Ngaio Marsh - Death And The Dancing Footman

“Yes, that’s true,” said Chloris, and they began quite tranquilly to discuss William. Alleyn wondered how old they were. Miss Wynne was not more than twenty, he thought, and he remembered a critique of one of Mandrake’s poetic dramas in which the author had been described as extremely young. Perhaps he was twenty-six. They were fortified with all the resilience that youth presents to an emotional shock. In the midst of murder and attempted suicide, they had managed, not only to behave with address and good sense, but also to fall in love with each other. Very odd, thought Alleyn, and listened attentively to what they had to say about William Compline. They were discussing him with some animation. Alleyn was pretty sure they had almost forgotten his presence. This was all to the good, and a firm picture of the murdered and elder Compline began to take form. With owlish gravity, Chloris and Mandrake discussed poor William’s “psychology” and decided that unconscious jealousy of Nicholas, a mother-fixation, an inferiority complex, and a particularly elaborate Œdipus complex were at the bottom of his lightest action and the sole causes of his violent outburst against Hart. “Really,” said Mandrake, “it’s the Ugly Duckling and Cinderella themes. Extraordinarily sound, those folk tales.”

“And of course the painting was simply an effort to overcome the inferiority complex — er, on the pain-pleasure principle,” added Chloris uncertainly. Mandrake remarked that Mrs. Compline’s strong preference for Nicholas was extremely characteristic, but of what Alleyn could not quite make out. However he did get a clear picture of two unhappy people dominated by the selfish, vain, and, according to the two experts in the front seat, excessively oversexed Nicholas. Shorn of intellectual garnishings it was still a sufficiently curious story. One phrase of Chloris’ struck him as being particularly illuminating. “I would have liked to be friends with her,” she said, “but she hated me from the beginning, poor thing. First because I was engaged to Nick, and secondly and even more violently, because, as she made herself suppose, I jilted him for William. I think she knew well enough that Nick hadn’t been exactly the little gent, but she wouldn’t let herself believe that he could do anything that wasn’t perfect. For her he just had to be heroic, don’t you know, and she had a fantastic hatred for anyone who made him look shabby.”

“Did she know about l’affaire Lisse , do you suppose?” asked Mandrake.

“I don’t know. I daresay he kept it dark. He could be pretty quiet about his philanderings when it suited him. But even if she did know I believe she would have taken it as a perfectly natural obsession on Madame Lisse’s part. In her eyes, Nicholas was really rather like one of those Greek gods who lolled about on clouds and said ‘I’ll have that one!’ ”

Alleyn coughed, and Miss Wynne became aware of him. “I suppose,” she said, “you think it revolting of us to talk about him like this.”

“No,” he said, “I would find a show of excessive distress much more disagreeable.”

“Yes, I know. All the same it’s pretty ghastly not being able to get back quicker. I suppose you can’t rush her up a bit, Aubrey, can you? It’s terribly important that Dr. Hart should get these things. I mean, in a sort of way, everything depends on us.”

“I’m banging along as fast as I dare. There’s Pen Gidding ahead. We’re making much better time. Look, there’s the rain still over the Highfold country. We’ll be running into it again soon. If I stick in Deep Bottom it’s only about half a mile from the house.”

“Return to horror,” said Chloris, under her breath.

“Never mind, my dear,” whispered Mandrake. “Never mind.”

“There’s one thing that strikes me as being very odd,” said Alleyn, “and that is the house-party itself. What persuaded your host to collect such a gang of warring elements under his roof? Or didn’t he know they were at war?”

“Yes,” said Mandrake, “he knew.”

“Then why—”

“He did it on purpose. He explained it to me on the night I arrived. He wanted to work out his æsthetic frustration in a flesh-and-blood medium.”

“Good Lord!” Alleyn ejaculated. “How unbelievably rum!”

There was no wind over Cloudyfold that afternoon, but the rain poured down inexorably. By half-past two the rooms at Highfold had begun to assume a stealthy dimness. The house itself, as well as the human beings inside it, seemed to listen and to wait. Highfold was dominated by two rooms. Behind the locked doors of the smoking-room, William Compline now sat as rigidly as if he had been made of iron, his hands propped between his feet and his head fixed between his knees. In the principal visitor’s room lay his mother in bed, breathing very slowly, scarcely responding, now, to Dr. Hart when he slapped the face he had marred twenty years ago, or when he advanced his own white face close to hers and called her name as if he cried for admittance at the door of her consciousness. Hersey Amblington, too, cried out to her old friend. Three times Nicholas had come. It had been difficult for Nicholas to obey Hart and call loudly upon his mother. At first his voice cracked grotesquely into a sobbing whisper. Hart kept repeating: “Loud. Loudly. To rouse her, you understand. She must be roused.” And Hersey: “If she hears it’s you, Nick, she may try. You must, Nick, you must.” Mrs. Pouting in her sitting-room, and Thomas in the hall, and Caper in the pantry, and Madame Lisse in the green “boudoir,” and Jonathan Royal on the stairs had all heard Nicholas shout as though across a nightmare of silence: “ Mother! It’s Nicholas ! Mother!” They had all waited, listening intently, until his voice cracked into silence and they became aware once more of the hard beat of rain on the house. Jonathan, from his place on the stairs, had heard Nicholas leave his mother’s room and cross the landing. He had seen him stop at the stairhead, raise his clasped hands to his lips, and then, as if some invisible cord had been released, jerk forwards until his head rested on his arms across the balustrade. Jonathan started forward, but at the sound of harsh sobbing paused and finally stole downstairs, unseen by Nicholas. He crossed the hall, and after some hesitation, entered the green “boudoir.”

Between Hersey Amblington and Dr. Hart there had arisen a curious feeling of comradeship. Hersey had proved herself to be an efficient nurse, obeying Hart’s instructions without a question or fuss. There were certain unpleasant things that could be attempted and between them they had made the attempts. Hart had not pretended to any experience of veronal poisoning. “But the treatment must be on general common-sense lines,” he said. “There, we cannot go wrong. Unfortunately there has not been the response. We have not eliminated the poison. If only they would return from the chemist!”

“What’s the time now?”

“Nearly two o’clock. They should have returned.”

He bent over the bed. Hersey watched him and in a minute or two she said: “Am I mistaken, Dr. Hart, or is there a change?”

“You are not mistaken. The pupils are now contracted, the pulse is 120. Do you notice the colour of the finger-nails, a dusky red?”

“And her breathing.”

“It is gravely impeded. We shall take the temperature again. God be thanked that at least this old Pouting had a thermometer.”

Hersey fetched the thermometer and returned to the window where she waited, looking through rain across the terrace and down to the bathing-pool. Cypress trees had been planted at intervals along the terrace, and one of these hid the far end of the pool and the entrance to the pavilion. “She could not have seen Mandrake go overboard,” thought Hersey, “but she could have seen him leave the house and go down.” And she looked at the wardrobe where yesterday she had found a wet coat.