“Of course I’ll come,” said Chloris.
“It may be quite frightful. We may break down completely.”
“At least we’ll be out of all this. I won’t be five minutes.”
“You’ll want layers of coats,” cried Mandrake. “I’ll get hold of old James Bewling and we’ll have the car round at the front door as soon as he’s found me some chains.”
He went joyfully to his own room, put on an extra sweater, a muffler and his raincoat. He snatched up the attaché-case containing his notes, the drawing-pin and the Charter form. He remembered suddenly that the others were to have gone over the notes before he took them to Alleyn. Well, if they wanted to do that they should have got up earlier. He couldn’t wait about half the morning. They would have plenty of chances to argue over his account when he came back with Alleyn. Now, for the car.
But before he went out-of-doors he found Jonathan and nerved himself to make a request. The thought of revisiting the smoking-room was horrible, but he had promised himself that he would do so. He half hoped Jonathan would refuse, but he did not. “I won’t come with you, that’s all. Don’t ask it. Here are the keys. You may keep them. I simply can not accompany you.”
“I shan’t touch anything. Please wait by the door.”
He was only a few minutes in that room. They had thrown a white sheet over the chair and what was in it. He tried not to look at that, but he was shaken when he came out and said goodbye, quietly, to Jonathan.
He went out by the west door and walked round the back of the house to the garages. The whole world seemed to be alive with the sound of rain and wind. Much of the snow lying in exposed places had gone, everywhere it was pocked and crenellated. From the eaves of Highfold, it hung in strange forms that changed continually and tapered into falling water.
Using his stick vigorously, Mandrake reached the garages to find James Bewling, assisted by his brother, engaged in fitting chains to the car-wheels. They seemed to Mandrake to be incredibly slow about this. The chains were improvised arrangements and one set kept slipping. At last, however, they were ready and he prepared to drive out.
“They’ll hold now, sartin sure. Lucky we had ’em,” said James. “Us’ll need ’em up-along, never fear. Now then, sir, if you be agreeable I reckon car’s ready to start. Us’ve filled her up with petrol and water and there’s hauly-chains and sacks in the back.”
“Come on men,” said Mandrake.
James climbed in the back. As they left the garage his brother bawled at them: “If ’er skiddles, rush ’er up.” He drove round to the front doors and found Chloris there. The collar of her heavy coat was turned up and she had a gay scarf tied round her head so that he saw her face as a triangle. It was a very white triangle and her eyes looked horror-stricken. As soon as she saw the car she stumbled down the steps and, leaning against the wind, ran round to the passenger’s door. Before he could get it open she was struggling with the handle and in a moment had scrambled in beside him.
“What now?” asked Mandrake.
“I’d better tell you. before we start, but Mr. Royal says we’re to go anyway. Another ghastliness. Mrs. Compline. She’s tried to kill herself.”
Mandrake turned with his hands on the driving-wheel and gazed at her. James Bewling cleared his throat stertorously.
“Please start,” said Chloris and without a word Mandrake engaged his first gear. To the sound of slapping chains, driving wind and rain, and with a cold engine, they moved across the wide sweep and round the west side of the house.
“She did it herself,” said Chloris. “One of the maids went up with her breakfast and found the door locked. The housekeeper thought she ought not to be disturbed but the maid had seen lamplight under the door when she went up with early tea. So they told Mr. Royal. It seemed queer, you see, for the lamps to be going after it was light. In the end they decided to knock. It was just after you went out. They knocked and knocked and she didn’t answer. By that time Nicholas was there and in an awful state. He insisted on Mr. Royal forcing the door. She’d left a note for him — for Nicholas. There’s been a frightful scene, it seems, because Mr. Royal said Nicholas should give the note to somebody. He won’t let Nicholas keep it, but he hasn’t read it himself. I don’t know what was in the note. Only Nick knows. She’s unconscious. They think she’s dying.”
“But — how?”
“The rest of that sleeping draught and all the aspirins she’d got. She’d told Lady Hersey she had no aspirins. I suppose she wanted to get as much as possible. You’d feel sorry for Nicholas if you could see him now.”
“Yes,” said Mandrake sombrely. “Yes, I do feel sorry for Nicholas, now.”
“He’s gone to pieces. No more showing-off for poor old Nick,” said Chloris with a catch in her voice. “There couldn’t be any doubt at all that it was suicide, and he agreed that Dr. Hart should be asked to see her. Pretty queer, wasn’t it? They all agree that he murdered Bill, and yet there he was working at artificial respiration, and snapping out orders with everybody running round obeying them. I think the world’s gone mad or something. He’s given me a list of things we’re to get at the chemists in Chipping. It’s not far beyond Winton St. Giles. I could take the car on if you like while you see Mr. Alleyn. And the police surgeon. We’ve got to try and find him, but the important thing is to get back as quickly as possible.”
“Does Hart think…?”
“I’m sure he thinks it’s pretty hopeless. I wasn’t in the room. I waited by the door for orders. I heard him say something about two hundred grains of veronal alone. He was barking out questions to Lady Hersey. How much had she given? How dared she give it? If it wasn’t so frightful it’d be funny. She’s in a pretty ghastly state herself. She feels she’s responsible.”
“I took the stuff away from Hart,” said Mandrake. “God, that’s a touch of irony for you! I was afraid he might try something on himself.”
“You needn’t go all remorseful,” said Chloris quickly. “Dr. Hart said the aspirin alone would have been disastrous. I heard him say that to Lady Hersey.”
They had reached the woods where the drive ran between steep banks. Here the surface, no longer gravelled, was soft, laced with runnels of water and littered with broken twigs and with clods of earth that had been carried away from the banks. In one place there was a miniature landslide across their route. Mandrake drove hard at it in second gear, and felt his back wheels spin and then grip on the chains.
“That’s a taste of what we may expect in Deep Bottom, I suppose,” he called to James Bewling.
“ ’Twill be watter down-along, I reckon, sir.”
“If we stick…” Chloris began.
“If we stick, my dear, they can damn’ well produce a farm animal to lug us out on the far side.”
“It’s dogged as does it,” said Chloris.
Beyond Highfold Wood the drive, where it crossed the exposed parklands, was furrowed and broken by pot-holes. James Bewling remarked that he and Thomas had been telling the master for a matter of ten years that he did ought to lay down a load of metal. The rain drove full on the wind-screen, checking the wiper, splaying out in serrated circles and finding its way in above the dashboard. The thrust of the wind made the car fight against Mandrake’s steering. He drove cautiously towards the edge of Deep Bottom, peering through the blear of water. He recognized in himself an exhilaration, and this discovery astonished him, for he had always thought that he loathed discomfort.