his room he had found the door not quite closed. The room was in darkness, as he had left it. He had pushed at the door with his left hand. The door had resisted him, and then given way suddenly. At the same instant his arm had been struck and Madame Lisse had screamed. He had cried out and stumbled into the room.

Nicholas irritably confirmed this description and cut in to say he had seen Dr. Hart go into the bathroom adjoining Nicholas’ room, and had heard him turn on the taps. “Of course he simply dodged out when he knew I had gone. He was spying on me, I suppose, through the crack of the door. His room’s only about fourteen feet away from mine on the opposite side of the passage.”

Mandrake, nervously tightening his grip on Chloris’ hand, thought with a sort of unreal precision of the guest wing. Mrs. Compline in the front corner room, then Madame Lisse, a cupboard, and Mandrake himself, all in a row, with a bathroom; then William; and then Hart in the corner room at the back, and another bathroom around the corner. Hersey Amblington in the converted nursery beyond. On the other side of the passage overlooking the central court round which the old Jacobean house was built, were Nicholas’ room, opposite William’s, and then a bathroom and an unoccupied room. Nicholas’ room was diagonally opposed to Hart’s. Hart could easily have spied on Nicholas, and Mandrake pictured him turning on the bath taps and then perhaps opening the door to return to his room for something and seeing Nicholas stealing down the passage towards Madame Lisse’s door. He pictured Hart as the traditional figure of the suspicious lover, his compact paunch curving above the girdle of his dressing-gown. “He clutched a sponge-bag to his breast, and his eye was glued to the crevice,” Mandrake decided. Perhaps he saw Nicholas tap discreetly at Madame Lisse’s door or scratch with his finger-nail. Perhaps Nicholas slipped in without ceremony. And then, what? Mandrake wondered. A quick sprint down the passage to the niche? A lopsided shuffle back to Nicholas’ room? Did Dr. Hart carry the Buddha under the folds of his dressing-gown? Did he turn on the light in Nicholas’ room and climb on the chair? Was his somewhat unremarkable face distorted with fury as he performed these curious exercises? No. Try as he might, Mandrake could not picture Hart and the Buddha without investing the whole affair with an improper air of opéra bouffe . He was roused from his reverie by Chloris’ withdrawing her hand and by William’s saying in a loud voice: “You know, this is exactly like a thriller, except for one thing.”

“What do you mean, William?” asked Jonathan crossly.

“In a thriller,” William explained, “there’s always a corpse and he can’t give evidence. But, here,” and he pointed his finger at his brother, “you might say we have the corpse with us. That’s the difference.”

“Let us go to the library,” said Jonathan.

Hersey Amblington and Chloris did not stay long with the party in the library. They went upstairs to visit, severally, Mrs. Compline and Madame Lisse. Jonathan had suggested this move to Hersey.

“I’ll go and see how Sandra’s getting on, with the greatest of pleasure,” Hersey said. “I was going to do so in any case. But I must say, Jo, I don’t think the Pirate would welcome my solicitude. What’s supposed to be the matter with her?”

“A sick headache,” said Jonathan. “The migraine.”

“Well, the sight of me won’t improve it. Damn the woman, what business has she to throw a migraine?”

“Naturally,” Nicholas said, “she’s upset.”

“Why? Because she’s afraid her face-lifting friend will make another pass at you? Or because she’s all shocked and horrified that we should suspect him? Which?”

Nicholas looked furious but made no rejoinder.

“Would I be any use?” asked Chloris. “I don’t mind casting an eye at her.”

“Good girl,” said Hersey. “Come on.” And they went upstairs together.

Hersey found Mrs. Compline sitting by her fire still wearing the dress into which she had changed for dinner.

“I ought to have come down, Hersey. It’s too cowardly and difficult of me to hide like this. But I couldn’t face it. Now that they all know! Imagine how they would avoid looking at me. I thought I had become hardened to it. For twenty years I’ve drilled myself, and now, when this happens, I am as raw as I was on the day I first let Nicholas look at me. Hersey, if you had seen him that day! He was only a tiny boy, but he — I thought he would never come to me again. He looked at me as though I was a stranger. It took so long to get him back.”

“And William?” Hersey asked, abruptly.

“William? Oh, he was older, of course, and not so sensitive. He seemed very shocked for a moment and then he began to talk as if nothing had happened. I’ve never understood William. Nicky was just a baby, of course. He asked me what had happened to my pretty face. William never spoke of it. After a little while I think Nicky forgot I had ever had a pretty face.”

“And William, it seems, never forgot.”

“He was older.”

“I think he’s more sensitive.”

“You don’t understand Nicky. I see it all so plainly. He has got to know this Madame Lisse and of course she has thrown herself at his head. Women have always done that with Nicky. I’ve seen it over and over again.”

“He doesn’t exactly discourage them, Sandra.”

“He is naughty, I know,” admitted Mrs. Compline, dotingly. “He always tells me all about them. We have such laughs together sometimes. Evidently there was something between Madame Lisse and — that man. And then when she met Nicholas, of course, she lost her heart to him. I’ve been thinking it out. That man must have recognized me. His own handiwork! Twenty years haven’t changed it much. I suppose he was horrified and rushed to her with the story. She, hoping to establish a deeper bond between herself and Nicky, told him all about it.”

“Now, Sandra, Nicholas himself denies this.”

“Of course he does, darling,” said Mrs. Compline rapidly. “That’s what I’ve been trying to explain — you don’t understand him. He wanted to spare me. It was for my sake he threatened this man. It’s because of what Hartz did to me . But to spare me he let it be thought that it was some ridiculous affair over this woman.”

“That seems very far-fetched to me,” said Hersey bluntly.

A dull flush mounted in Mrs. Compline’s face. “Why,” she said, “the woman is on her knees to him already. He has no cause to trouble himself about this Madame Lisse. It’s Dr. Hart who’s troubling himself.”