Death and the Dancing Footman (8 page)

“But what is the game?” asked Mandrake, knowing that somebody was meant to ask this question.

“My dear Aubrey, have you never played Charter? It is entirely
vieux jeu
nowadays, but I still confess to a passion for it.”

“It’s simply a crossword game,” said Hersey. “You are each given the empty crossword form and the letters are called one by one from a pack of cards. The players put each letter as it is read out into a square of the diagram. This goes on until the form is full. The longest list of complete words wins.”

“You score by the length of the words,” said’Chloris. “Seven-letter words get fifteen points, three-letter words two points, and so on. You may not make any alterations, of course.”

“It sounds entertaining,” said Mandrake with a sinking heart.

“Shall we?” asked Jonathan, peering at his guests. “What does everybody think? Shall we?”

His guests, prompted by champagne and brandy to desire, vaguely, success rather than disaster, cried out that they were all for the game, and the party moved to the smoking-room. Here, Jonathan, with a convincing display of uncertainty, hunted in a drawer where Mandrake had seen him secrete the printed blocks of diagrams and the requisite number of pencils. Soon they were sitting in a semicircle round the fire with their pencils poised and with expressions of indignant bewilderment on their faces. Jonathan turned up the first card:

“X,” he said; “X for Xerxes.”

“Oh,
can’t
we have another?” cried Madame Lisse. “There aren’t any — Oh no, wait a moment. I see.”

“K for King.”

Mandrake, finding himself rather apt at the game, began to enjoy it. With the last letter he completed his long word, “extract,” and with an air of false modesty handed his Charter to Chloris Wynne, his next-door neighbour, to mark. He himself took William’s Charter and was embarrassed to find it in a state of the strangest confusion. William had either failed to understand the game, or else had got left so far behind that he could not catch up with the letters. Many of the spaces were blank and in the left-hand corner William had made a singular little drawing of a strutting rooster with a face that certainly bore a strong resemblance to his brother Nicholas.

“Anyway,” said William looking complacently at Mandrake, “the drawing is quite nice. Don’t you think so?”

Mandrake was saved from making a reply by Nicholas who at that moment uttered a sharp ejaculation.

“What’s up, Nick?” asked Jonathan.

Nicholas had turned quite pale. In his left hand he held two of the Charter forms. He separated them and crushed one into a wad in his right hand.

“Have I made a mistake?” asked Dr. Hart softly.

“You’ve given me two forms,” said Nicholas.

“Stupid of me. I must have torn them off the block at the same time.”

“They have both been used.”

“No doubt I forgot to remove an old form and tore them off together.”

Nicholas looked at him. “No doubt,” he said.

“You can see which is the correct form by my long word. It is ‘threats.’ ”

“I have not missed it,” said Nicholas, and turned to speak to Madame Lisse.

Mandrake went to his room at midnight. Before switching on his light he pulled aside the curtains and partly opened the window. He saw that at last the snow had come. Fleets of small ghosts drove steeply forward from darkness into the region beyond the window-panes, where they became visible in the firelight. Some of them, meeting the panes, slid down their surface and lost their strangeness in the cessation of their flight. Though the room was perfectly silent, this swift enlargement of oncoming snowflakes beyond the windows suggested to Mandrake a vast nocturnal whispering. He suddenly remembered the black-out and closed the window. He let fall the curtain, switched on the light, and turned to stir his fire. He was accustomed to later hours and felt disinclined for sleep. His thoughts were busy with memories of the evening. He was filled with a nagging curiosity about the second Charter form which had caused Nicholas Compline to turn pale and to look so strangely at Dr. Hart. He could see Nicholas’ hand, thrusting the crumpled form down between the seat and the arm of his chair. “Perhaps it is still there,” Mandrake thought, “Without a doubt it is still there. Why should it have upset him so much? I shall never go to sleep. It is useless to undress and get into bed.” And the prospect of the books Jonathan had chosen so carefully for his bedside filled him with dismay. At last he changed into pyjamas and dressing-gown, visited the adjoining bathroom, and noticed that there was no light under the door from the bathroom into William’s bedroom at the further side. “So William is not astir.” He returned to his room, opened the door into the passage, and was met by the indifferent quiet of a sleeping house. Mandrake left his own door open and stole along the passage as far as the stairhead. In the wall above the stairs was a niche from which a great brass Buddha, indestructible memorial to Jonathan’s Anglo-Indian grandfather, leered peacefully at Mandrake. He paused here, thinking. “A few steps down to the landing, then the lower flight to the hall. The smoking-room door is almost opposite the foot of the stairs.” Nicholas had sat in the fourth chair from the end. Why should he not go down and satisfy himself about the crumpled form? If by any chance someone was in the smoking-room, he could get himself a book from the library next door and return. There was no shame in looking at a discarded paper from a round game.

