'An usher wouldn't know whether it is or whether it isn't,' said Tancred. 'What do you dish out to your pupils? Longfellow, or Mrs Hemans?'
Tea was brought in, dinner followed at seven and, after dinner, Judith played and sang. At half-past ten a move was made
towards bed.
'We can't expect Hubert and Willoughby tonight, it seems,' said Romilly. On gaining her room, Dame Beatrice rearranged her bedding so that she was sleeping head-to-foot in the big fourposter. She left the picture leaning against the foot of the wall, although what whim had caused her to take it down again she hardly knew, any more than she knew what instinct had made her change her bedcoverings round. She did know that, in spite of his laughter, which had sounded spontaneous and unforced, she had made an enemy of Romilly. There was also the slight mystery as to which member of the household had actually invited the guests, and there was Romilly's anxiety, which had been apparent during the whole of the evening, because two of the guests, Hubert, the clergyman and Willoughby, the secretary, had neither put in an appearance nor sent a letter of excuse. Romilly had fumed and fidgeted and made several references to their absence, so much so that Judith, who did not seem to share his feeling of unease, had at last chided him sharply.
'For heaven's sake,' she had exclaimed, 'stop worrying over the wretched pair! What does it matter whether they're here or not? You didn't have them last time, anyway.'
'I don't want to hold my meeting without them,' Romilly had pettishly replied. 'It will spoil everything if we're two people short.'
Dame Beatrice was glad that the evening was over. What with the bickering of Humphrey and Tancred, Binnie's tears, which started up readily when her husband was more than usually unkind, Romilly's fretting and a certain restlessness which all this not unnaturally induced in the quiet and inoffensive Giles, together with the vapid and (she thought) nervous chatter of the twins, the hours between tea and dinner and then between dinner and bedtime, had been anything but pleasant.
She got ready for bed in a leisurely manner, for it was very much earlier than her usual time for retiring. On the other hand, there was no point in staying up, for she had too much respect for her aging eyesight to strain it by attempting to read by candlelight, which was the only form of lighting in her vast and shadowy room. Neither, at that hour, did she expect to fall asleep, and she was lying contentedly in the huge, comfortable bed, glad of her own company after the uneasy and boring hours downstairs, when she was aware of slight sounds coming from the direction of the hole in the wall. The next moment there was a startling report from a firearm. Dead silence followed for a moment and then came the sound of a door closing. Dame Beatrice had locked her own door. She slipped out of bed, made her way to the locked door and listened, but even her keen hearing could detect no further sound.
The silence, however, was not prolonged. There were footsteps on the stairs and in the gallery, and voices raised excitedly. Then came a hammering on the door of her room and a shouted question from Romilly.
'Beatrice! Beatrice! Are you all right?'
'Perfectly all right,' she replied. 'I thought I heard the sound of a shot, though. Could it be so?'
'Well, I certainly heard something,' said Corin's voice. 'Hullo! Talk about a gathering of the clan!'
There were excited exclamations in various tones. It was clear that most, if not all, of the household, were gathered on the landing outside. Dame Beatrice lit a candle, put on dressing-gown and slippers, hung the picture up again and opened the door.
'Where did the sound seem to come from?' she mildly enquired.
'Certainly from this part of the house,' said Romilly, shading his candle against a draught from the staircase. Dame Beatrice glanced around her. The absentees were the servants and also Binnie, Rosamund and Tancred. The others wore dressing-gowns, except for Giles, who had pulled his trousers on over his pyjamas, and Humphrey, who was wearing an overcoat over his nightshirt.
'It sounded like a shot,' said Romilly, 'but it could hardly have been that. What did you think it was, Beatrice?'
'I thought it was a shot,' she replied. 'But, as you say, it seems unlikely.'
'You don't suppose,' said Giles, 'that Hubert and Willoughby have arrived, and what we heard was their car back-firing?'
'That seems possible,' said Judith, who was looking particularly handsome in a scarlet dressing-gown embroidered with gold thread. 'Perhaps somebody had better go downstairs and find out.'
