“Hersey, my dear,” said Jonathan with a little bob in her direction, “you are perfectly right. Nick and I must bow to your ruling. If Aubrey can and will go, why then go he shall.”
“I thought,” said Mandrake, “that I’d try to reach the rectory at Winton St. Giles. You see, there’s rather a super sort of policeman staying there, and as I know him…”
“Roderick Alleyn?” Chloris cried out. “Why, of course!”
“I thought I’d put the whole thing before him. I thought that when I got upstairs I’d write it all down, everything I can remember from the time I got here. I don’t know what the regulations are but, if I show what I’ve written to Alleyn, at least if he can’t do anything he’ll advise me what to do.”
“I think we should see your notes, Aubrey.”
“Of course, Jonathan. I hope you’ll be able to add to them. It seems to me that when you write things out they have a way of falling into place. Perhaps when we read our notes we may see a still wider gap in Hart’s alibi. I think we should concentrate on the time Jonathan was in the downstairs cloak-room, and the moment or two after Jonathan returned and before Lady Hersey went into the smoking-room. I think we shall find that the gaps are there all right. If we don’t perhaps Alleyn will.”
“I’m afraid I don’t believe he will,” said Chloris slowly. She reached out her hand and touched Mandrake’s arm. “Don’t think I’m crabbing your idea. It’s a grand idea. But somehow, I can’t tell you how I hate to say it, somehow I don’t believe we will find a big enough gap. I don’t think there is one.”
“I won’t have that,” said Jonathan loudly, “there’s plenty of time. There must be.”
He stood up and the others rose with him. At last they were going to bed. With dragging steps and heavy yawns they moved uncertainly about the room. The men had a last drink. Desultory suggestions were made. Nicholas, with a return of nervousness which contrasted strangely with his recent mood of heroic despondency, started an argument about leaving Hart’s door unguarded. Hart might try to break out, he said. Mandrake pointed out that if they kept their own doors locked it wouldn’t much matter if he did. He, as much as they, was a prisoner in the house. “Anyway,” added Mandrake, “we’re not going to sleep through a door-smashing incident, I suppose. Here’s your automatic, by the way, Compline.” And for the life of him Mandrake couldn’t resist adding: “You may feel more comfortable if you have it at your bedside.” Nicholas took it quite meekly.
“Well,” he said in a small desolate voice, “I may as well go up, I suppose.” He looked towards the locked door into the smoking-room and Mandrake saw his rather prominent eyes dilate. “He offered to swap rooms with me,” said Nicholas. “Decent of him, wasn’t it? In case Hart tried anything during the night, you know. Of course, I wouldn’t have let him. I’m glad we sort of got together a bit this evening.” He looked at his hands and then vaguely up at Jonathan. “Well, good night,” said Nicholas.
“We’ll come up with you, Nick,” said Hersey, and linked her arm in his.
“Will you? Oh, thank you, Hersey.”
“Of course we shall,” said Chloris. “Come on, Nick.”
Jonathan and Mandrake followed, and as Mandrake, weary to death, limped up those stairs for the last time on that fatal day, he thought, and detested himself for so thinking: “He would go up between the two women. I bet he’s got hold of Chloris’ hand.” Jonathan said good-night on the half-way landing and turned off to his own wing. Only then did it occur to Mandrake that since his flare-up with Hart, Jonathan had been unusually quiet. “And no wonder,” he thought. “They can say what they like but after all if he hadn’t thrown his fool party…”
They went with Nicholas to his room. Moved by an obscure mixture of contrition and genuine sympathy, Mandrake shook hands with him and instantly regretted it when Nicholas, with tears in his eyes, kissed the two women and said in a broken voice: “Bless you. I’ll be all right. Good night.”
“Good night,” said Hersey in the passage and stumped off to her room.
“Good night,” said Chloris to Mandrake, and then rather defiantly: “Well, I am sorry for him.”
“Good night,” said Mandrake; “so am I.”
“You do look tired. We’ve all forgotten about your horrid plunge. You won’t tackle those notes tonight?”
“I think so. While it’s still seething, don’t you know?”
“Well, don’t treat the subject surrealistically or we’ll none of us be able to contradict you. You ought not to have had all these games thrust upon you. Are you all right?”
“Perfectly all right,” said Mandrake. “But I approve of you feeling sorry for me.”
So Chloris gave him a kiss, and in a state of bewildered satisfaction he went to his room.
It was one o’clock when he laid down his pen and read through his notes. At the end he had written a summary in which he attempted to marshal the salient facts of the three assaults. He re-read this summary twice.
1. The incident of the Charter form. Hart wrote the message; because he, and only he, handed his papers on to Nicholas. The letters resemble those in his note to Jonathan. The incident followed his picking a quarrel with Nicholas after dinner. N.B. Get an account of quarrel from Jonathan, who was the only witness.
2. The incident by the pond. Motive apart, Nicholas didn’t shove me over because he recognized me through the window and in any case knew I was wearing the cape. Besides, he saved my life by throwing in the inflated bird. William didn’t because he arrived at about the same time as Nicholas and had come down the terrace steps. Nicholas saw him come. Chloris didn’t because she didn’t. Jonathan arrived after Chloris, catching her up when she was nearly there. He had seen Hart leave by the front drive. Hart arrived by a path that comes out behind the pavilion. I had my back turned to him. He had seen Nicholas, wearing a cape that is the double of mine. I had the hood over my head. N.B. Who was the woman who came out of the house as far as the terrace? (Footprints in snow.) She may have seen who threw me overboard. If so, why hasn’t she spoken? Her prints were close to the others. A small foot. Could she have gone down the steps inside my footprints? Madame Lisse’s window overlooks the terrace. Hart habitually wears a cape.
3. The booby-trap. Hart is the only member of the party who hasn’t an alibi. Jonathan’s alibi depends on me. I can’t remember exactly how long he was in the drawing-room before the crash; but anyway why should Jonathan want to kill Nicholas? Hart must have set the booby-trap.
4. The murder. On rereading these notes I find that Madame Lisse, Lady Hersey and Mrs. Compline have not got alibis. Madame Lisse and Mrs. Compline could have come downstairs and entered the smoking-room by the “boudoir.” But if either of them did it how did she leave? Thomas was in the hall when William turned on the radio, and remained there until the news. I suppose the Lisse or Mrs. Compline might have actually hidden in the room and slipped out when Lady Hersey came to fetch Jonathan, but it seems more likely that they could have managed to dodge both Thomas and Jonathan. Mrs. Compline is out of it. No motive. Madame Lisse had no motive in killing Nicholas, so if she did it she recognized William and her motive there…
At this point Mandrake, remembering that the others would read his summary, lost his nerve and scored out the next three lines and the preceding words from “No motive” onwards. He then read on —