He limped softly to the head of the stairs. Here, in the diffused light, he found a switch and turned it on. A wall-lamp halfway down the first flight came to life. Mandrake descended the stairs. The walls sighed to his footfall, and near the bottom one of the steps creaked so loudly that he started and then stood rigid, his heart beating hard against his ribs. “This is how burglars and illicit lovers feel,” thought Mandrake, “but why on earth should I?” Yet he stole cat-footed across the hall, pushed open the smoking-room door with his finger-tips, and waited long in the dark before he groped for the light-switch and snapped it down.

There stood the nine armchairs in a semicircle before a dying fire. They had an air of being in dumb conclave and in their irregular positions were strangely eloquent of their late occupants. There was Nicholas Compline’s chair, drawn close to Madame Lisse’s and turned away contemptuously from Dr. Hart’s saddleback. Mandrake actually fetched a book from a sporting collection in a revolving case before he moved to Nicholas’ chair, before his fingers explored the crack between the arm and the seat. The paper was crushed into a tight wad. He smoothed it out on the arm of the chair and read the five words that had been firmly pencilled in the diagram.

The fire settled down with a small clink of dead embers, and Mandrake, smiling incredulously, stared at the scrap of paper in his hand. It crossed his mind perhaps he was the victim of an elaborate joke, that Jonathan had primed his guests, had invented their antipathies, and now waited maliciously for Mandrake himself to come to him, agog with his latest find. “But that won’t wash,” he thought. “Jonathan could not have guessed I would return to find the paper. Nicholas
DID
change colour when he saw it. I must presume that Hart
DID
write this message and hand it to Nicholas with the other. He must have been crazy with fury to allow himself such a ridiculous gesture. Can he suppose that Nicholas will be frightened off the lady? No, it’s too absurd.”

But, as if in answer to his speculations, Mandrake heard a voice speaking behind him: “I tell you, Jonathan, he means trouble. I’d better get out.”

For a moment Mandrake stood like a stone, imagining that Jonathan and Nicholas had entered the smoking-room behind his back. Then he turned, found the room still empty, and realized that Nicholas had spoken from beyond the door into the library, and for the first time noticed that this door was not quite shut. He was still speaking, his voice raised hysterically.

“It will be better if I clear out, now. A pretty sort of party it’ll be! The fellow’s insane with jealousy. For her sake — don’t you see — for her sake—”

The voice paused, and Mandrake heard a low murmur from Jonathan, interrupted violently by Nicholas.

“I don’t give a damn what they think.” Evidently Jonathan persisted, because in a moment Nicholas said: “Yes, of course I see that, but I can say… ” His voice dropped, and the next few sentences were half lost. “… It’s not that… I don’t see why… urgent call from headquarters… Good Lord, of course not!.. Miserable, fat little squirt, I’ve cut him out and he can’t take it.” Another pause, and then: “I don’t mind if
YOU
don’t. It was more on your account than… But I’ve told you about the letter, Jonathan… not at first… Well, if you think… Very well, I’ll stay,” And for the first time Mandrake caught Jonathan’s words: “I’m sure it’s better, Nick. Can’t turn tail, you know. Good night.”

