Ngaio Marsh - Death And The Dancing Footman

“The temperature is 102.8°,” said Hart. “It has risen two points. Well, we must try the emetic again, but I am afraid she is now quite unable to swallow.”

Hersey rejoined him, and again they worked together to no avail. After a time she suggested that he should leave her in charge. “You’ve eaten nothing and you haven’t sat down since they brought you here hours ago. I can tell you if there’s any change.” Hart glanced up with those prominent eyes of his and said: “And where should I go, Lady Hersey? To my room? Should I not be locked up again? Ever since I came to the patient, I believe there has been someone on guard in the passage or on the stairs. Is that not so? No, let me remain here until the car returns. If they have brought a medical man I shall go back to my cell.”

“I don’t believe you killed William Compline,” Hersey said abruptly.

“No? You are a sensible woman. I did not kill him… There is no doubt, I am afraid, that the condition is less satisfactory. She is more comatose. The reflexes are completely abolished. Why do you look at me in that fashion, Lady Hersey?”

“You seem to have no thought for your own position.”

“You mean that I am not afraid,” said Dr. Hart, who was again stooping over his patient. “You are right, Lady Hersey, I am an Austrian refugee and a Jew, who has become a naturalized Briton. I have developed what I believe you would call a good nose for justice. Austrian justice, Nazi justice, and English justice. I have learned when to be terrified and when not to be terrified. I am a kind of thermometer for terror. At this moment I am quite normal. I do not believe I shall be found guilty of a murder I did not commit.”

“Do you believe,” asked Hersey Amblington, after a long pause, “that the murderer will be arrested?”

“I do believe so.” He straightened his back, but he still watched his patient.

“Dr. Hart,” Hersey said harshly, “do you think you know who killed William Compline?”

“Oh, yes,” said Hart, and for the first time he looked directly at her. “Yes. I believe I know. Do you wish me to say the name?”

“No,” she said. “Let us not discuss it.”

“I agree,” said Dr. Hart.

Down in the green sitting-room, Jonathan Royal listened to Madame Lisse. An onlooker with a taste for irony might have found something to divert him in the scene, particularly if he liked his irony laced with a touch of the macabre. A nice sense of the fitness of things had prompted Madame to dress herself in black, a dead crapy black that gloved her figure with adroitness. She looked and smelt most expensive. She had sent a message to her host by Mrs. Pouting, asking for an interview. Jonathan, fresh from seeing Nicholas Compline’s breakdown on the upstairs landing, eyed his beautiful guest with a certain air of wariness.

“It is so kind of you to see me,” said Madame Lisse. “Ever since this terrible affair I have felt that of all our party you would remain the sanest, the best able to control events, the one to whom I must instinctively turn.”

Jonathan touched his glasses and said that it was very nice of her. She continued in this strain for some time. Her manner conveyed, as an Englishwoman’s manner seldom conveys, a sort of woman-to-man awareness that was touched with camaraderie. With every look she gave him, — and her glances were circumspect, — she flattered Jonathan, and, although he still made uncomfortable little noises in his throat and fidgeted with his glasses, he began to look sleek; into his own manner there crept an air of calculation that would have astonished his cousin Hersey or Chloris Wynne. He and Madame Lisse were very polite to each other, but there was a hint of insolence in their civility. Madame began to explain her reasons for keeping her marriage to Hart a secret. It had been her idea, she said. She had not wished to give up her own business, which was a flourishing one, but on the other hand Dr. Hart, before they met, had, under his own name, published a book in which he exposed what he had called the “beauty-parlour racket.”

“The book has had considerable publicity and is widely associated with his name,” she said. “It would have been impossible for me as his wife to continue my business. Both of us would have appeared ridiculous. So we were married very quietly, in London, and continued in our separate ménages.”

“An ambiguous position,” Jonathan said with a little smile.

“Until recently it has worked quite well.”

“Until Nicholas Compline was transferred to Great Chipping, perhaps?”

“Until then,” she agreed, and for a time both of them were silent while Jonathan looked at her steadily through those blank glasses of his. “Ah, well,” said Madame Lisse, “there it is. I was quite powerless. Francis became insanely jealous. I should never have allowed this visit, but he guessed that Nicholas had been asked and he accepted. I had hoped that Nicholas would be sensible and that Francis would become reassured. But as it was, both of them behaved like lunatics. And now the brother and the disfigured mother too, perhaps — it is too horrible. I shall blame myself to the end of my life. I shall never recover from the horror,” said Madame Lisse, delicately clasping her hands, “never.”

“Why did you wish to speak to me?”

“To explain my own position. When I heard last night of this tragedy, I was shattered. All night I stayed awake thinking — thinking. Not of myself, you understand, but of that poor gauche William, killed, as it seems, on my account. That is what people will say. They will say that Francis mistook him for Nicholas and killed him because of me. It will not be true, Mr. Royal.”

At this remarkable assemblage of contradictory data, Jonathan gaped a little, but Madame Lisse leant towards him and gazed into his spectacles, and he was silent.

“It will not be true,” she repeated.

“But — who do you suggest—”

“Do not misunderstand me. There can be no doubt who struck the blow. But the motive — the motive! You heard that unfortunate young man cry out that all the world should learn it was Francis who ruined his mother’s beauty. Why did she try to kill herself? Because she knew that it was on her account that Francis Hart had killed her son.”

Jonathan primmed his lips. Madame Lisse leant towards him. “You are a man of the world,” said this amazing lady, “you understand women. I felt it the first time we met. There was a frisson —how shall I describe it? We were en rapport . One is never mistaken in these things. There is an instinct.” She continued in this vein for some time. Presently she was holding one of Jonathan’s hands in both her own, and imperceptibly this state of affairs changed into Jonathan holding both hers in one of his. Her voice went on and on. He was to understand that she was the victim of men’s passions. She could not help it. She could not stop Nicholas falling in love with her. Her husband had treated her exceedingly ill. But the murder had nothing to do with her or with Nicholas. There were terrible days ahead, she would never recover. But — and here she raised Jonathan’s hand to her cheek — he, Jonathan, would protect her. He would keep their secret. “What secret?” cried Jonathan in alarm. The secret of Nicholas’ infatuation. Her name need never be brought into the picture. “You ask the impossible!” Jonathan exclaimed. “My dear lady, even if I—” She wept a little and said it was evident he did not return the deep, deep regard she had for him. She swayed very close indeed and murmured something in his ear. Jonathan changed colour and spluttered: “If I could… I should be enchanted, but it is beyond my power.” He wetted his lips. “It’s no good,” he said. “Mandrake knows. They all know. It’s impossible.”