Death and the Dancing Footman (19 page)

He bent down and slipped a finger inside his shoe. “Damn!” he said. “Does anyone mind if I take off my shoe? I’ve got a nail sticking into my foot.”

He took off the shoe and noticed how they all glanced at his sound foot and away again quickly. He groped inside the shoe. “There it is,” he muttered, “a damn’ great spike of a thing.”

“But there’s something in the sole of your shoe,” said Chloris. “Look.”

Mandrake turned the shoe over. “It’s a drawing-pin,” he said.

“There’s
some
explanation,” said Nicholas with a real note of despair in his voice. “He’s upstairs there, lying in his bed, by God, and laughing at us. Somehow or other he worked it. During the news. It must have been then. Somehow or other. When I think about it, I’m sure it was Bill who worked the wireless. I know you’ll say it was easy for anybody to grunt and cross the room, but somehow, I can’t explain why, I believe it was Bill — it sort of
felt
like Bill.”

“
Ssh
!” said Hersey suddenly. “Listen!”

They stared at her. Her hand was raised and her head tilted. Into the profound silence that fell upon them came a wide vague drumming. The shutters of the library windows creaked. As they listened, the room was filled with that enveloping outside noise.

“It’s beginning to rain,” said Jonathan.

They had exhausted themselves arguing about the gap in Hart’s story. They had said the same things over and over again. They longed to go to bed and yet were held prisoner in their chairs by a dreadful lassitude. They kept telling Nicholas to go to bed and he kept saying that he would go. They spoke in low voices to a vague background of drumming rain. Mandrake felt as if it was William himself who kept them there; William who, behind locked doors, now suffered the indignities of death. He could not help but think of that figure in the chair. Suppose, with those stealthy changes, William’s body were to move? Suppose they were to hear, above the murmur of rain, a dull thud in the room next door? Nicholas too must have been visited by some such thoughts, for he said: “I can’t bear to think of him — can’t we — can’t we?” And Mandrake had to explain again that they must not move William.

“Do you think,” he asked Jonathan, “that with this rain the roads will be passable in the morning? What about the telephone? Is there any chance that the lines will be fixed up?”

There was a telephone in the library and from time to time they had tried it, knowing each time that it was useless. “If the roads are anything like passable,” Mandrake said, “I’ll drive into Chipping in the morning.”

“You?” said Nicholas.

“Why not? My club-foot doesn’t prevent me from driving a car, you know,” said Mandrake. This was one of the speeches, born of his deformity, which he sometimes blurted out and always regretted.

“I didn’t mean that,” said Nicholas. “I’m sorry.”

“Why shouldn’t I go?” asked Mandrake, looking from one to another. “Even if we can’t break Hart’s alibi, I suppose none of you will suspect me. After all, I
was
shoved in the pond.”

“I keep forgetting that complication,” said Jonathan.

“I don’t,” Mandrake rejoined warmly.

“We ought none of us to forget it,” said Chloris. “It’s the beginning of the whole thing. If
only
you’d gone on looking out of the pavilion window, Nicholas!”

“I know. But I was half undressed and hellish cold. I just saw it was Mandrake and answered his wave. If only I had looked out again!”

“I’ve not the least doubt about what you’d have seen,” Mandrake rejoined. “You’d have seen that infamous little man come up in a flurry of snow from behind the pavilion, and you’d have seen him launch a sort of flying tackle at my back.”

“I’ve made a complete hash of everything,” Nicholas burst out. “You’re all being very nice about it, I know, but the facts stare you in the eye, don’t they? I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that if I hadn’t baited Hart this would never have happened. Well, let him get on with it, by God. He’s messed it up three times, hasn’t he? Let him have another pot at me. I shan’t duck.”

“Nick,” said Hersey, “don’t show off, my dear. Are we never to register dislike of anyone for fear they’ll go off and murder our near relations? Don’t be an ass, my dear old thing. Since we are being candid, let’s put it this way. Dr.Hart was crossed in love and he couldn’t take it. You did the crossing. I don’t say I approve of your tactics, and, as I daresay you’ve noticed, I don’t admire your choice. But for pity’s sake don’t go all broken-with-remorse on us. You’ve got your mother to think of.”

“If anybody other than Hart is to blame,” said Jonathan, “very clearly it is I.”

“Now, Jo,” said Hersey, roundly, “none of that from you. You’ve been a very silly little man, trying to re-arrange people’s lives for them. This is what you get for it and no doubt it’ll be a lesson to you. But it’s no good putting on that face about it. We must be practical. We’ve got a man whom we all believe to be a murderer, locked up in his room, and as we don’t seem to be very good at bringing it home to him the best thing we can do is to accept Mr. Mandrake’s offer and to hope that in the morning he will be able to reach a telephone and find us a policeman.”

“Hersey, my dear,” said Jonathan with a little bob in her direction, “you are perfectly right. Nick and I must bow to your ruling. If Aubrey can and will go, why then go he shall.”

“I thought,” said Mandrake, “that I’d try to reach the rectory at Winton St. Giles. You see, there’s rather a super sort of policeman staying there, and as I know him…”

“Roderick Alleyn?” Chloris cried out. “Why, of course!”

“I thought I’d put the whole thing before him. I thought that when I got upstairs I’d write it all down, everything I can remember from the time I got here. I don’t know what the regulations are but, if I show what I’ve written to Alleyn, at least if
he
can’t do anything he’ll advise
me
what to do.”

“I think we should see your notes, Aubrey.”

