Molly drew back a step. She was not sure that she liked Mr Paravicini much. He was leering at her like an elderly satyr.
"Everything is rather difficult this morning," she said lightly. "Because of the snow."
"Yes." Mr Paravicini turned his head round to look out of the window. "Snow makes everything very difficult, does it not? Or else it makes things very easy."
"I don't know what you mean."
"No," he said thoughtfully. "There is quite a lot that you do not know. I think, for one thing, that you do not know very much about running a guest house."
Molly's chin went up belligerently. "I daresay we don't. But we mean to make a go of it."
"Bravo, bravo."
"After all," Molly's voice betrayed slight anxiety, "I'm not such a very bad cook -"
"You are, without doubt, an enchanting cook," said Mr Paravicini.
What a nuisance foreigners were, thought Molly.
Perhaps Mr Paravicini read her thoughts. At all events his manner changed. He spoke quietly and quite seriously.
"May I give you a little word of warning, Mrs Davis? You and your husband must not be too trusting, you know. Have you references with these guests of yours?"
"Is that usual?" Molly looked troubled. "I thought people just -just came."
"It is advisable always to know a little about the people who sleep under your roof." He leaned forward and tapped her on the shoulder in a minatory kind of way. "Take myself, for example. I turn up in the middle of the night. My car, I say, is overturned in a snowdrift. What do you know of me? Nothing at all. Perhaps you know nothing, either, of your other guests."
"Mrs Boyle -" began Molly, but stopped as that lady herself re-entered the room, knitting in hand.
"The drawing-room is too cold. I shall sit in here." She marched toward the fireplace. Mr Paravicini pirouetted swiftly ahead of her. "Allow me to poke the fire for you."
Molly was struck, as she had been the night before, by the youthful jauntiness of his step. She noticed that he always seemed careful to keep his back to the light, and now, as he knelt, poking the fire, she thought she saw the reason for it. Mr Paravicini's face was cleverly but decidedly "made up."
So the old idiot tried to make himself look younger than he was, did he? Well, he didn't succeed. He looked all his age and more. Only the youthful walk was incongruous.
Perhaps that, too, had been carefully counterfeited.
She was brought back from speculation to the disagreeable realities by the brisk entrance of Major Metcalf.
"Mrs Davis. I'm afraid the pipes of the - er -" he lowered his voice modestly, "downstairs cloakroom are frozen."
"Oh, dear," groaned Molly. "What an awful day. First the police and then the pipes."
Mr Paravicini dropped the poker into the grate with a clatter. Mrs Boyle stopped knitting.
Molly, looking at Major Metcalf, was puzzled by his sudden stiff immobility and by the indescribable expression on his face. It was an expression she could not place. It was as though all emotion had been drained out of it, leaving something carved out of wood behind.
He said in a short, staccato voice, "Police, did you say?"
She was conscious that behind the stiff immobility of his demeanour, some violent emotion was at work. It might have been fear or alertness or excitement - but there was something. This man, she said to herself, could be dangerous.
He said again, and this time his voice was just mildly curious, "What's that about the police?"
"They rang up," said Molly. "Just now. To say they're sending a sergeant out here." She looked toward the window. "But I shouldn't think he'll ever get here," she said hopefully.
"Why are they sending the police here?" He took a step nearer to her, but before she could reply the door opened, and Giles came in.
"This ruddy coke's more than half stones," he said angrily. Then he added sharply, "Is anything the matter?"
Major Metcalf turned to him. "I hear the police are coming out here," he said. "Why?"
"Oh, that's all right," said Giles. "No one can ever get through in this. Why, the drifts are five feet deep. The road's all banked up. Nobody will get here today."
And at that moment there came distinctly three loud taps on the window.
It startled them all. For a moment or two they did not locate the sound. It came with the emphasis and menace of a ghostly warning. And then, with a cry, Molly pointed to the French window. A man was standing there tapping on the pane, and the mystery of his arrival was explained by the fact that he wore skis.
With an exclamation, Giles crossed the room, fumbled with the catch, and threw open the French window.
"Thank you, sir," said the new arrival. He had a slightly common, cheerful voice and a well-bronzed face.
"Detective Sergeant Trotter," he announced himself.
Mrs Boyle peered at him over her knitting with disfavour.
"You can't be a sergeant," she said disapprovingly. "You're too young."
The young man, who was indeed very young, looked affronted at this criticism and said in a slightly annoyed tone, "I'm not quite as young as I look, madam."
His eye roved over the group and picked out Giles.
"Are you Mr Davis? Can I get these skis off and stow them somewhere?"
"Of course, come with me."
Mrs Boyle said acidly as the door to the hall closed behind them, "I suppose that's what we pay our police force for, nowadays, to go round enjoying themselves at winter sports."
Paravicini had come close to Molly. There was quite a hiss in his voice as he said in a quick, low voice, "Why did you send for the police, Mrs Davis?"
She recoiled a little before the steady malignity of his glance. This was a new Mr Paravicini. For a moment she felt afraid. She said helplessly, "But I didn't. I didn't."
And then Christopher Wren came excitedly through the door, saying in a high penetrating whisper, "Who's that man in the hall? Where did he come from? So terribly hearty and all over snow."
Mrs Boyle's voice boomed out over the click of her knitting-needles. "You may believe it or not, but that man is a policeman. A policeman - skiing!"
The final disruption of the lower classes had come, so her manner seemed to say.
Major Metcalf murmured to Molly, "Excuse me, Mrs Davis, but may I use your telephone?"
"Of course, Major Metcalf."
He went over to the instrument, just as Christopher Wren said shrilly, "He's very handsome, don't you think so? I always think policemen are terribly attractive."
"Hullo, hullo -" Major Metcalf was rattling the telephone irritably. He turned to Molly. "Mrs Davis, this telephone is dead, quite dead." "It was all right just now. I -"
She was interrupted. Christopher Wren was laughing, a high, shrill, almost hysterical laugh. "So we're quite cut off now. Quite cut off. That's funny, isn't it?"
"I don't see anything to laugh at," said Major Metcalf stiffly. "No, indeed," said Mrs Boyle.
Christopher was still in fits of laughter. "It's a private joke of my own," he said. "Hsh," he put his finger to his lips, "the sleuth is coming."
Giles came in with Sergeant Trotter. The latter had got rid of his skis and brushed off the snow and was holding in his hand a large notebook and pencil. He brought an atmosphere of unhurried judicial procedure with him.
"Molly," said Giles, "Sergeant Trotter wants a word with us alone." Molly followed them both out of the room. "We'll go in the study," Giles said.
They went into the small room at the back of the hall which was dignified by that name. Sergeant Trotter closed the door carefully behind him.
"What have we done, Sergeant?" Molly demanded plaintively.
"Done?" Sergeant Trotter stared at her. Then he smiled broadly. "Oh," he said. "It's nothing of that kind, madam. I'm sorry if there's been a misapprehension of any kind. No, Mrs Davis, it's something quite different. It's more a matter of police protection, if you understand me."
Not understanding him in the least, they both looked at him inquiringly.