Mr. Tote’s suit had probably cost as much as it is possible for a suit to cost, because one of the main objects in Mr. Tote’s life at this time was to buy where the buying was dearest, a process which he described as “getting the best.” His figure had, unfortunately, proved very unresponsive. It is more than possible that the tailor may have lost heart. He would certainly have done so if he could have foreseen that Mr. Tote would violate the sartorial decencies and insult that discreet dark suiting with a bright green tie lavishly patterned in yellow horseshoes.
Mr. Carroll was in brown. Not quite the right shade of brown. Miss Silver considered that it was a little too marked to be in really good taste. Quite a bizarre shade. And the orange tie, the orange handkerchief-not at all suitable.
She herself was wearing her last summer’s dress dyed prune, with the black velvet coatee which she always brought down to a country house in the winter. Central heating there might be, but sometimes quite unreliable. She had a gold chain about her neck, and wore a brooch of Irish bogoak in the form of a rose with a large pale pearl in the middle of it.
With that nice sense of propriety which enabled him to play his butler’s part with so much decorum, Pearson had set the coffee-tray in front of Miss Brown, having first placed a small table there to receive it. Dorinda, her colour deepening, took up the heavy coffee-pot and began to look from one to the other, waiting to ask about milk and sugar, but with the feeling that the stiff silence which had fallen was harder to break in upon than any buzz of conversation. Mrs. Tote had stopped talking about Allie and the baby as soon as her husband came in. She did not talk about anything else, because none of the other things which filled her thoughts were the kind of things you can talk about in a drawing-room full of strangers. You can’t say, “Perhaps my husband is a murderer,” or even, “Perhaps the police think so.” Yet the minute she stopped talking about Allie the cold darkness of these thoughts rushed in and quenched the light. She sat in the dark and trembled. Perhaps she wasn’t the only one-
Justin had his own ideas about that. He had come to Dorinda’s rescue and solved her problem by handing round the milk and sugar in the wake of Mr. Masterman, who took the cups. When everyone was served except Miss Masterman, who refused coffee with a monosyllable and remained behind her newspaper screen, he came back to put down milk-jug and sugar-basin and take the place which the two girls had left between them on the settee. The silence had, if anything stiffened. Dorinda had the feeling that if anyone were to speak something might break.
It was Miss Silver who said, “What delicious coffee!” She looked round as if she were collecting votes. “Really delicious, is it not?”
Nobody answered her.
Mr. Masterman stood with his back to the fire, his coffee-cup upon the mantelshelf. Mr. Tote had taken an armchair and the Times. Mr. Carroll hovered, cup in hand, rather like an insect looking for a place to settle. He was on the outskirts of the group when he broke into strident laughter.
“Delicious coffee! Delicious company! And, hell-what a delicious evening in front of us!”
Moira threw him a cool glance.
“Going to make a fool of yourself to brighten things up? Quite an idea!”
His small bright eyes held hers for a moment. There was so hot a spark of malice in them that it startled her. If she had been another sort of woman she might have been afraid. As it was, everything in her sat up and took notice. “He’s got something. What has he got? What is he going to do?” Her lips curled in a sarcastic smile.
Leonard Carroll’s left shoulder, which always looked a little higher than the right, gave a quick jerk and he was off. He laughed again in the same edgy manner.
“All right-I’m an entertainer, aren’t I? And now I’m going to entertain you. Ladies and gentlemen, I am about to present an entirely unrehearsed and original act entitled ‘Whodunit?’ Breathless excitement-thrills guaranteed. A nice pat on the back from the police for the person who spots the murderer.”
Justin Leigh made an abrupt movement. He appeared to be about to get to his feet. Before he could do so he encountered Miss Silver’s eye, warning, threatening, and commanding, as in Mr. Wordsworth’s pen-portrait of the perfect woman. Its effect, which was immediate, was to make him lean back again and hold his tongue.
Everyone, with the possible exception of Miss Masterman, was now looking at Leonard Carroll. He had dropped his showman’s manner and proceeded in an easy confidential tone.
“We’re all thinking about Greg, so why not talk about him? You can’t get rid of a corpse by ignoring it-well, I mean, can you? Let’s have the whole thing out and clear the air. There’s only one person who ought to mind. The murderer isn’t going to like it, naturally. And naturally no one’s going to say they don’t like it after that. And now- ‘Ring up the Curtain!’ ” He threw back his head and sang the phrase with which the curtain rises upon Pagliacci, then dropped to a low narrative tone. “Act II, Scene I. The murder has taken place, the lights have just been switched on, the hall is full of people. Leonard Carroll is on the third step from the top of the stairs looking down on them.” His voice went deep into the dark places where things crawl. “He is looking down on all the others, and he has a damned good view.”
A bright, crooked glance zig-zagged from one to the other of the group which faced him. This group was, in point of fact, a half circle fanning out from where Mr. Masterman leaned against the mantelpiece. Leonard Carroll stood in the open side of the half circle and let his malicious glance run to and fro, flicking over the hands with which Miss Masterman held up her newspaper screen, over the congested face of Mr. Tote, who had dropped the Times across his knees, over Miss Silver and her knitting, over Mrs. Tote with her reddened eyelids, past Mr. Masterman’s frown, to where Justin Leigh was leaning back with an abstracted air between a girl who had flushed and a girl who was pale.
Dorinda looked sideways and saw that Justin was angry. When he looked like that it meant that he was very angry indeed. It meant that he was holding himself in. The foolish, useless wish came into her mind that the evening might be over and everyone safe in bed. And all this just a dream to wake up from next day, and say, “How silly!” and say, “It doesn’t matter how silly it is, as long as it isn’t true.”
Leonard Carroll’s flickering glance came home again. He repeated his last words in a meditative tone.
“A damned good view. Leigh was so very quick, wasn’t he? He may have been a thought too quick for someone. It’s just possible-well, isn’t it? And Leonard Carroll on that third step from the top of the stairs would have such a damned good view. If there was anything to see, he could hardly have missed it-well, could he?”
Mr. Tote lifted his heavy bulk, flinging round in the padded chair to fix small angry eyes upon Carroll’s face. It was a look which might have given some men pause.
“What’s all this hinting? Why don’t you come and sit down and behave yourself? If you’ve got anything to say, why don’t you say it and have done? And if you haven’t, what’s the good of hinting that you have?”
Carroll laughed.
“Oh, you mustn’t be too hard on my poor entertainment. A little mystery-a little conjecture-a sprinkle of what you call hints-I’m afraid we can’t do without them. For instance, take your own case. I’m not saying what I saw, or what I didn’t see, but-now who was it was telling me you threw a pretty dart?… Oh, yes-it was your wife.”