But he took a marble. Sir George, Simon and Cordelia followed. She closed her eyes. There was a second's silence and then she heard the first marble tinkle into the cup. The second followed almost immediately, then a third. She stretched out her hands. They were briefly brushed by ice-cold fingers. She felt for the cups and placed a hand on each so that there could be no mistake. Then she dropped the marble into the right-hand cup. A second later she heard the last marble fall. The sound was unexpectedly loud; it must have been dropped from a height. She opened her eyes. Her companions were all blinking as if the period of darkness had lasted for hours, not seconds. Together they looked into the cups. The right-hand one held three marbles.
Ambrose said:
'Well, that simplifies matters. We tell the truth, apart of course, from mentioning this little divertissement. We came together into the business room and you all sat here together appropriately subdued while I rang the police. We've only spent a few minutes so there will be no embarrassing hiatus of time to account for.'
He replaced the marbles, after carefully scrutinizing each one, handed the two cups to Cordelia, and took up the telephone receiver. As she was returning the cups to the kitchen two thoughts chiefly occupied her. Why had Sir George waited until the ballot was inevitable before announcing that he favoured the truth, and which of the other two of them had dropped their marbles into the left-hand cup? She did briefly wonder whether anyone could have transferred someone else's marble in addition to dropping his own, but decided that this would have required some sleight of hand even if done with open eyes. Her own ears were exceptionally sharp and they had detected only the four clear tinkles as the other marbles fell.
Ambrose was apparently practising a policy of togetherness. He waited until she returned before ringing the Speymouth police station. He said:
'It's Ambrose Gorringe speaking from Courcy Island. Will you tell Chief Inspector Grogan that my buder Munter is dead. He was found in the pool here, apparently drowned.'
Cordelia thought that the statement was notable for being brief, accurate and carefully non-committal. Ambrose for one was keeping an open mind on the cause of Munter's death. The rest of the conversation was monosyllabic. Ambrose eventually replaced the receiver. He said:
'That was the duty sergeant. He'll let Grogan know. He says not to move the body. The less interference the better until the police arrive.'
There was a silence in which it seemed to Cordelia that they all simultaneously recognized that they were cold, that it wasn't yet half-past six and that while it might appear unfeeling to express a wish to return to bed and hopeless to expect sleep once there, it was unreasonably early to get dressed and face the day.
Ambrose said:
'Would anyone care for tea or coffee? I don't know what's likely to happen about breakfast. You may get none unless I cook it, but I assure you I'm perfectly competent. Is anyone hungry?'
No one admitted to being hungry. Roma shivered and hunched herself deeper into her padded nylon dressing-gown. She said:
'Tea would be welcome, the stronger the better. And then I, for one, am going back to bed.'
There was a general murmur of acquiescence. Then Simon spoke.
'There's something I forgot. There's some kind of box down there. I felt it when I released the body. Ought I to bring it up?'
'The jewel casket!' Roma turned re-animated, the desire for bed apparently forgotten.
'So he had it after all!'
Simon said eagerly:
'I don't think it's the casket. It felt larger, more smooth. He must have dropped it as he fell.' Ambrose hesitated:
'I suppose we ought to wait until the police arrive. On the other hand, I have a curiosity to see what it is, if Simon has no objection to a second immersion.'
So far from objecting, the boy, shivering as he was with cold, seemed impatient to get back to the pool. Cordelia wondered if he had temporarily forgotten that sprawled body. She had never seen him so animated, almost frantic. Perhaps it was the result of being, for once, the centre of the action.
Ivo said:
'I think I can contain my curiosity. I'm going back to bed. If anyone is making tea later I'd be grateful if you'd bring up a cup.'
He left on his own. Roma was apparently cured both of her headache and tiredness. They returned to the pool. The fading moon was tissue thin and the sky was streaked with the first light of day. The air rose in a thin mist from the water and struck them with a damp autumnal chill. Bereft of the moonlight's bleak enchantment and the sense of unreality which moonlight bestows, the body looked at once more human and more grotesque. The flesh of the left cheek, resting against the stones, was pressed upwards to distort the eye so that it seemed to be leering at them, ironic and knowing. From the drooling mouth a trickle of bloodstained saliva had hung and dried on the stubble of the chin. The sodden clothes looked as if they had already shrunk and a thin stream of water still ran from the trouser legs and dripped slowly into the pool. In the uncertain light of the first dawn it seemed to Cordelia that his life blood was seeping away, unregarded and unstaunched. She said:
'Can't we at least cover him up?'
'Of course.' Ambrose was at once solicitous.
'Could you fetch something from the house, Cordelia? A tablecloth, a sheet, a towel, or even a coat would do. I'm sure you'll find something suitable.'
Roma turned on him, her voice harsh.
'Why send Cordelia? Why should she be expected to run all the errands round here? She's not paid to take your orders. Cordelia isn't your servant. Munter was.'
Ambrose looked at her as if she were an unintelligent child who had for once succeeded in making a sensible remark.
He said calmly:
'You're perfectly right. I'll go myself.'
But Roma, in angry spate, was beyond appeasement.
'Munter was your servant and you can't even bring yourself to say you're sorry he's dead. You don't care do you? You didn't care about Clarissa and you don't care about him. Nothing touches you as long as you're comfortable and saved from boredom. You haven't said a word of regret since we found his body. And who are you, for God's sake? Your grandfather made his money out of liver pills and gripewater. You haven't even the excuse of caste for not behaving like a human being.'
For a second Ambrose's body froze and two moons of red appeared on the smooth cheeks, then as quickly faded leaving him very pale. But his voice hardly altered. 'The only human being I know how to behave like is myself. I shall grieve for Munter in my own time and place. This hardly seems an appropriate moment for a valediction. But if its absence offends you I can always emulate Prince Hal.
What! old acquaintance! could not all this flesh Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell, I could have better spared a better man.
And if it's any comfort to you, I would rather see all of you, with one possible exception, dead at the bottom of my pool than lose Carl Munter. But you're right about Cordelia. One is too ready to take advantage of competence and kindness.'
After he had left there was an embarrassed silence. Roma, her face blotched, her chin creased with stubborn anger, stood a little apart. She had the truculent, slightly defensive air of a child who knows that she has said something indefensible but who is not altogether ungratified by the result.
Suddenly she swung round and said gruffly:
'Well, at least I managed to provoke a human reaction from our host. So now we know where we stand. I take it that Cordelia is the privileged one among us whom Ambrose would be reluctant to see dead at the bottom of his pool. Even he isn't entirely immune to a pretty face, apparently.'
Sir George stared down at the water lilies. 'He's upset. Natural, after all. Hardly the time to quarrel among ourselves.'
Cordelia felt that she ought to make some comment, but unable to think of anything appropriate, remained silent. She was puzzled by Roma's outburst which she hardly felt was the result of concern or affection for herself. It could, she supposed, have been a gesture of feminine solidarity or a blast against male arrogance. But she suspected that it was more likely a spontaneous release of pent-up terror and shock. Whatever the cause, the result had been interesting. And Ambrose had been remarkably apt with his quotation from King Henry IV Part I. Was that because he was a natural lover of Shakespeare, or because he had recendy been spending some time looking through the Shakespearean section of The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations?