“To me?” Jonathan gave a little start. “Yes, of course. Here?”
“I was about to suggest — somewhere else. But perhaps… I remember, Mr. Mandrake, that as we brought you to the house, you declared repeatedly that you had been deliberately pushed into this swimming-pool.”
Mandrake looked at the large pale face, surely more pale than ever since its owner began to speak, and thought: “This may be the face of a potential murderer.” Aloud, he said: “I am quite convinced of it.”
“Then perhaps it would be well to set your mind at ease on this matter. No attempt was made wittingly upon you, Mr. Mandrake.”
“How do you know?”
“It was a case of mistaken identity.”
“Good God!”said Jonathan with violence. Dr. Hart tapped the palm of one hand with the fingers of the other. “The person who made this attack,” he said, “believed that he was making it upon me.”
Mandrake’s first reaction to this announcement was a hysterical impulse to burst out laughing. He looked at Jonathan, who stood with his back to the light, and wondered if he only imagined that an expression of mingled relief and astonishment had appeared for a moment on his host’s face. Then he heard his voice, pedantic and high-pitched as usual.
“But my dear Dr. Hart,” Jonathan said, “what can have put such a strange notion into your head?”
“The fact that there is, among your guests, a man who wishes most ardently for my death.”
“Surely not,” said Jonathan, making a little purse of his lips.
“Surely, yes. I had not intended to go so far. I merely wished to reassure Mr. Mandrake. Perhaps if we withdrew?”
“For pity’s sake,” Mandrake ejaculated, “don’t withdraw. I’m all right. I want to get this thing straight. After all,” he added peevishly, “it was me in the pond.”
“True,” said Jonathan.
“And I think I should tell you, Dr. Hart, that as I came down the steps, Compline saw me through the pavilion window and waved. He must have recognized me.”
“It was snowing very heavily. Your face, no doubt, was in shadow, hidden by the hood of my cape.”
“I hope you got your cape,” said Jonathan anxiously.
“Thank you, yes. There must be a considerable amount of weed in your pond. It is to me quite evident, Mandrake, that Compline mistook you for myself. He came out of the pavilion and ran quickly up behind you, giving you a sharp thrust on the shoulder-blades.”
“It was a sharp thrust on the shoulder-blades. But you forget that there is one thing about me that is quite distinctive.” Mandrake spoke rapidly with an air of jeering at himself. “I am lame. I wear a heavy boot. I use a stick. You can’t mistake a man with a club-foot, Dr. Hart.”
“Your foot was hidden. One does not walk evenly in snow and I assure you that while I, as a medical man, would not make such a mistake, Compline, glancing out through heavy sheets of falling snow, might easily do so.”
“I don’t agree with you. And didn’t Compline see you looking from an upper window as he went to the pond? He could hardly imagine you would spirit yourself down there as quickly as that.”
“Why not? I could have done so. A matter of a few moments. In actual fact I did go down a few minutes later. Mr, Royal saw me leave.”
“Is it altogether wise to stress that point, do you think?”
“I do not understand you, Mr. Mandrake.”
Jonathan began to talk very quickly, stuttering a little and making sharp gestures with both hands.
“And, my dear Hart, even if, as you suggest, anyone could mistake Mandrake for yourself; even supposing, and I cannot suppose it, that anyone could entertain the idea of thrusting you into that water, surely, surely it would be preposterous to suggest that it was with any — any — ah — murderous intent. Can you not swim, my dear doctor?”
“Yes, but—”
“Very well, then. I myself cannot help thinking that Mandrake is mistaken, that a sudden gust of wind caught him—”
“No, Jonathan.”
“—or that at the worst it was a stupid and dangerous practical joke.”
“A joke!” shouted Dr. Hart. “A JOKE!” Mandrake suppressed a nervous giggle. Hart stared sombrely at him, and then turned to Jonathan. “And yet I do not know,” he said heavily. “Perhaps with an Englishman it is possible. Perhaps he did not mean to kill me. Perhaps he wished to make me a foolish figure, shivering, dripping stagnant water, my teeth chattering — Yes, I can accept that possibility. He recognized the Tyrolese cape and thought—”
“Wait a moment,” Mandrake interrupted, “before we go any further I must put you right about the cape. It is impossible that Nicholas Compline should have thought you were inside your own Tyrolese cape.”
“And why?”
“Because he himself gave it to me to wear to the pond.”
Dr. Hart was silent. He looked from Mandrake to Jonathan, and those little dents appeared in his nostrils. “You are protecting him,” he said.
“I assure you I am speaking the truth.”
“There is one explanation that seems to have occurred to nobody.” Jonathan raised his hands to his spectacles and adjusted them slightly. “I myself wear a Tyrolese cape, your own gift, my dear Hart, and a delightful one. Is it not at least possible that somebody may have thought it would be amusing to watch me flounder in my own ornamental pool?”
“But who the hell?” Mandrake objected.
“It might be argued,” said Jonathan, smiling modestly, “almost every member of my house-party.”
When they had left him alone, Mandrake surrendered himself to a curious state of being, engendered by exhaustion, brandy, speculation, and drowsiness. His thoughts floated in a kind of hinterland between sleep and wakefulness. At times they were sharply defined, at times nebulous and disconnected, but always they circled about the events leading to his plunge into the swimming-pool. At last he dozed off into a fitful sleep from which he was roused, as it seemed, by a single clear inspiration. “I must see William Compline,” he heard himself say. “Must see William Compline.” He was staring at the ridge of snow that had begun to mount from the sill up the window-pane, when his door moved slightly and Chloris Wynne’s beautifully groomed head appeared in the opening.
“Come in.”
“I thought you might be asleep. I called to enquire.”
“The report is favourable. Sit down and have a cigarette. I haven’t the remotest idea of the time.”
“Nearly lunch-time.”
“Really? What are you all doing?”
“I’ve known house-parties go with a greater swing. Nicholas is sulking by the radio in the smoking-room. Lady Hersey and Mr. Royal seem to be having a quarrel next door in the library, and when I tried the boudoir on the other side of the smoking-room I ran into Dr. Hart and Madame Lisse, both quite green in the face and obviously at the peak of an argument. My ex-future-mother-in-law has developed a bad cold and I have had a snorter of a row with William.”
“Here!” said Mandrake. “What is all this?”
“I ticked him off for harping on about the bet with Nicholas, and then he said some pretty offensive things about Nicholas and me, and I said he was insane, and he huffed and puffed and broke off our engagement. I don’t know why I tell you all this, unless it’s to get in first with the news bulletin.”
“It’s all very exciting, of course, but I consider the human interest really centres about me.”
“Because you fell in the pool?”
“Because I was pushed in.”
“That’s what we’re quarreling about, actually. So many people seem to think it was all a mistake.”
“The fact remains, I was pushed in.”