“Of course, Jonathan. I hope you’ll be able to add to them. It seems to me that when you write things out they have a way of falling into place. Perhaps when we read our notes we may see a still wider gap in Hart’s alibi. I think we should concentrate on the time Jonathan was in the downstairs cloak-room, and the moment or two after Jonathan returned and before Lady Hersey went into the smoking-room. I think we shall find that the gaps are there all right. If we don’t perhaps Alleyn will.”

“I’m afraid I don’t believe he will,” said Chloris slowly. She reached out her hand and touched Mandrake’s arm. “Don’t think I’m crabbing your idea. It’s a grand idea. But somehow, I can’t tell you how I hate to say it, somehow I don’t believe we will find a big enough gap. I don’t think there is one.”

“I won’t have that,” said Jonathan loudly, “there’s plenty of time. There must be.”

He stood up and the others rose with him. At last they were going to bed. With dragging steps and heavy yawns they moved uncertainly about the room. The men had a last drink. Desultory suggestions were made. Nicholas, with a return of nervousness which contrasted strangely with his recent mood of heroic despondency, started an argument about leaving Hart’s door unguarded. Hart might try to break out, he said. Mandrake pointed out that if they kept their own doors locked it wouldn’t much matter if he did. He, as much as they, was a prisoner in the house. “Anyway,” added Mandrake, “we’re not going to sleep through a door-smashing incident, I suppose. Here’s your automatic, by the way, Compline.” And for the life of him Mandrake couldn’t resist adding: “You may feel more comfortable if you have it at your bedside.” Nicholas took it quite meekly.

“Well,” he said in a small desolate voice, “I may as well go up, I suppose.” He looked towards the locked door into the smoking-room and Mandrake saw his rather prominent eyes dilate. “He offered to swap rooms with me,” said Nicholas. “Decent of him, wasn’t it? In case Hart tried anything during the night, you know. Of course, I wouldn’t have let him. I’m glad we sort of got together a bit this evening.” He looked at his hands and then vaguely up at Jonathan. “Well, good night,” said Nicholas.

“We’ll come up with you, Nick,” said Hersey, and linked her arm in his.

“Will you? Oh, thank you, Hersey.”

“Of course we shall,” said Chloris. “Come on, Nick.”

Jonathan and Mandrake followed, and as Mandrake, weary to death, limped up those stairs for the last time on that fatal day, he thought, and detested himself for so thinking: “He
would
go up between the two women. I bet he’s got hold of Chloris’ hand.” Jonathan said good-night on the half-way landing and turned off to his own wing. Only then did it occur to Mandrake that since his flare-up with Hart, Jonathan had been unusually quiet. “And no wonder,” he thought. “They can say what they like but after all if he hadn’t thrown his fool party…”

They went with Nicholas to his room. Moved by an obscure mixture of contrition and genuine sympathy, Mandrake shook hands with him and instantly regretted it when Nicholas, with tears in his eyes, kissed the two women and said in a broken voice: “Bless you. I’ll be all right. Good night.”

“Good night,” said Hersey in the passage and stumped off to her room.

“Good night,” said Chloris to Mandrake, and then rather defiantly: “Well, I
am
sorry for him.”

“Good night,” said Mandrake; “so am I.”

“You do look tired. We’ve all forgotten about your horrid plunge. You won’t tackle those notes tonight?”

“I think so. While it’s still seething, don’t you know?”

“Well, don’t treat the subject surrealistically or we’ll none of us be able to contradict you. You ought not to have had all these games thrust upon you. Are you all right?”

“Perfectly all right,” said Mandrake. “But I approve of you feeling sorry for me.”

So Chloris gave him a kiss, and in a state of bewildered satisfaction he went to his room.

It was one o’clock when he laid down his pen and read through his notes. At the end he had written a summary in which he attempted to marshal the salient facts of the three assaults. He re-read this summary twice.

At this point Mandrake, remembering that the others would read his summary, lost his nerve and scored out the next three lines and the preceding words from “No motive” onwards. He then read on —

Here the summary came abruptly to an end. Mandrake sat very still for perhaps a minute. Then he took out his cigarette case, put it down unopened, and reached again for his pen. He added six words to his summary —

When he lifted his hand he saw that he had left a small red stain on the paper. He had washed his hands as soon as he came upstairs but his mind jumped, with a spasm of nausea, to the memory of the red star that had fallen from William’s mouth. Then he remembered that when he took out his cigarette case he had felt a prick and there, sure enough, on the tip of his middle finger, was a little red globule. He felt again in his pocket and found the drawing-pin that had penetrated the sole of his shoe. He put it on the paper before him. Across the back of the drawing-pin was a dry white ridge.

He heard William’s voice speaking gravely in the drawing-room: “
Very
thick oil paint.”

He put the drawing-pin in a match-box and locked the box in his attaché-case, together with the Charter form which he had got from Jonathan.

Then he went to bed.

It was some time before he slept. Several times he came to the borderland where conscious thought mingles fantastically with the images of the subconscious. At these moments he saw a Maori
mere
, like Damocles’ sword, suspended above his head by a hair which was fixed to the ceiling by an old drawing-pin. “It
might
hold,” said William, speaking indistinctly because his mouth was full of blood. “It
might
hold, you know. I use
very
thick oil paint.” He couldn’t move because the folds of the Tyrolese cape were wrapped round his limbs. A rubber bird, wearing a god-like leer, bobbed its scarlet beak at him.