“Good night,” said Nicholas, none too graciously, and Mandrake heard the door from the library to the hall open and close. Then from the next room came Jonathan’s reedy tenor —

Mandrake stuck out his chin, crossed the smoking-room and entered the library by the communicating door. “Jonathan,” he said, “I’ve been eavesdropping.”

Jonathan was sitting in a chair before the fire. His short legs were drawn up, knees to chin, and he hugged his shins like some plump and exultant kobold. He turned his spectacles towards Mandrake and, by that familiar trick of light, the thick lenses obscured his eyes and glinted like two moons.

“I’ve been eavesdropping,” Mandrake repeated.

“My dear Aubrey, come in, come in. Eavesdropping? Nonsense. You heard our friend Nicholas? Good! I was coming to your room to relate the whole story. A diverting complication.”

“I only heard a little of what he said. I’d come down to the smoking-room.” He saw Jonathan’s spectacles turned on the book he still held in his hand. “Not really to fetch a book,” said Mandrake.

“No? One would seek a book in the library, one supposes. But I am glad my choice for your room was not ill-judged.”

“I wanted to see this.”

Like a small boy in disgrace Mandrake extended his right hand and opened it, disclosing the crumpled form.

“Ah,” said Jonathan.

“You have seen it?”

“Nick told me about it. I wondered if anyone else would share my own curiosity. May I have it? Ah — Thank you. Sit down, Aubrey.” Mandrake sat down, tortured by the suspicion that Jonathan was laughing at him.

“You see,” said Mandrake, “that I am badly inoculated with your virus. I simply could not go to bed without knowing what was on that form.”

“Nor I, I assure you. I was about to look for it myself. As perhaps you heard, Nick is in a great tig. It seems that before coming here he had had letters from Hart warning him off the lady. According to Nick, Hart is quite mad for love of her and consumed by an agonizing jealousy.”

“Poor swine,” said Mandrake.

“What? Oh, yes. Very strange and uncomfortable. I must confess that I believe Nick is right. Did you notice the little scene after dinner?”

“You may remember that you gave me to understand very definitely that my cue was to withdraw rapidly.”

“So I did. Well, there wasn’t much in it. He merely glared at Nick across the table and said something in German which neither of us understood.”

“You’ll be telling me next he’s a fifth columnist,” said Mandrake.

“Not at all. He gives himself away much too readily. But I fancy he has frightened Nick. I have observed, my dear Aubrey, that of the two Complines, William catches your attention more than Nicholas. I have known them all their lives and I suggest that you turn your eyes on Nicholas. Nicholas is rapidly becoming the — not perhaps the
jeune premier
—but the central character of our drama. In Nicholas we see the vain man, frightened. The male flirt who finds an agreeable stimulant in another man’s jealousy and suddenly realizes that he has roused the very devil in his rival. Would you believe it, Nicholas wanted to leave tonight? He advanced all sorts of social and gallant reasons, consideration for me, for the lady, for the success of the party; but the truth is Nick had a jitterbug and wanted to make off.”

“How did you prevent him?”

“I?” Jonathan pursed his lips. “I have usually been able to manage Nicholas. I let him see I understood his real motive. He was afraid I would make a pleasing little anecdote of his flight. His vanity won. He will remain.”

“But what does he think Hart will do?”

“He used the word ‘murderous.’ ”

There was a long silence. At last Mandrake said: “Jonathan, I think you should have let Nicholas Compline go.”

“But why?”

“Because I agree with him. I have watched Hart to-night. He did look murderous.”

“Gorgeous!” Jonathan exclaimed, and hugged his hands between his knees.

“Honestly, I think he means trouble. He’s at the end of his tether.”

“You don’t think he’ll go for Nick with a dinner knife?”

“I don’t think he’s responsible for his behaviour.”

“He was a little tipsy, you know.”

