by Ngaio Marsh
“Try this,” he said. Hart motioned to him to leave it beside him. Seeing he could do no more, Mandrake prepared to leave. As an afterthought he turned at the door. “May I give you one word of advice?” he said. “Keep clear of both the Complines.” And he limped away to the library.
Here he found Jonathan with Hersey Amblington and Chloris. It seemed quite natural to Mandrake to go at once to Chloris and sit on the arm of her chair; it seemed enchantingly natural that she should look up at him with pleasure.
“Well,” she said, “any good?”
“None. He’s in an awful state. What about the brothers Compline? We could hear snatches of their crosstalk act in there.”
“Lady Hersey’s been in to see them.”
“And I may say,” said Hersey, “that I got a surprise. Nick’s pulled himself together, it seems, and is doing his best to let a little sense into poor old William.”
“He has also been doing his best to drive Dr. Hart into an ecstasy of hatred by not quite tuning in at full volume to a particularly distressing rendering of ‘The Beer Barrel Polka,’ ” said Mandrake, and described the incident. “Possibly this was an essential step in the soothing of William.”
“It must have happened after I left,” said Hersey.
“I wonder you didn’t hear us yelling at each other from here.”
“This room is practically sound-proof,” said Jonathan.
“It must be. How is Nicholas getting on with William, Lady Hersey?”
“He’s not made a great deal of headway but at least he’s trying. They’re supposed to go and see their mother, but they don’t seem to be very keen on the idea. They said they particularly want to be left to themselves. What do we do now, Mr. Mandrake?”
“It’s nearly ten o’clock,” said Mandrake. “I’m damned if I know what we do. What do you think, Jonathan?”
Jonathan waved his hands and said nothing.
“Well,” Mandrake said, “I suppose we see Nicholas to his room when he wants to go to bed. Do we lock William in his room or what?”
“I think we shut up Dr. Hart,” said Hersey, “then William can’t get at Dr. Hart and Dr. Hart can’t get at Nicholas. Or am I confused?”
“They may not fancy being locked up,” Chloris pointed out. “Honestly, it’s too difficult.”
“Jo,” said Hersey suddenly, “do you remember the conversation at dinner last night? When we said what we thought everybody would do in a crisis? It seems we were all wrong about each other. We agreed that you, for instance, would talk. You’ve not uttered a word since you came into this room. Somebody said Mr. Mandrake would be the impractical member of the party and here he is showing the most superb efficiency. Chloris—I hope you don’t mind me calling you Chloris—suggested that Bill would turn up trumps, while his mother was all for Nicholas. Hopelessly incorrect! It looks as if you were right, Jo. We know nothing about each other.”
“Jonathan was eloquent in the boudoir,” said Mandrake listlessly.
They made disjointed conversation until Nicholas, wearing a dubious expression, came out of the smoking-room. He grimaced at the others and shut the door.
“How goes it?” Hersey asked. “Thumbs up?”
Nicholas, with exaggerated emphasis, mimed “Thumbs down.”
“It’s all right,” said Jonathan impatiently. “He can’t hear.”
“He’s still pretty bloody-minded,” said Nicholas, throwing himself into a chair. “He’s left off threatening to beat up the Doctor, thank God, but he’s gone into a huddle over the fire and does not exactly manifest the party spirit. You know how he used to go as a kid, Hersey. All thunderous.”
“Black Bill?” said Hersey. “I remember. Couldn’t you do anything?”
“I’ve been kicked out,” said Nicholas with a sheepish grin. “Hart’s gone to bed, I fancy. We heard him snap off the light. So perhaps Bill might work his black dog off on the wireless.”
“This is a shocking state of affairs,” cried Jonathan. “I suppose we’d better leave him to himself, um?”
“Well, he’s not so hot when he’s like this. He’ll get over it. I think I’ve persuaded him to keep away from Hart.”
“You think!”
“I tell you Hart’s gone upstairs. Possibly,” said Nicholas, showing the whites of his eyes, “he’s thought up a really foolproof way of bumping me off.”