'An excellent idea,' said Romilly. 'You girls get back to bed, and you, too, Beatrice. Giles and I will investigate.'
The crowd dispersed. Dame Beatrice closed her door and locked it. Then she found the powerful electric torch which always accompanied her and made an inspection of what had become the foot of her bed. She was interested but not surprised to find that the marksman, whoever he or she might have been, had not tailored the shot. As nearly as she could judge, the bullet would have travelled in a direct line to her pillow, had her bedding not been rearranged. She would probably find the bullet embedded in the mattress, she thought. She returned to bed and slept lightly but soundly until six.
At breakfast there was some speculation, but not as much as might have been expected, as to the origin of the noise. Dame Beatrice, who, after rising, had rearranged her bed so that the pillows were at the right end of it, contributed little to the pointless discussion, and it very soon changed to a peevish monologue from Romilly concerning the non-arrival of Hubert and Willoughby. Since she knew neither of them, for her any real interest was lacking. However, as she had found not only the bullet hole in the bedclothes, but the bullet itself (which she decided had come from a .22 rifle), her interest lay in wondering who had fired it, and whether the would-be murderer had expected to kill not herself but Romilly, as the room she occupied had at one time been his own. In view of the fears he had expressed to her, and which, at the time, she had treated lightly, she thought that he might have been the intended victim. It was clear, later in the day, that he himself thought so. He said to her, when they chanced to find themselves alone:
'I suppose it was a shot?'
'Oh, yes,' she replied. 'It was a shot. It came from the direction of the hole in the wall in my room.'
'It was intended for me, no doubt. What a lucky escape you have had.'
'I have no idea for whom it was intended.'
'I should imagine it has substantially reduced the value of the picture.'
'No, no. I had taken the picture down.' He stared at her, but asked for no explanation, and in this unsatisfactory state the matter rested, except that when she next visited her room it was to find that a kind of rough wooden shutter had been affixed to the hole in the wall, and that the painting of the two boys had disappeared.
CHAPTER FIVE
DANSE MACABRE-THE WICKED UNCLE
If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, ill you command me to use my legs? And yet that were light payment-to dance out of your debt.'
King Henry IV, Part 2.
(1)
Laura was delighted with the letter she had received from Dame Beatrice, her emotion tempered merely by regret to think that, so far, she was excluded from the fun. She would have been even more regretful had she known about the mysterious shot in the night. However, leaving the baby Eiladh in the capable and willing hands of Zena the kitchenmaid, she drove to London in her own small car, parked it on the outskirts and took a taxi to Somerset House.
The provisions of Felix Napoleon's will were straightforward enough, and Laura had no difficulty in memorising them. There was no doubt that Rosamund, subject to the conditions of which Dame Beatrice had been made aware, was the principal beneficiary. The money was left to 'my granddaughter, Rosamund Mary Lestrange,' when she should have attained the age of twenty-five years. Until that time, the estate was to be held in trust by the old man's lawyers, and the interest on the money allowed to accumulate. Laura read the rest of the provisions and stipulations with g
reat interest, for there was no doubt that if Romilly was an unscrupulous and criminally-minded man, the girl's fears for her own safety were not imaginary, and Laura admitted as much in her return letter.
Dame Beatrice received this letter at a quarter to ten on the morning following the shooting. There had been some more speculation as to the cause of the noise which had roused the household, but as, apparently, nothing had resulted from the shot except the somewhat curious circumstance that none of the servants seemed to have heard it-a circumstance confirmed by George and Amabel when Dame Beatrice off-handedly mentioned the matter to them separately-speculation died down in favour of a general discussion, when Romilly had left the breakfast table, as to the reason for his having arranged the house-party.
Dame Beatrice, who did not contribute to the discussion, but who listened with interest to it, realised that one thing which she had been told was, on the face of things, completely untrue. There was no family feud between the Lestranges and the Provosts. There was a running skirmish between Humphrey and Tancred, but it was a private fight, not a family matter. She wondered whether the appearance of the brothers Hubert and Willoughby would prove to be the match which might be applied to the gunpowder, but she could not, at that point, detect any presence of explosives. In the early afternoon, however, more drama, this time of a rather ridiculous sort, was suddenly introduced by Rosamund.
