“Make no mistake,” said Nicholas grimly. “I shall lock my door.”
There was a short pause, broken by Hersey. “I simply can’t believe it,” she said abruptly. “It’s so preposterous it just isn’t true. All of us sitting round like a house-party in a play, waiting for frightfulness. And that booby-trap! A brass Buddha! No, it’s too much. To-morrow, Dr. Hart will apologize to all of us and say he’s sorry his sense of fun carried him too far, and he’ll explain that in the Austrian Tyrol they all half-kill each other out of sheer joie de vivre, and we’ll say we’re sorry we didn’t take it in the spirit in which it was meant.”
“A murderous spirit,” Jonathan muttered. “No, no, Hersey. We’ve got to face it. The attack on Nicholas was deliberately planned to injure him.”
“Well, what are we going to do?”
“At least we could hear the war news,” said Mandrake. “It might work as a sort of counter-irritant.”
“We’d better not disturb William,” said Jonathan quickly.
“I daresay he’ll turn it on in a minute,” Nicholas said, wearily. “He’s keen on the news. Shall I ask him?”
“No, no,” said Jonathan. “Leave him alone. It’s not quite time yet. Would you like a drink, my dear Nick?”
“To be quite frank, Jonathan, I’d adore a very very large drink.”
“You shall have it. Would you ring? The bell’s beside you. No, you needn’t trouble. I hear them coming.”
A jingle of glasses sounded in the hall and the new footman came in with a tray. For the few seconds that he was in the room Chloris and Hersey made a brave effort at conversation. When he had gone Jonathan poured out the drinks. “What about William?” he asked. “Shall we…? Will you ask him?”
Nicholas opened the study door and stuck his head round it. “Coming in for a drink, Bill? Not? All right, old thing, but would you mind switching on the wireless? It’s just about time for the news and we’d like to hear it. Thanks.”
They all waited awkwardly. Nicholas glanced over his shoulder and winked. The study wireless came to life.
“Hands, knees, and boomps-a-daisy,” sang the wireless, robustly.
“Oh, God!” said Mandrake automatically, but he felt an illogical sense of relief.
“Can you stick it for a minute or two?” asked Nicholas. “It’s almost news-time. I’ll leave the door open.”
“Hands, knees, and boomps-a-daisy…”
“I think,” said Jonathan, at the third repetition of the piece, “that I’ll just make certain Dr. Hart is not in the ‘boudoir.’ ” He got up. At the same moment the dance band ended triumphantly: “Turn to your partner and bow-wow-wow.”
“Here’s the news,” said Hersey.
Jonathan, after listening to the opening announcement, went out into the hall. The others heard the recital of a laconic French bulletin and a statement that heavy snow was falling in the Maginot Line sector. The announcer’s voice went on and on, but Mandrake found himself unable to listen to it. He was visited by a feeling of nervous depression, a sort of miserable impatience. “I can’t sit here much longer,” he thought. Presently Jonathan returned and, in answer to their glances, nodded his head. “No light in there,” he said. He poured himself out a second drink. “He’s feeling the strain, too,” thought Mandrake.
“I wish old Bill’d come in,” said Nicholas suddenly.
“He’s better left alone,” said Jonathan.
“Shall I take him in a drink?” Hersey suggested. “He can but throw it in my face. I will. Pour him out a whiskey, Jo.”
Jonathan hesitated. She swept him aside, poured out a good three fingers of whiskey, splashed in the soda, and marched off with it into the smoking-room.
“It is learned in London tonight,” said the announcer, “that Mr. Cedric Hepbody, the well-known authority on Polish folk-music, is a prisoner in Warsaw. At the end of this bulletin you will hear a short recorded talk made by Mr. Hepbody last year on the subject of folk-music in its relation and reaction to primitive behaviourism. And now…”
Hersey was standing in the doorway. Mandrake saw her first and an icy sensation of panic closed like a hand about his heart. The red leather screen at her back threw her figure into bold relief. The others turned their heads, saw her, and, as if on a common impulse, rose at once to their feet. They watched her lips moving in her sheep-white face. She mouthed at them and turned back into the smoking-room. The announcer’s voice was cut off into silence.
“Jo,” Hersey said. “Jo, come here.”
Jonathan’s fingers pulled at his lips. He did not move.
“Jo.”
Jonathan crossed the library and went into the smoking-room. There was another long silence. Nobody moved or spoke. At last Hersey came round the screen.
“Mr. Mandrake,” she said, “will you go in to Jonathan?”
Without a word Mandrake went into the smoking-room. The heavy door with its rows of book-shelves shut behind him.
It was then that Nicholas cried out: “My God, what’s happened?”
Hersey went to him and took his hands in hers. “Nick,” she said, “he’s killed William.”
Chapter IX
Alibi
William was sitting in a low chair beside the wireless. He was bent double. His face was between his knees and his hands were close to his shoes. His posture suggested an exaggerated scrutiny of the carpet. If Mandrake had walked in casually he might have thought at first glance that William was staring at some small object that lay between his feet. The cleft in the back of his head looked like some ugly mistake, preposterous rather than ghastly, the kind of thing one could not believe. Mandrake had taken in this much before he looked at Jonathan, who stood with his back against the door into the “boudoir.” He was wiping his hands on his handkerchief. Mandrake heard a tiny spat of sound. A little red star appeared on the toe of William’s left shoe.
“Aubrey, look at this.”
“Is he…? Are you sure…?”
“Good God, look at him.”
Mandrake had no wish to look at William but he limped over to the chair. Has anyone measured the flight of thought? In a timeless flash it can embrace a hundred images, and compass a multitude of ideas. In the second that passed before Mandrake stooped over William Compline, he was visited by a confused spiral of impressions and memories. He thought of William’s oddities, of how he himself had never seen any of William’s paintings, of how William’s mouth might now be open and full of spilling blood. He thought, in a deeper layer of consciousness, of Chloris, who must have been kissed by William, of Dr. Hart’s hands, of phrases in detective novels, of the fact that he might have to give his own name if he was called as a witness. The name of Roderick Alleyn was woven in his thoughts and over all of them rested an image of deep snow. He knelt by William and touched his right hand. It moved a little, flaccidly, under the pressure of his fingers, and that shocked him deeply. Something hit the back of his own hand and he saw a little red star like the one on William’s shoe. He wiped it off with a violent movement. He stooped lower and looked up into William’s face and that was terrible because the eyes as well as the mouth were wide open. Then Mandrake rose to his feet and looked at the back of William’s head and felt abominably sick. He drew away with an involuntary sideways lurch and his club-foot struck against something on the floor. It lay in shadow and he had to stoop again to see it. It was a flatfish spatulate object that narrowed to a short handle. He heard Jonathan’s voice babbling behind him —