“My dear Nick, we go up with you. I cannot believe, when he knows what we suspect, and I may say in the face of the little speech I made him, that he will attempt—but of course,” added Jonathan in a fluster, “we must take every precaution. Your door, now…”
“Make no mistake,” said Nicholas grimly. “I shall lock my door.”
There was a short pause, broken by Hersey. “I simply can’t believe it,” she said. “It’s so preposterous it just isn’t true. All of us sitting round like a house-party in a play, wailing for frightfulness. And that booby-trap! A brass Buddha! No, it’s too much. To-morrow, Dr. Hart will apologize to all of us and say he’s sorry his sense of fun carried him too far, and he’ll explain that in the Austrian Tyrol they all half-kill each other out of sheer joie de vivre, and we’ll say we’re sorry we didn’t take it in the spirit in which it was meant.”
“A murderous spirit,” Jonathan muttered. “No, no, Hersey. We’ve got to face it. The attack on Nicholas was deliberately planned to injure him.”
“Well, what are we going to do?”
“At least we could hear the war news,” said Mandrake. “It might work as a sort of counter-irritant.”
“We’d better not disturb William,” said Jonathan quickly.
“I daresay he’ll turn it on in a minute,” Nicholas said, wearily. “He’s keen on the news. Shall I ask him?”
“No, no,” said Jonathan. “Leave him alone. It’s not quite time yet. Would you like a drink, my dear Nick?”
“To be quite frank, Jonathan, I’d adore a very very large drink.”
“You shall have it. Would you ring? The bell’s beside you. No, you needn’t trouble. I hear them coming.”
A jingle of glasses sounded in the hall and the new footman came in with a tray. For the few seconds that he was in the room Chloris and Hersey made a brave effort at conversation. When he had gone Jonathan poured out the drinks. “What about William?” he asked. “Shall we…? Will you ask him?”
Nicholas opened the study door and stuck his head round it. “Coming in for a drink, Bill? Not? All right, old thing, but would you mind switching on the wireless? It’s just about time for the news and we’d like to hear it. Thanks.”
They all waited awkwardly. Nicholas glanced over his shoulder and winked. The study wireless came to life.
“Hands, knees, and boomps-a-daisy,” sang the wireless, robustly.
“Oh, God!” said Mandrake automatically, but he felt an illogical sense of relief.
“Can you stick it for a minute or two?” asked Nicholas. “It’s almost news-time. I’ll leave the door open.”
“Hands, knees, and boomps-a-daisy…”
“I think,” said Jonathan, at the third repetition of the piece, “that I’ll just make certain Dr. Hart is not in the ‘boudoir.’ ” He got up. At the same moment the dance band ended triumphantly: “Turn to your partner and bow-wow-wow.”
“Here’s the news,” said Hersey.
Jonathan, after listening to the opening announcement, went out into the hall. The others heard the recital of a laconic French bulletin and a statement that heavy snow was falling in the Maginot Line sector. The announcer’s voice went on and on, but Mandrake found himself unable to listen to it. He was visited by a feeling of nervous depression, a sort of miserable impatience. “I can’t sit here much longer,” he thought. Presently Jonathan returned and, in answer to their glances, nodded his head. “No light in there,” he said. He poured himself out a second drink. “He’s feeling the strain, too,” thought Mandrake.
“I wish old Bill’d come in,” said Nicholas sudden
ly.
“He’s better left alone,” said Jonathan.
“Shall I take him in a drink?” Hersey suggested. “He can but throw it in my face. I will. Pour him out a whiskey, Jo.”
Jonathan hesitated. She swept him aside, poured out a good three fingers of whiskey, splashed in the soda, and marched off with it into the smoking-room.
“It is learned in London tonight,” said the announcer, “that Mr. Cedric Hepbody, the well-known authority on Polish folk-music, is a prisoner in Warsaw. At the end of this bulletin you will hear a short recorded talk made by Mr. Hepbody last year on the subject of folk-music in its relation and reaction to primitive behaviourism. And now…”
Hersey was standing in the doorway. Mandrake saw her first and an icy sensation of panic closed like a hand about his heart. The red leather screen at her back threw her figure into bold relief. The others turned their heads, saw her, and, as if on a common impulse, rose at once to their feet. They watched her lips moving in her sheep-white face. She mouthed at them and turned back into the smoking-room. The announcer’s voice was cut off into silence.