Lunch was over. The last two of the guests, Willoughby and Hubert Lestrange, still had not put in an appearance. The others, with Romilly, Judith and Dame Beatrice, were taking coffee in the drawing-room when Rosamund put in this dramatic and disordered appearance. She was wearing a white nylon nightdress and had a cock-eyed wreath of dripping wet hazel-catkins on her hair. She said:
'Look! I'm Ophelia, all wet from the river.' Then, in a tuneless voice, she began to sing.
'My God!' exclaimed Humphrey. 'What on earth is this?'
'And will he not come again?' mouthed Rosamund, continuing her caterwauling.
'Who?' interpolated Binnie, obviously interested.
'No, no he is dead,
Go to thy death-bed,
He never will come again,' sang Rosamund.
'Who won't?' demanded Binnie, in a louder tone.
'So excellent a king; that was, to this,
Hyperion to a satyr,' replied Rosamund obligingly, in a clear, elocutionist voice.
'Beatrice!' cried Romilly, putting down his cup. 'For God's sake help me out with her!' But it was Tancred who rose from his seat on the settee where he was partnering Binnie.
'Come on, girl,' he said. 'You can tell me all about it upstairs, and, if you're good, I'll read you my poems.'
'Don't believe it,' said Rosamund sulkily. 'You don't want me to sing, that's all.'
'There's one poem I know you'll like,' said Tancred persuasively. 'It's all about you. Come along.'
'I want one about me,' said Binnie. 'You promised one about me. And that's my nightie she's got on!'
Tancred took Rosamund by an unresisting arm, and led her from the room. Dame Beatrice rose in leisurely fashion, placed her empty cup on a small table, and followed them out. After a moment, Binnie followed, too.
'Don't see why she should pinch my nightie,' she said. 'I'm going to get it back. It's not that I grudge it her, but she can't just go about sneaking things. It's not right.'
'She's worse than you told us in your letter, then,' said Humphrey to his uncle. Romilly looked gloomy. Dame Beatrice, who had not gone upstairs in the wake of Rosamund and Tancred, but who had stepped aside to allow Binnie to pass her, noticed this from her vantage point at the side of the archway which did duty for a door. She heard Romilly answer:
'Well, it's bound to be progressive, I suppose, although she's been a little calmer of late.' Dame Beatrice came back into the room.
'She will be calmer again in a minute or two,' she said. 'I warned you that this influx of guests might excite her.' She settled herself composedly in the chair she had previously occupied and looked across at him.
'I can't help that,' he said. 'I had to call the family together for a very good reason, and, as you are an interested party, I had to get you to come along, too. There is nothing you can do for Trilby. She's naughty, not deranged. I expect you have found that out by now. Well, now seems as good a time as any for me to hold the business meeting which is the prime reason for this pleasant little get-together.'
'I don't see how you can,' said Corin. 'We're short of four members of the group. Don't we wait until Binnie and Tancred come down, and Hubert and Willoughby get here?'
'I don't know why all the rest of us should wait,' said his twin sister. Those other two can hear all about it later on. Don't forget we've got a rehearsal at ten tomorrow morning, and we must run over our programme before dinner tonight.'
'The meeting need not take long,' Romilly insisted. 'I have enticed you here on various pretexts. None of my offers was genuine. I had better confess that at once. You, my dear Humphrey, were led to believe that I could obtain for you a House at a minor public school. I am not in a position to do so. Tancred has been told that a publisher is prepared to put out his poems and guarantee him a respectable advance and a scale of royalties. This is untrue. Binnie-I wrote to her separately, Humphrey, and had the letter delivered by special messenger at a time when I knew you would be at school-thinks that I can get her a job modelling clothes. Giles has been promised...'
'Oh, cut it out!' said Giles. The belligerent words were expressed in a quiet voice, but with a degree of menace which encouraged Humphrey, who, so far, had responded only with a red face and a bristling attitude, to put his face almost into Romilly's and exclaim:
'You rotten, lying, oily swine!'
