“Yes, sir. Rather lively, sir.”
“Rather lively,” repeated Jonathan. “Quite so. You’d be so taken up with it, I daresay, that you wouldn’t notice if somebody came into the hall, um?”
“Beg pardon, sir, but nobody came into the hall, sir. The music stopped and the news started and I went back to the servants sitting-room, sir, but nobody came into the hall while I was there.”
“But, my good Thomas, I–I put it to you. I put it to you that while you were clapping your hands and slapping your knees and all the rest of it, it would have been perfectly easy for someone to cross the hall unnoticed. Come now!”
“Look here, Thomas,” said Mandrake. “Let’s put it this way: Somebody did come downstairs while you were in the hall. This person came downstairs and went into the smoking-room. Don’t you remember?”
“I’m very sorry, sir, to contradict you,” said Thomas, turning a deep plum-colour, “but I assure you they didn’t. They couldn’t of. I was close by the smoking-room door, sir, and facing the stairs. What I mean to say, I just ’eard, heard the tune, sir, and, I’m sure I don’t know why, I did a couple of hands, knees, and boomps; well, for the fun of it, like.”
“Thomas,” Mandrake said, “suppose you were in a court of law and were asked to swear on the Bible that nobody was in the hall from the time you came out of the library until the time you went back to your own quarters. What about it?”
“I’d swear, sir.”
“There’s nothing to be gained by going on with this, Aubrey,” said Jonathan. “Thank you, Thomas.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Thomas, and retired.
“There’s only one explanation,” said Nicholas. “He must have come back after that chap went back to his quarters.”
“All the way downstairs and across the hall?” said Mandrake. “I suppose it’s possible. In that case he avoided running into Jonathan and did the whole thing while that short news bulletin was being read. It was all over, and he’d bolted, when Lady Hersey went into the smoking-room and turned off the radio. It’s a close call.”
He bent down and slipped a finger inside his shoe. “Damn!” he said. “Does anyone mind if I take off my shoe? I’ve got a nail sticking into my foot.”
He took off the shoe and noticed how they all glanced at his sound foot and away again quickly. He groped inside the shoe. “There it is,” he muttered, “a damn’ great spike of a thing.”
“But there’s something in the sole of your shoe,” said Chloris. “Look.”
Mandrake turned the shoe over. “It’s a drawing-pin,” he said.
“There’s some explanation,” said Nicholas with a real note of despair in his voice. “He’s upstairs there, lying in his bed, by God, and laughing at us. Somehow or other he worked it. During the news. It must have been then. Somehow or other. When I think about it, I’m sure it was Bill who worked the wireless. I know you’ll say it was easy for anybody to grunt and cross the room, but somehow, I can’t explain why, I believe it was Bill — it sort of felt like Bill.”
“Ssh!” said Hersey suddenly. “Listen!”
They stared at her. Her hand was raised and her head tilted. Into the profound silence that fell upon them came a wide vague drumming. The shutters of the library windows creaked. As they listened, the room was filled with that enveloping outside noise.
“It’s beginning to rain,” said Jonathan.
Chapter X
Journey
They had exhausted themselves arguing about the gap in Hart’s story. They had said the same things over and over again. They longed to go to bed and yet were held prisoner in their chairs by a dreadful lassitude. They kept telling Nicholas to go to bed and he kept saying that he would go. They spoke in low voices to a vague background of drumming rain. Mandrake felt as if it was William himself who kept them there; William who, behind locked doors, now suffered the indignities of death. He could not help but think of that figure in the chair. Suppose, with those stealthy changes, William’s body were to move? Suppose they were to hear, above the murmur of rain, a dull thud in the room next door? Nicholas too must have been visited by some such thoughts, for he said: “I can’t bear to think of him — can’t we — can’t we?” And Mandrake had to explain again that they must not move William.
“Do you think,” he asked Jonathan, “that with this rain the roads will be passable in the morning? What about the telephone? Is there any chance that the lines will be fixed up?”
There was a telephone in the library and from time to time they had tried it, knowing each time that it was useless. “If the roads are anything like passable,” Mandrake said, “I’ll drive into Chipping in the morning.”
“You?” said Nicholas.
“Why not? My club-foot doesn’t prevent me from driving a car, you know,” said Mandrake. This was one of the speeches, born of his deformity, which he sometimes blurted out and always regretted.
“I didn’t mean that,” said Nicholas. “I’m sorry.”
“Why shouldn’t I go?” asked Mandrake, looking from one to another. “Even if we can’t break Hart’s alibi, I suppose none of you will suspect me. After all, I was shoved in the pond.”
“I keep forgetting that complication,” said Jonathan.
“I don’t,” Mandrake rejoined warmly.
“We ought none of us to forget it,” said Chloris. “It’s the beginning of the whole thing. If only you’d gone on looking out of the pavilion window, Nicholas!”
“I know. But I was half undressed and hellish cold. I just saw it was Mandrake and answered his wave. If only I had looked out again!”
“I’ve not the least doubt about what you’d have seen,” Mandrake rejoined. “You’d have seen that infamous little man come up in a flurry of snow from behind the pavilion, and you’d have seen him launch a sort of flying tackle at my back.”
“I’ve made a complete hash of everything,” Nicholas burst out. “You’re all being very nice about it, I know, but the facts stare you in the eye, don’t they? I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that if I hadn’t baited Hart this would never have happened. Well, let him get on with it, by God. He’s messed it up three times, hasn’t he? Let him have another pot at me. I shan’t duck.”
“Nick,” said Hersey, “don’t show off, my dear. Are we never to register dislike of anyone for fear they’ll go off and murder our near relations? Don’t be an ass, my dear old thing. Since we are being candid, let’s put it this way. Dr.Hart was crossed in love and he couldn’t take it. You did the crossing. I don’t say I approve of your tactics, and, as I daresay you’ve noticed, I don’t admire your choice. But for pity’s sake don’t go all broken-with-remorse on us. You’ve got your mother to think of.”
“If anybody other than Hart is to blame,” said Jonathan, “very clearly it is I.”
“Now, Jo,” said Hersey, roundly, “none of that from you. You’ve been a very silly little man, trying to re-arrange people’s lives for them. This is what you get for it and no doubt it’ll be a lesson to you. But it’s no good putting on that face about it. We must be practical. We’ve got a man whom we all believe to be a murderer, locked up in his room, and as we don’t seem to be very good at bringing it home to him the best thing we can do is to accept Mr. Mandrake’s offer and to hope that in the morning he will be able to reach a telephone and find us a policeman.”