“Jo,” Hersey said. “Jo, come here.”
Jonathan’s fingers pulled at his lips. He did not move.
“Jo.”
Jonathan crossed the library and went into the smoking-room. There was another long silence. Nobody moved or spoke. At last Hersey came round the screen.
“Mr. Mandrake,” she said, “will you go in to Jonathan?”
Without a word Mandrake went into the smoking-room. The heavy door with its rows of book-shelves shut behind him.
It was then that Nicholas cried out: “My God, what’s happened?”
Hersey went to him and took his hands in hers. “Nick,” she said, “he’s killed William.”
CHAPTER NINE
Alibi
WILLIAM WAS SITTING in a low chair beside the wireless. He was bent double. His face was between his knees and his hands were close to his shoes. His posture suggested an exaggerated scrutiny of the carpet. If Mandrake had walked in casually he might have thought at first glance that William was staring at some small object that lay between his feet. The cleft in the back of his head looked like some ugly mistake, preposterous rather than ghastly, the kind of thing one could not believe. Mandrake had taken in this much before he looked at Jonathan, who stood with his back against the door into the “boudoir.” He was wiping his hands on his handkerchief. Mandrake heard a tiny spat of sound. A little red star appeared on the toe of William’s left shoe.
“Aubrey, look at this.”
“Is he…? Are you sure…?”
“Good God, look at him.”
Mandrake had no wish to look at William but he limped over to the chair. Has anyone measured the flight of thought? In a timeless flash it can embrace a hundred images, and compass a multitude of ideas. In the second that passed before Mandrake stooped over William Compline, he was visited by a confused spiral of impressions and memories. He thought of William’s oddities, of how he himself had never seen any of William’s paintings, of how William’s mouth might now be open and full of spilling blood. He thought, in a deeper layer of consciousness, of Chloris, who must have been kissed by William, of Dr. Hart’s hands, of phrases in detective novels, of the fact that he might have to give his own name if he was called as a witness. The name of Roderick Alleyn was woven in his thoughts and over all of them rested an image of deep snow. He knelt by William and touched his right hand. It moved a little, flaccidly, under the pressure of his fingers, and that shocked him deeply. Something hit the back of his own hand and he saw a little red star like the one on William’s shoe. He wiped it off with a violent movement. He stooped lower and looked up into William’s face and that was terrible because the eyes as well as the mouth were wide open. Then Mandrake rose to his feet and looked at the back of William’s head and felt abominably sick. He drew away with an involuntary sideways lurch and his club-foot struck against something on the floor. It lay in shadow and he had to stoop again to see it. It was a flattish spatulate object that narrowed to a short handle. He heard Jonathan’s voice babbling behind him:
“It hung on the wall there, you know. I showed it to you. It came from New Zealand. I told you. It’s called a mere.* I told you. It’s made of stone.”
“I remember,” said Mandrake.
When he turned to speak to Jonathan he found that Nicholas had come into the room.
“Nick,” said Jonathan, “my dear Nick.”
“He’s not dead,” Nicholas said. “He can’t be dead.”
He thrust Jonathan from him and went to his brother. He put his hands on William’s head and made as if to raise it.
“Don’t,” said Mandrake. “I wouldn’t. Not yet.”
“You must be mad. Why haven’t you tried…? Leaving him! You must be mad.” He raised William’s head, saw his face, and uttered a deep retching sound. The head sagged forward again loosely as he released it. He began to repeat William’s name— “Bill, Bill, Bill—” and walked distractedly about the room, making strange uneloquent gestures.
“What are we to do?” asked Jonathan, and Mandrake repeated to himself: “What are we to do?”
Aloud he said: “We can’t do anything. We ought to get the police. A doctor. We can’t do anything.”
“Where’s Hart?” Nicholas demanded suddenly. “Where is he?”
He stumbled to the door beyond Jonathan, fumbled with the key and flung it open. The green “boudoir” was in darkness and the fire there had sunk to a dead glow.
