He turned.
“You imbecile!” Isobel hissed. “Can’t you see the water on the floor? That’s where she was lying. Mr. Crawford was just waiting for her to...”
“Thaw.” Crawford’s voice whipped down the hall. He was standing in the library doorway, still holding the brandy bottle.
There was a sudden screaming silence, then Crawford’s voice again, calm and dry:
“Isobel, you’re being true to me yet? Or can’t you help yourself?”
The man coughed and said, “Sir, I am sorry to disturb you but I was lost and came upon this house. I think my foot is partially frozen.”
In spite of his words there was the same air of authority about him that Isobel had found disconcerting. He didn’t sound sorry, but challenging, and his intense gaze, fixed on Crawford, was half-puzzled, half-insolent.
Crawford began to walk towards them. He wore the ugly little smile that was now familiar to Isobel, and his eyelids were flickering.
“Yeah?” he said. “Your foot’s frozen?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“What do you want me to do, amputate it?”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” the man said coolly. “All I require is some food and shelter for a time. You seem to be a stranger in these parts. No doubt you are unfamiliar with the laws of French-Canadian hospitality.”
Isobel didn’t like the way they were looking at each other. She said hastily, “Of course. I’ll see about the food...”
Crawford’s voice cut in. “Is that a fact? Maybe I’m not interested in the laws of French-Canadian hospitality. Maybe I don’t care if your foot falls off at the hip.”
“I do, however.” The man held out his hand to Crawford. “My name is Dubois. Rene Dubois. Perhaps you have heard of me?”
Crawford took the hand but didn’t shake it. He looked at it, turning it over as if it were a piece of fish.
“Can’t say I have,” he said in a bored voice.
The man’s eyes were hard and glittering. “You are too old to learn politeness, Monsieur, but not too young to see that it is sometimes necessary to feign it. I am feigning it. Be so good as to do the same.”
Crawford said nothing, but he looked sulky.
“Who are you?” Isobel said quickly.
“You are not interested in skiing?” Dubois said, smiling. “I am a cross-country endurance skier. Unfortunately the blizzard caught me yesterday and I was forced to abandon some of my equipment and spend the night in a maple sugar shed.”
Crawford had another lightning mood change. He said easily, “Don’t let this fellow win you away from me with mere words. I, too, can ski.”
“Give him the rest of the brandy,” Isobel said sharply. “Here, Mr. Dubois. You’d better take off your shoe. Come into the sitting room.”
“I rarely drink,” Dubois said, “but on this occasion, I think I might.”
“I might have known it,” Crawford said and handed him the bottle. “On two bottles of this stuff you’ll be able to ski in the fourth dimension, but I hope you get all my diseases.”
Dubois drank from the bottle. He was completely at ease. Neither Crawford’s cracks nor Isobel’s fluttering ministrations made a dent in his self-assurance. He followed Isobel into the sitting room and even while he limped, his walk had something swaggering about it.
He sat down and took off his one shoe and sock and examined his foot.
“It is not frozen,” he said.
“Gee, I’m glad,” Crawford said elaborately.
Isobel said, “I didn’t put coal on the furnace, Mr. Crawford. Would you oblige?”
“You always win eventually, don’t you?” Crawford said sadly and went out.
“He is a strange fellow,” Dubois said, tying up his shoe again.
“If you think he’s strange, wait until you meet the rest of them.”
“I must apologize to you, Madame.”
“Isobel Seton.”
“Miss Seton, I must apologize for doubting your word.”
“That’s all right,” Isobel said. “I doubt it myself sometimes. Would you prefer to have your food here or go in the dining room with the others?”
“Here,” Dubois said, showing a row of glistening white teeth. “I shall feel better able to meet the strange people after I have eaten.”
Isobel went back into the kitchen. Mrs. Vista greeted her vaguely.
“My dear, that was a man you had with you, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” Isobel said. “May I give him some of your tea?”
“A little, perhaps. Where did you find him? Really, how extraordinary going down into a cellar and finding a man. It’s never happened to me. But then, I rarely visit cellars.”
“This is the first time I have ever found a man in a cellar,” Isobel said coldly. “Where is the bread?”
“Over there,” Mrs. Vista said, with a sweep of her hand.
Isobel cut bread and buttered it and put some marmalade in a dish while Mrs. Vista followed her about the kitchen. Mrs. Vista said that human adjustments were extraordinary, really. At first she was utterly confused when she saw the man, she confessed, but now she had adjusted to him.
“Frightfully handsome, in a rugged way, wasn’t he, Anthony?”
Mr. Goodwin’s adjustments came slower, apparently, for he said he didn’t remember.
“I think,” said Mrs. Vista, “that a new face is just what we required in this house. One tires of the old faces, though I find mobile faces less tiring than still faces. I think Anthony has a very mobile face.”
Mr. Goodwin obligingly grimaced.
“See, Miss Seton?” Mrs. Vista said. “That’s what I mean. Mobility. I feel it’s everything in a face.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Isobel said with an appraising glance at Mr. Goodwin. She picked up the dishes and as she passed Mr. Goodwin, she said, “Give it a rest, brother. Nobody’s looking at you but God.”
She swept out the door and kicked it shut with her foot. I must not talk like Crawford, she told herself sternly, I must ignore Crawford, Crawford is a louse.
“Yoo hoo,” said a voice from the stairs, and Gracie Morning’s face appeared over the banister.
She was looking, Isobel noticed, very pretty and neat. Her hair was a halo of bronze ringlets and her face was freshly made up.
Isobel stopped still.
“Where’s Miss Rudd?”
“Miss Rudd?” Gracie said, swinging down the steps. “Oh, yes. Well, I looked for her but she wasn’t around so I decided to fix myself up a bit in case we’re rescued. I was a wreck, no kidding.”
“You mean you didn’t even find her?”
“That’s what I said,” Gracie said pleasantly. “Don’t throw a fit. She’ll be all right.”
“She’ll be all right!” Isobel cried. “What about us? We thought you had her upstairs, we thought you were keeping her quiet up there!”
“How could I keep her quiet if I couldn’t find her?” Gracie asked reasonably.
“You let her out. It’s your responsibility to find her again. She’s dangerous. Don’t you understand?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve been thinking it over and I decided that I was right in the first place. She’s not dangerous.” Gracie arranged herself comfortably on the bottom step and smoothed her skirt over her thighs. “I decided that she didn’t kill Floraine at all.”
“Indeed?” Isobel said ominously. “Who killed her?”
“Nobody,” Gracie said with a bright look.
“Indeed?”
“Don’t keep saying, indeed. It’s so silly. All you have to do is think about it and it all comes clear. Floraine wasn’t murdered at all. She committed suicide because she was crazy.”