'Just a moment, Humphrey,' said Judith. 'Let Uncle Romilly finish what he has to say.'
'I had to find the means to get you all together,' went on Romilly, 'and to pretend to offer each of you something to his advantage seemed by far the best way. Hubert expects me to get him ecclesiastical preferment, and Willoughby wants to...'
'Knock your block off, I should think,' said Giles. 'Have you forgotten that he has been out of a job for months?'
'I have forgotten nothing,' said Romilly. 'Hear me out. Having gathered you together under these false pretences and lying promises, I propose to acquaint you with the terms of my Will.'
'So you told us,' said Binnie, appearing in the archway. 'I think Trilby and Tancred have gone to bed together. What Will? Do we all share, or have you left everything to Corin and Corinna?'
'Why us, Binnie?' asked Corin, pushing back his shoulder-length, unkempt hair.
'Because-yes, I've been in the next room, listening; so convenient, not having proper doors-because it seems to me that Corin and Corinna are the only people who haven't been promised things.' She advanced into the room. 'You two got your own booking at the Winter Garden, didn't you?' she asked.
'Sure,' said Corin, 'but Romilly offered us free board and lodging and the use of a car while we were down here.'
'The estate which I propose to buy later on, and all my money,' said Romilly deliberately, 'might be willed to whichever one of you murders me, and I am not disclosing the terms of my bequests at this stage. Therefore, as a murderer cannot gain financially by the death of his victim, I have a feeling that I shall remain alive for a good long time, you know. Just my idea of a little bit of fun. That's all. Enjoy yourselves.'
'The murderer could gain financially so long as he wasn't caught,' said Giles grimly.
'He will be caught,' said Romilly, with a significant glance at Dame Beatrice. 'One of you has taken what he thought was a shot at me. I advise him not to try again. Well, I'll leave you to think things over.'
(2)
'But it doesn't make sense,' said Binnie, for the fourth time since the discussion had broken out, which it did upon Romilly's departure.
'It must make sense to one of us,' said Corin. 'As I see it, it's a warni
ng. The old man's got a hunch that one of us intends to do him in. That means it really was a shot we heard last night.'
Binnie squeaked in dismay. Her husband said morosely:
'All that nonsense aside, the fact remains that he's got us all down here by making lying promises to us. If you ask me, he deserves to be shot.'
'Well, I advise you not to have a second go,' said Tancred, coming suddenly into the room. 'I've left Rosamund with Judith, by the way. I suppose their absence is to be desired, rather than deplored, under the present circumstances. Incidentally, Cousin Humphrey, why do you want to liquidate our host and close relative?'
'You'd want to do it yourself, if you had the guts of a flea,' said Humphrey violently. 'Didn't he promise you that he'd got hold of a publisher who would pay for those rhymes of yours? Well, he hasn't, and he won't. He's been leading us all up the garden.'
'Meaning you won't get that better job to which your talents as usher do not entitle you?'
'Look here,' said Giles, 'our quarrel is with Romilly, not with one another. He promised to lend me the money for a part-share in some racing-stables, and the promise is just as worthless as those he made to the rest of you. Don't let's bicker.'
'The promise he made to us isn't worthless,' said Corin.
'Isn't it?' asked his sister. 'What if he doesn't lay on the transport he promised us? Have you realised what it's going to cost if we have to pay for a car to get us to Bournemouth and back each day? The money we're paid for our show is going to look pretty silly with about fifty pounds knocked off it.'
'I hadn't thought of that. He wouldn't be such a swine, would he?' asked her twin.
'I don't know. He's made fools of Humphrey and Tancred and Giles. Why should we escape his morbid little sense of humour? After all, how much do we know about him, anyway? We've been out of touch with him since we were babies, except for that silly house-warming he chose to give, and he doesn't own this place, anyway; he only rents it. I'm not at all sure we were born, in fact, before he went out to Kenya or wherever it was. What I can't understand is what his game is. I mean, why on earth bring us all together like this, on the strength of some lying promises?'
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