“By God, yes, where is he?” cried Mandrake.
Nicholas turned to the door into the hall and on a common impulse Mandrake and Jonathan intercepted him. “Clear out of my way,” shouted Nicholas.
“Wait a minute, for Heaven’s sake, Compline,” said Mandrake.
“Wait a minute!”
“We’re up against a madman. He may be lying in wait for you. Think, man.”
He had Nicholas by the arm and he felt him slacken. He thought he saw something of the old nervousness come into his eyes.
“Aubrey’s right, Nick,” Jonathan was gabbling. “We’ve got to keep our head, my dear fellow. We’ve got to lay a plan of campaign. We can’t rush blindly at our fences. No, no. There’s— there’s your mother to think of, Nick. Your mother must be told, you know.”
Nicholas wrenched himself free from Mandrake, turned away to the fireplace and flung himself into a chair. “For Christ’s sake leave me alone,” he said. Mandrake and Jonathan left him alone and whispered together.
“Look here,” Mandrake said, “I suggest we lock up this room and go next door where we can talk. Are those two women all right in there? Better not leave them. We’ll go back into the library, then.” He turned to Nicholas. “I’m terribly sorry, Compline, but I don’t think we ought to—to make any changes here just yet. Jonathan, are there keys in these doors? Yes, I see.”
The door into the “boudoir” was locked. He withdrew the key, locked the door into the hall, and gave both keys to Jonathan. As he crossed the room to open the library door he felt a slight prick in the sole of his normal foot and, in one layer of his conscious thoughts, cursed his shoemaker. They shepherded Nicholas back into the library. Mandrake found that, behind its rows of dummy books, the door into the library also had a lock.
They found Hersey and Chloris sitting together by the fire. Mandrake saw that Chloris had been crying. “I’m out of this,” he thought, “I can’t try to help.” And, unrecognized by himself, a pang of jealousy shook him, jealousy of William who, by getting himself murdered, had won tears from Chloris.
Mandrake, for the first time, noticed that Jonathan was as white as a ghost. He kept opening and closing his lips, his fingers went continually to his glasses and he repeatedly gave a dry nervous cough. “I daresay I look pretty ghastly myself,” thought Mandrake. Jonathan, for all his agitation, had assumed a certain air of authority. He sat down by Hersey and took her hand.
�
�Now, my dears,” he began, and though his voice shook, his phrases held their old touch of pedantry, “I know you will be very sensible and brave. This is a most dreadful calamity, and I feel that I am myself, in a measure, responsible for it. That is an appalling burden to carry upon one’s conscience but at the moment I dare not let myself consider it. There is an immediate problem and we must deal with it as best we may. There is no doubt at all, I am afraid, that it is Dr. Hart who has killed William, and in my mind there is no doubt that he is insane. First of all, then, I want you both to promise me that you will not separate, and also that when we leave you alone together you will lock this door after us and not unlock it until one of us returns.”
“But he’s not going for either of us,” said Hersey. “He’s got nothing against us, surely.”
“What had he against William?”
“William had quite a lot against him,” said Hersey.
“It must have been the radio,” Mandrake said to Nicholas. “He nearly went for you when you turned it on.”
Nicholas said: “I told him to go to hell and locked the door in his face.” He leant his arms on the mantelpiece and beat his skull with his fists.
“You locked the door?” Mandrake repeated.
“He looked like barging in. I was sick of it all. Going for me. Screaming out his orders to me! I wanted to shut him up.”
“I remember now. I heard you lock it. He must have gone out into the hall, and then into the smoking-room through the hall door.”
“I suppose so,” said Nicholas, and drove his fingers through his hair.
“Look here,” Mandrake said slowly, “this makes a difference.”
“If it does,” Jonathan interrupted him, “we can hear what it is later, Aubrey. Nick, my dear chap, I think you must see your mother. And we”—he looked at Mandrake—“must find Hart.” They made a plan of action. The men were to search the house together, leaving the two women in the library with the doors locked on the inside. Nicholas said that his service automatic was in his room. They decided to go upstairs at once and get it. “Bill had his,” Nicholas said, and Jonathan said they would take it for Mandrake.