Felicity obeyed. "Sorry. That was Joan. She's had a ghoulish day. Whatever do you think, Mummy? Her fancy dress had come, and there was a bill with it, and Basil saw it and kicked up a frightful row, and said he wouldn't pay. Anyone'd think he was going bankrupt. Jean says he's always groaning about money, which is too absurd when he must be rolling."
Sir Humphrey looked over the top of his glasses. "You should not encourage your friend to talk disloyally about her brother, Felicity," he said.
"He's only a "step"," Felicity said impenitently. "And pretty moth-eaten at that. However, Joan's managed to smooth him down over the frock. I expect he's comforting himself with the thought that he won't have to support her at all much longer."
"Do you mean to tell me that you've been all this time telephoning to one person?" interrupted Frank. "Yes, of course. Why not? I say, by the way, Joan says she tried to make Basil be Mephistopheles, because of her and Tony being Marguerite and Faust, only he wouldn't. Rather fortunate. I told her I was bringing one who really looks the part. She was thrilled."
"Do you mind elucidating this mystery?" said Frank. "It's beginning to get on my nerves. Who is Basil?"
Joan's step-brother, idiot."
"I had gathered that. Is he the present owner of the manor?"
"Yes, of course. He inherited everything when old Mr. Fountain popped off."
Sir Humphrey again looked up, mildly pained. "Died, my dear."
"All right, Daddy. Died. He was Mr. Fountain's nephew, and as Mr. Fountain hadn't got any children of his own, he was the heir. Quite simple."
"Oh yes, jasper Fountain had children of his own," interposed her mother. "That is to say, one. He died about three years ago. I remember seeing the notice in The Times."
Felicity was faintly surprised. "I never heard of any son. Are you sure, Mummy?"
"Perfectly, darling. He was an extremely unsatisfactory young man and went to South America."
"Africa, my dear," corrected Sir Humphrey from behind the paper.
"Was it, Humphrey? Very much the same thing, I feel. There was a very unpleasant scandal. Something to do with cards. But the young man drank, which probably accounted for his erratic habits. His father would never have anything more to do with him. I don't know what became of him, except that he died."
"That finishes him off, then," said Frank. "Does the objectionable Basil have - er - erratic habits?"
"Not that I am aware of, my dear."
Sir Humphrey laid down the paper. "Nowadays the papers contain nothing but sensational descriptions of most unpleasant crimes," he said severely. "Do you young people feel like bridge?"
Upon the following day Felicity, having shopping to do for her mother in Upper Nettlefold, decreed that Frank should accompany her. His suggestion that the expedition might be conducted by car was sternly contradicted. Wolf, said Felicity, must be taken for a walk.
Wolf was Felicity's Alsatian. When fetched from the stables he evinced his satisfaction by bounding round his mistress and barking madly for the first hundred yards of their walk. Exercising him was not, as Frank knew from experience, all joy, as he was not in the least amenable to discipline, had to be caught and held at the approach of any motor vehicle, and had a habit of plunging unadvisedly into quarrels with others of the canine race.
The narrow main street of the town was, as usual upon a weekday, crowded with cars whose owners had parked them there while they shopped. Wolf exchanged objurgations with an Airedale seated in a large touringcar and Felicity, her attention attracted towards the car, announced that it belonged to Tony Corkran. At that moment a slim, fair-haired girl in tweeds came out of the confectioner's with a young man at her heels.
"There is —Joan!" Felicity said and darted across the street.
Frank followed, basely deserting Wolf, who had obvious designs on a butcher's shop.
Felicity turned as he came up. "Oh, Frank, whatever do you think? Joan says their butler's been murdered! By the way, this is my cousin, Frank Amberley, Joan. He says he knows you, Mr. Corkran. I say, how thrilling about Dawson, though! How did it happen? Frightfully ghastly, of course," she added, as an afterthought.
"Your butler?" Frank said, released from Mr. Corkran's hearty handshake. "Oh!"
"Beastly, isn't it?" said Anthony, a young man of engaging ingenuousness. "What I mean to say is - one moment the fellow's murmuring, "Will you take hock, sir?" and the next he's been bumped off. Bad business, what?" He regarded his erstwhile school-friend with the respect due to Higher Beings. "Of course, I know these little contretemps are everyday matters to you brainy johnnies at the Bar. Still - not nice, you know. Definitely a bad show."
"Definitely," Frank agreed. He was frowning slightly. His cousin accused him of lack of proper interest. "No. By no means," he said. "I'm quite unusually interested. How did it happen, Miss Fountain?"
The fair girl said shyly: "Well, we don't know very much yet. It was Dawson's half-day and he seems to have gone off in the Baby Austin. Basil keeps it for the servants because the manor's such a way from the town and there aren't any buses near us. We didn't know a thing about it till a policeman turned up late last night and told Basil they'd found a man dead on the Pittingly Road, and he'd been identified as Dawson. He'd been shot. It's rather awful. Because he'd been at the manor for simply ages, and I can't imagine anyone wanting to shoot him. Basil's dreadfully upset about it."
"An old retainer, in fact?"
"Oh, rather!" said Anthony. "Stately old fossil. Frightfully keen on the done thing. Pretty grim."
Joan gave a little shiver. "It's horrid. I - I hate it having happened. I mean - Dawson wasn't our retainer, really, because we took him on with Collins when Uncle Jasper died, but all the same it's a beastly thing to happen, and it makes it seem pretty heartless to go on with the dance on Wednesday."
"Yes, but my dear old soul, we can't sit and gloom about the place forever," objected her betrothed. "I don't mind telling you that Brother Basil's getting on my nerves already. After all - a poor show, and all that sort of thing, but it's not as though it was his best friend, or what not."
"Darling, it's not that," said Joan patiently. "I keep on trying to explain to you what Basil feels about dead things. He can't bear them. You will insist on thinking he's a callous sort of he-man just because he looks the part, and he isn't. It's one of the things I like about him."
"But dash it all," expostulated Anthony, "he shoots and hunts, doesn't he?"
"Yes, but he doesn't like being in at the death, and I bet you've never seen him pick up the birds that have been shot. Don't say anything about it, because he'd hate anyone to know. He wouldn't even bury Jenny's puppies for me. Wouldn't touch them."
"Well, anyway, I think all this mourning's a bit overdone," said Corkran.
Joan was silent, she looked troubled. Felicity had begun to say: "It isn't particularly enlivening to have one's butler shot…' when she was interrupted by a disturbance in the middle of the road. "Oh, good Lord! Wolf!" she cried.
Wolf, emerging from the butcher's shop, had encountered a bull-terrier. Mutual dislike had straightway sprung up between them, and after the briefest preliminaries battle was joined. As Felicity spoke a girl ran forward and tried to catch the bull-terrier. Mr. Amberley joined the fray and grabbed Wolf by the scruff of his neck. The girl's hands grasped the bull-terrier round the throat. "Hold your dog!" she panted. "I'll have to choke Bill. It's the only way."
Mr. Amberley glanced quickly up at her, but her face was bent over the dogs.