He heard the bathroom door opened. A moment later the taps were turned on, and Wilde’s voice called out to him.
“No bloodshed yet, Bathgate?”
“Not yet,” shouted Nigel; “but I’m much too frightened to go down.”
“Let’s wait till Majorie is ready,” suggested Wilde, “and all go down together. If you don’t agree, I’ll know you are the murderer.”
“All right, I’ll agree,” yelled Nigel cheerfully, and he heard Wilde laugh to himself and shout the suggestion through to his wife, who was presumably still dressing in the room beyond.
Nigel walked over to his bedside table and picked up the book he had been reading the night before. It was Joseph Conrad’s Suspense. He had just opened it at the title page when there was a light tap on the door.
“Come in,” shouted Nigel.
A rather flustered and extremely pretty housemaid appeared.
“Oh, please, sir,” she began, “I’m afraid I’ve forgot your shaving-water.”
“It’s all right,” said Nigel. “I managed with—”
Suddenly the room was completely blacked out.
He stood in thick darkness with the invisible book in his hand while the voice of the gong — primitive and threatening — surged up through the empty throat of the house. It filled the room with an intolerable clamour and then died away grudgingly. Silence flowed back again and, trickling through it, the noise of the bath water still running next door. Then Wilde’s voice shouting excitedly:
“I say… what’s all this—?”
“Pretty nippy, wasn’t it?” shouted Nigel. “What about the two minutes? Wait a bit. I’ve got a luminous wrist watch. I’ll keep time for both of us.”
“Yes, but look here — do I have to lie in this bath,” queried Wilde plaintively, “or do you imagine I may get out and dry myself?”
“Pull out the plug and reach for the towel. Did you leave Charles downstairs?”
“Yes, I did. Full of complaints about Tokareff. I say, do you think…” Wilde’s voice became muffled. Evidently he had found the towel.
“Time!” said Nigel. “I’m off.”
“Turn up the lights for heaven’s sake,” urged Wilde. “I’m going to miss all the fun if I can’t find my pants.”
His wife’s voice screeched excitedly from the far room.
“Arthur, wait for me!”
“Me wait for you—” began Wilde in an injured voice.
Nigel struck a match and made his way to the door. Out on the landing it was pitch dark, but further back along the passage he could see little points of match-light and the dramatic uncertainty of faces, dimly lit from below. Far down beneath him in the hall was the comfortable flicker of a fire. The house was alive with the voices of the guests, calling, laughing, questioning. Cosseting his match, he groped his way downstairs; it burnt out, but the firelight enabled him to round the bottom of the stairs and find the main switch.
For a second he hesitated. Obscurely, unaccountably, he did not want to wipe away the darkness. As he stood with his hand on the switch, time seemed to hang still.
From the stairs Handesley’s voice called out:
“Anyone find the switch?”
“I’m there,” answered Nigel, and his hand jerked it down.
The sudden blaze from the chandelier was blinding. On the stairs Wilde, his wife, Tokareff, Handesley, and Angela all shrank back from it. Nigel, blinking, came round the stairs. Facing him was the cocktail tray, and beside him the great Assyrian gong.
A man was lying on his face alongside the table. He was lying at right angles to the gong.
Nigel, still blinking, turned his face towards the others.
“I say,” he said, peering at them and shading his eyes. “I say, look… here he is.”
“It’s Charles,” exclaimed Mrs. Wilde shrilly.
“Poor old Charles!” said Handesley jovially.
They were all pushing and shouting. Only Rankin did not move.
“Don’t touch him… don’t touch him, anybody,” said Angela; “you must never disturb the body, you know.”
“A moment, please.” Doctor Tokareff put her gently aside. He came downstairs, glanced at Nigel, who stood transfixed, staring at his cousin, and bent down slowly.
“This young lady speaks with wisdom,” said Doctor Tokareff. “Undoubtedly, let us not touch.”
“Charles!” screamed Mrs. Wilde suddenly. “My God, Charles!.. Charles!”
But Rankin lay heavily silent and, their eyes having grown accustomed to the light, they all saw the hilt of his Russian dagger jutting out like a little horn between his shoulder blades.
Chapter IV
Monday
Chief Inspector-Detective Alleyn was accosted by Inspector-Detective Boys in the corridor outside his office.
“What’s the matter with you?” said Inspector Boys. “Has someone found you a job?”
“You’ve guessed my boyish secret. I’ve been given a murder to solve — aren’t I a lucky little detective?”
He hurried out into the main corridor, where he was met by Detective-Sergeant Bailey who carried a fingerprint apparatus, and by Detective-Sergeant Smith who was burdened with a camera. A car was waiting for them, and in two hours’ time they were standing in the hall at Frantock.
P.C. Bunce of the local constabulary eyed the Inspector cautiously.
“A very narsty business, sir,” he said with relish. “The superintendent being took very bad with the ’flu and no one else here to handle the case except the sergeant, we rang up the Yard immediate. This is Doctor Young, the divisional surgeon who made the examination.” A sandy-coloured, palish man had stepped forward.
“Good morning,” said Inspector Alleyn. “No doubt about the medical verdict, I suppose?”
“None whatever, I’m grieved to say,” said the doctor, whose accent had a smack of Scots in it. “I was called in immediately after the discovery. Life had been extinct about thirty minutes. There is no possibility of the injury being self-inflicted. The superintendent here has an acute attack of gastric influenza and is really quite unfit to do anything. I gave definite instructions that he was not to be worried about the case. In view of the most extraordinary circumstances and also of Sir Hubert’s position, the local office decided to approach Scotland Yard.” Doctor Young stopped talking suddenly as if someone had turned his voice off at the main. He then made a deep uncomfortable noise in his throat, a noise that sounded like “Kaahoom.”
“The body?” queried Inspector Alleyn.
The constable and the doctor began to speak together.
“Beg pardon, doctor,” said P. C. Bunce.
“It has been moved into the study,” explained the doctor, “it had already been greatly disturbed. I could see no point in leaving it here — in the hall — very difficult.”
“Greatly disturbed? By whom? But let me have the whole story. Shall we sit down, Doctor Young? I really know nothing of the case.”
They sat down before the great fireplace, where only twelve hours ago Rankin had warmed himself as he told one of his “pre-prandial” stories.
“The victim’s name,” began Doctor Young in a businesslike voice, “was Rankin. He was one of a party of five guests spending the week-end with Sir Hubert Handesley and his niece. They had been playing one of these new-fangled games, one called”—he paused for a second—“called ‘Murders.’ You may have heard of it.”