“William!” Hersey murmured.
“Well, Hersey, he’d know about that, wouldn’t he? And then, you know, Chloris and Jonathan arrived.”
“Perhaps you’d like my alibi, Mr. Mandrake,” said Hersey. “It’s not an alibi at all, I’m afraid. I sat in the smoking-room and listened to the wireless. The first intimation I had about your adventure was provided by Jonathan who came in shouting for restoratives. I could tell you about the wireless programme, I think.”
Hersey went to the window and looked out. When she spoke again her voice fell oddly on the silence of the room. “It’s snowing like mad,” she said. “Has it struck either of you that in all probability, whether we like it or not, we are shut up together in this house with no chance of escape?”
“Dr. Hart wanted to go after lunch,” William said. “I heard him say so to Jonathan. But Jonathan said they’ve had word that you can’t get over Cloudyfold, and anyway there’s a drift inside the front gates. Jonathan seemed pleased about that.”
“He would be.” Hersey turned and rested her hands behind her on the sill. Her figure appeared almost black against the hurried silence of the storm beyond the window. “Mr. Mandrake,” she said, “you know my cousin quite well, don’t you?”
“I’ve known him for five years.”
“But that doesn’t say you know him well,” she said quickly. “You arrived before all of us. He was up to something, wasn’t he? No, that’s not a fair question. You needn’t answer. I know he was up to something. But whatever his scheme was, it didn’t involve you unless — Yes, William, that must be it, of course: Mr. Mandrake was to be the audience.”
“I don’t like performing for Jonathan,” William said. “I never have.”
“Nor do I, and what’s more I won’t. The Pirate can register fatal woman in heaps all over the house, but she won’t get a rise out of me.”
“I suppose I have performed, Hersey. Chloris and I broke off our engagement before lunch.”
“I thought something had happened. Why?”
William hunched his shoulders and drove his hands into his trousers’ pockets. “She ticked me off about the bet,” he said, “and I ticked her off about Nicholas, so what have you?”
“Well, William my dear, I’m sorry; but honestly, is she quite your cup of tea?” Hersey confronted Mandrake. “What do you think?” she demanded abruptly. He was not very much taken aback. For some reason that he had never been able to understand, Mandrake was a man in whom his fellow-creatures confided. He was by no means obviously sympathetic and he seldom asked for confidences but, perhaps because of these very omissions, they came his way. Sometimes he wondered if his lameness had something to do with it. People were inclined to regard a lame man as an isolated being, set apart by his disability as a priest is set apart by his profession. He usually enjoyed hearing strange confessions and was surprised therefore at discovering in himself a reluctance to receive William’s explanations of his quarrel with Chloris Wynne. He was profoundly glad that the engagement was broken and quite determined to make no suggestions about mending it.
“You must remember,” he said, “that we met for the first time last night.”
Hersey fixed him with a bright blue eye. “How guarded!” she said. “William, I believe Mr. Mandrake has—”
“Since we are being so frank,” Mandrake interrupted in a great hurry, “I should like to know whether you believe somebody pushed me into that loathsome pond, and if so, who.”
“Nick says it was Hart,” said Hersey. “He’s gone and thrown his mother into a fever by telling her Hart has tried to drown him. He’s behaving like a peevish child.”
“Mightn’t you have been blown in?” William asked vaguely.
“Does a gust of wind hit you so hard on the shoulder-blades that you can feel the bruises afterwards? Damn it, I know. They’re my shoulder-blades.”
“So they are,” Hersey agreed, “and I for one think it was Dr. Hart. After all, we know he was gibbering with rage at Nicholas, and it seems he saw Nicholas go down wearing a cape. I don’t suppose he meant to drown him. He simply couldn’t resist the temptation. I rather sympathize. Nicholas has bounded like a tennis ball, I consider, from the time he got here.”
“But Hart must have known Nick couldn’t swim,” said William. “He kept explaining that was why he wouldn’t go in at the deep end.”
“True. Well, perhaps he meant to drown him.”
“What does Madame Lisse say about it?” Mandrake asked.
“The Pirate?” Hersey helped herself to a cigarette. “My dear Mr. Mandrake, she doesn’t say anything about it. She dressed herself up in what I happen to know is a Chanel model at fifty guineas, and came down for lunch looking like an orchid at a church bazaar. Nicholas and William and Dr. Hart curvet and goggle whenever they look at her.”
“Well, you know, Hersey, she is rather exciting,” said William.
“Does Jonathan goggle?”
“No,” said Hersey. “He looks at her as he looks at all the rest of us — speculatively, from behind those damned glasses.”
“I’ve always wanted,” William observed, “to see a really good specimen of the femme fatale.” Hersey snorted and then said immediately: “Oh, I grant you her looks. She’s got a marvellous skin; thick and close, you can’t beat ’em.”
“And then there’s her figure, of course.”
“Yes, William, yes. I suppose you and your girl didn’t by any chance quarrel over the Pirate?”
“Oh, no. Chloris isn’t jealous. Not of me, at any rate. It is I,” said William, “who am jealous. Of course you know, don’t you, that Chloris broke her engagement to Nick because of Madame Lisse?”
“Is Madame at all in love with your brother, do you suppose?” Mandrake asked.
“I don’t know,” said William, “but I think Chloris is.”
“Rot!” said Hersey. Mandrake suddenly felt abysmally depressed. William walked to the fireplace and stood with his back to them and his head bent. He stirred the fire rather violently with his heel, and through the splutter and rattle of coals they heard his voice.
“… I think I’m glad. It’s always been the same… You know, Hersey: second-best. For a little while I diddled myself into thinking I’d cut him out. I thought I’d show them. My mother knew. At first she was furious but pretty soon she saw it was me that was the mug as usual. My mother thinks it’s all as it should be, Nick having strings of lovely ladies falling for him—le roi s’amuse sort of idea. By God!” said William with sudden violence, “it’s not such fun having a brother like Nick. By God, I wish Hart had shoved him in the pond.”
“William, don’t.”
“Why not? Why shouldn’t I say for once what I think of my lovely little brother? D’you suppose I’d blame Hart, if he was after Nicholas? Not I. If I’d thought of it myself, be damned if I wouldn’t have done it.”
“Stop!” Hersey cried out. “Stop! Something appalling is happening to all of us. We’re saying things we’ll regret for the rest of our lives.”
“We’re merely speaking the truth.”
“It’s the sort that shouldn’t be spoken. It’s a beastly lopsided exaggerated truth. We’re behaving like a collection of neurotic freaks.” Hersey moved to the window. “Look at the snow,” she said, “it’s heavier than ever. There’s a load on the trees; they’re beginning to droop their branches. It’s creeping up the sides of the house, and up the window-panes. Soon you’ll hardly be able to see out of your window, Mr. Mandrake. What are we going to do, shut up in the house together, hating each other? What are we going to do?”