Ngaio Marsh - Death And The Dancing Footman

“Here,” said Mandrake, “you sit down by the fire. What the devil do you mean by talking jitterbugs? We look towards you for a spot of brave young memsahib. Do your stuff, woman.”

“I’m all right,” said Chloris. “I’m sorry. I’m all right. Where were you off to, you two?”

Mandrake explained, while Jonathan fussed round Chloris, glad, so Mandrake fancied, of an excuse to postpone the interview with Dr. Hart. He threw a quantity of logs on the fire, hurried away to the dining-room, and returned with the decanter of port. He insisted on Chloris’ taking a glass, helped himself and, as an afterthought, Mandrake. Hersey came in and reported her interview with Mrs. Compline. She uttered a phrase that Mandrake had begun to dread. “I looked out through the west door. It’s snowing harder than ever.” Jonathan showed an inclination to settle down to a chat but Mandrake said firmly that they might now leave Hersey and Chloris together. He waited for Jonathan, who gulped down his port, sighed, and got slowly to his feet. In the smoking-room next door the drone of the voices of William and Nicholas in conversation rose to some slight and amicable climax, ending in a light laugh from Nicholas. Perhaps, after all, thought Mandrake, he is making William see sense. Better not to disturb them. And he led the reluctant Jonathan, by way of the hall, into the green boudoir.

When he saw Dr. Hart the fancy crossed Mandrake’s mind that Highfold was full of solitary figures crouched over fires. The door had opened silently and for a moment Hart was not aware of his visitors. He sat on the edge of an armchair, leaning forward, his arms resting upon his thighs, his hands dangling together between his knees. His head, a little sunken and inclined forward, was in shadow, but the firelight found those hands, whose whiteness, whose firm full flesh and square finger-tips, were expressive of their profession. “They’ve got a look of prestige,” thought Mandrake, and he repeated to himself, “professional hands.”

Jonathan shut the door and the hands closed like traps as Dr. Hart turned and sprang to his feet.

“Oh — er — hullo, Hart,” began Jonathan, unpromisingly. “We — ah — we thought perhaps we might have a little conference.”

Hart did not answer, but he turned his head and stared at Mandrake. “I’ve asked Aubrey to come with me,” said Jonathan, quickly, “because, you see, he’s one of the — the victims, and because, as a complete stranger to all of you, [A complete stranger to Chloris? thought Mandrake] we can’t possibly suspect him of any complicity.”

“Complicity?” Hart said, still staring at Mandrake. “No. No, I suppose you are right.”

“Now,” said Jonathan, more firmly and with a certain briskness. “Let us sit down, shall we, and discuss this affair sensibly?”

“I have said all that I have to say. I made no attack upon Mr. Mandrake, and I made no attack upon Nicholas Compline. That I am at enmity with Compline, I admit. He has insulted me, and I do not care for insults. If it were possible I should refuse to stay in the same house with him. It is not possible but I can at least refuse to meet him. I do so. I take advantage of your offer to remain here or in my room until I am able to leave.”

“Now, my dear Hart, this really won’t do.” Jonathan drew up two chairs to the fire and, obeying a movement of his hand, Mandrake sat in one while Jonathan himself took the other. Hart remained standing, his hands clasped behind his back.

“It won’t do, you know,” Jonathan repeated. “This last affair, this balancing of a Buddha, this preposterous and malicious trap, could have been planned and executed with one object only, the object of doing a fatal injury to Nicholas Compline. I have made tolerably exhaustive enquiries and I find that, motive apart, it is extremely improbable that any of my guests, excepting yourself, had an opportunity to set the second trap for Nicholas Compline. I tell you this at the outset, Dr. Hart, because I feel certain that if you can advance some proof of your — your innocence, you will now wish to do so.” Jonathan struck the arms of his chair lightly with the palms of his hands. Mandrake thought: “He’s not doing so badly, after all.” He looked at Jonathan because he found himself unable to look at Dr. Hart and, on a flash of irrelevant thinking, he remembered that a barrister had once told him that if the members of a returning jury studiously averted their eyes from the prisoner, you could depend upon it that their verdict would be “Guilty.”

“I do not know when this trap is supposed to have been set,” said Dr. Hart.

“Can you tell us what you were doing during the fifteen or twenty minutes before Nicholas Compline cried out?”

Dr. Hart lifted his chin, drew down his brows and glared at the ceiling. “He’s rather like Mussolini,” thought Mandrake, stealing a glance at him.

“When Compline returned with you and with his brother,” said Hart, “I was in this room. I went to that door and saw you in the hall. I then returned and continued a conversation with Madame Lisse, who left the room some time before I did. I remained here until it was time to dress. I went upstairs at a quarter-past seven, and immediately entered my room. Perhaps it was ten minutes later that I entered the bathroom next to my bedroom. I bathed and returned directly to my room. I had almost completed my dressing when I heard Compline scream like a woman. I heard voices in the passage. I put on my dinner jacket and went out into the passage where I found all of you grouped about the doorway to his room.”

“Yes,” said Jonathan. “Quite so. And between the time of your leaving this room and the discovery of the injury to Nicholas Compline, did you see any other member of the party or any of the servants?”

“No.”

“Dr. Hart, do you agree that before you came here you wrote certain letters — I’m afraid I must call them threatening letters — to Nicholas Compline?”

“I cannot submit to these intolerable questions,” said Hart breathlessly. “You have my assurance that I have made no attack.”

“If you won’t answer me, you may find yourself questioned by a person of greater authority. You oblige me to press you still further. Do you know where Nicholas Compline was when the trap was set for him?”

Hart’s upper lip twitched as if a moth fluttered under the skin. Twice, he made as if to speak. At the third effort he uttered some sort of noise — a kind of moan. Mandrake felt acutely embarrassed, but Jonathan cocked his head like a bird, and it seemed to Mandrake that he was beginning to enjoy himself again. “Well, Dr. Hart?” he murmured.

“I do not know where he was. I saw nobody.”

“He tells us that he was talking to Madame Lisse, in her room— What did you say?”

Hart had again uttered that inarticulate sound. He wetted his lips and after a moment said loudly: “I did not know where he was.”

Jonathan’s fingers had been at his waistcoat pocket. He now withdrew them and with an abrupt movement held out a square of paper. Mandrake saw that it was the Charter form which he had found on the previous night in Nicholas’ chair. He had time to think: “It seems more like a week ago,” as he read again the words that had seemed so preposterous: “ You are warned. Keep off .”

“Well, Dr. Hart,” said Jonathan, “have you seen this paper before?”

“Never,” Hart cried out shrilly. “Never!”

“Are you sure? Take it in your hand and examine it.”

“I will not touch it. This is a trap. Of what do you accuse me?”

Jonathan, still holding the paper, crossed to a writing-desk in the window. Mandrake and Hart watched him peer into a drawer and finally take out a sheet of note-paper. He turned towards Hart. In his right hand he held the Charter form, in his left the sheet of note-paper.