“Oh, they’ve stopped saying it was an accident. But each of the men seems to think you were mistaken for him.”
“Does William think that?”
“No. William confines himself to saying he wishes it had been Nicholas. He’s made Nicholas pay him the ten pounds.”
“I suppose,” said Mandrake, “you didn’t push me in?”
“No, honestly I didn’t. When I got to the top of the steps William and Nicholas and Dr. Hart were all down by the pool, screaming instructions to you. I got a frightful shock. I thought you were Mr. Royal drowning in his own baroque waters.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Oh, because of the cloak, I suppose. It was floating about like a large water-lily leaf, and I said to myself: ‘Crikey, that’s Jonathan Royal.’ ”
Mandrake sat up in bed and bent his most austere gaze upon Miss Wynne. “How did you feel,” he asked, “when you knew it was I?”
“Well, when Mr. Royal came up behind me, I knew it was thee, if that’s the right grammar. And then I saw you clinging to that bathing bird and your hair was over your face like seaweed and your tie was round at the back of your neck, and so on and—” her voice quivered slightly, “and I was terribly sorry,” she said.
“No doubt I was a ludicrous figure. Look here, from what you tell me it seems that you were the last to arrive.”
“No, Mr. Royal came after me. He’d been round at the front of the house, I think. He overtook me on the steps.”
“Will you tell me something? Please try to remember. Did you notice the footprints on the terrace and the steps?”
“I say,” said Miss Wynne, “are we going to do a bit of ’teckery? Footprints in the snow!”
“Do leave off being gay and amusing, I implore you, and try to remember the footprints. There would be mine of course.”
“Yes. I noticed yours. I mean I—”
“You saw the marks of my club-foot. You needn’t be so delicate about it.”
“You needn’t be so insufferably on the defensive,” said Chloris with spirit, and immediately added: “Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry. At least let there not be a quarrel up here by your bed of sickness. Yes, I saw your footprints, and I think I saw — no, I can’t remember except that there were others. William’s, of course.”
“Any coming back to the house?”
“No, I’m sure not. But—”
“Yes?”
“Well, you’re wondering, aren’t you, if somebody could have gone down and shoved you overboard and then come back up the steps and then sort of pretended they were going down for the first time? I’d thought of that. You see, as I went down I stepped in your footprints because it was easier going. Anybody else might have done that. It was snowing so hard nobody would have noticed the steps within the steps.”
“Hart came by a different path from the front of the house, William came down the terrace steps, then you, then Jonathan. I don’t think William would have had time unless he came hard on my heels. I’d only just got there when it happened. Nicholas didn’t do it because he gave me the cloak and therefore couldn’t have mistaken me for anyone else. I believe Nicholas is right. I believe Hart did it. He saw Nicholas, wearing his cloak, go by the front way, and followed him. Then he skulked round the corner of the pavilion, saw a figure in a cloak standing on the kerb, darted out through the snow and did his abominable stuff. Then he darted back and reappeared, all surprise and consternation, when he heard Nicholas yell. By that time William was coming down the steps, no doubt, and you, followed by Jonathan, were leaving the house. Hart’s our man.”
“Yes, but why?”
“My dear girl—”
“All right, all right. Because of Madame Lisse. We only met last night and you talk as if I were a congenital idiot.”
“There’s nothing like attempted murder to bring people together.”
“Nicholas is a fool.”
“You ought to know. I thought you still seemed to get a flutter out of him.”
“Now that,” said Chloris warmly, “I do consider an absolutely insufferable remark.”
“It’s insufferable because it happens to be true. Nicholas Compline is the sort of person that all females get self-conscious about and all males instinctively wish to award a kick in the pants.”
“Barn-yard jealousy.”
“You know,” said Mandrake, “you’ve got more penetration than I first gave you credit for. All the same,” he said, after a long pause, “there’s one little thing that doesn’t quite fit in with my theory. It doesn’t exactly contradict it, but it doesn’t fit in.”
“Well, don’t mumble about it. Or aren’t you going to tell me?”
“When they brought me back up those unspeakable steps, I was sick.”
“You don’t need to tell me that. I was looking after you.”
“I’m damned if I know how I came to notice them, but I did notice them. At the top of the terrace, leading out from the house, coming round from the front door and stopping short at the edge of the terrace. You didn’t see them when you went down. Neither did I. Which proves—”
“Do you mind,” Chloris interrupted, “breaking the thread of your narrative just for a second? Surrealism may be marvellous in poetic drama but it’s not so good in simple conversation. What didn’t we see going down that you saw coming back, sick and all as you were?”
“A row of footprints in the snow coming out from the house as far as the top of the terrace and turning back again.”
“Oh.”
“They were small footprints.”
Chapter VI
Flight
The afternoon was remarkable for an increasing heaviness in the snow-fall, the state of Mandrake’s feelings, and the behaviour of William Compline. Snow mounted from the window-sill in a tapering shroud, light diminished stealthily in Mandrake’s bedroom while he felt too relaxed and too idle to stretch out his hand to the bedside lamp. Yet though his body was fatigued, his brain was active and concerned itself briskly with the problem of his immersion and with speculations on the subject of Chloris Wynne’s strange relations with the Compline brothers. He was convinced that she was not in love with William but less sure that she did not still hanker after Nicholas. Mandrake wondered testily how a young woman who did not try the eyes, and was by no means a ninny, could possibly degrade her intelligence by falling for the brummagem charms of Nicholas Compline. “A popinjay,” he muttered, “a stock figure of dubious gallantry.” And he pronounced the noise usually associated with the word “Pshaw.” He had arrived at this point when he received a visit from William and Lady Hersey.
“We hear you’re better,” Hersey said. “Everybody’s being quite frightful downstairs and William and I thought we’d like a little first-hand information, so we’ve come to call. They’re all saying you think somebody tried to drown you. William’s afraid you might suspect him, so I’ve brought him up to come clean.”
“Do you suspect me?” asked William anxiously. “Because I didn’t, you know.”
“I don’t in the least suspect you. Why should I? We’ve had no difference in opinion.”
“Well, they seem to think I might have mistaken you for Nicholas.”
“Who suspects this?”
“My mama, principally. Because I stuck to the bet, you see. So I thought I’d like to explain that when I got there you were already in the pool.”
“Was Hart there?”
“No. No, he turned up a minute or so later.”
“Did you notice the footprints on the terrace steps?”
“Yes, rather,” said William, unexpectedly. “They were your footsteps. I noticed them because one was bigger than the other.”