“So was Compline. While the champagne and brandy worked he rather enjoyed baiting Hart. Now, evidently, he’s not so sure. Nor am I.”

“You disappoint me, Aubrey. Our aesthetic experiment is working beautifully and your only response—”

“Oh, I’m absorbingly interested. If
YOU
don’t mind — after all, it’s your house.”

“Exactly. And my responsibility. I assembled the cast and, my dear fellow, I offered you a seat in the stalls. The play is going too well for me to stop it at the close of the first act. It falls very prettily on Nick’s exit and I fancy the last thing we hear, before the curtain blots out the scene, is a sharp click.”

“What?”

“Nicholas Compline turning the key in his bedroom door.”

“I hope to God you’re right,” said Mandrake.

The next morning Mandrake woke at the rattle of curtain rings to find his room penetrated by an unearthly light and knew that Highfold was under snow. A heavy fall, the maid said. There were patches of clear sky, but the local prophets said they’d have another storm before evening. She rekindled his fire and left him to stare at his tea-tray and to remember that, not so many years ago, Mr. Stanley Footling, in the attic room of his mother’s boarding-house in Dulwich, had enjoyed none of these amenities. Stanley Footling always showed a tendency to return at the hour of waking and this morning Mandrake asked himself for the hundredth time why he could not admit his metamorphosis with an honest gaiety; why he should suffer the miseries of unconfessed snobbery. He could find no answer and, tired of his thoughts, decided to rise early.

When he went downstairs he found William Compline alone at the breakfast table.

“Hullo,” said William. “Good morning. Jolly day for Nick’s bath, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Nick’s bath in the pool. Have you forgotten the bet?”

“I should think
he
had.”

“I shall remind him.”

“Well,” said Mandrake, “personally I should pay a good deal more than ten pounds to get out of it.”

“Yes, but you’re not my brother Nicholas. He’ll do it.”

“But,” said Mandrake uncomfortably, “hasn’t he got something wrong with his heart? I mean—”

“It won’t hurt him. The pool’s not frozen. I’ve been to look. He can’t swim, you know, so he’ll just have to pop in at the shallow end and duck.” William gave a little crow of laughter.

“I’d call it off, if I were you.”

“Yes,” said William, “but you’re not me. I’ll remind him of it, all right.” And on this slightly ominous note they continued their breakfast in silence. Hersey Amblington and Chloris Wynne came in together, followed by Jonathan, who appeared to be in the best of spirits.

“We shall have a little sunshine, I believe,” said Jonathan. “It may not last long, so doubtless the hardier members of the party will choose to make the most of it.”

“I don’t propose to build a snow-man, Jonathan, if that’s what you’re driving at,” said Hersey.

“Don’t you, Hersey?” said William. “I rather thought I might. After Nick’s bath, you know. Have you heard about Nick’s bath?”

“Your mother told me. You’re not going to hold him to it, William?”

“He needn’t if he doesn’t want to.”

“Bill,” said Chloris, “
don’t
remind him of it. Your mother—”

“She won’t get up for ages,” said William, “and I don’t suppose there’ll be any need to remind Nick. After all, it
was
a bet.”

“I think you’re behaving rather badly,” said Chloris uncertainly. William stared at her.

“Are you afraid he’ll get a little cold in his nose?” he asked, and added: “I was up to my waist in snow and slush in France not so long ago.”

“I know, darling, but—”

“Here
is
Nick,” said William placidly. His brother came in and paused at the door.

“Good morning,” said William. “We were just talking about the bet. They all seem to think I ought to let you off.”

“Not at all,” said Nicholas. “You’ve lost your tenner.”

“
There
!” said William, “I said you’d do it. You mustn’t get that lovely uniform wet, Nick. Jonathan will lend you a bathing suit, I expect. Or you could borrow my uniform. It’s been up to—” Mandrake, Chloris, Hersey and Jonathan all began to speak at once and William, smiling gently, fetched himself another cup of coffee. Nicholas turned away to the sideboard. Mandrake had half expected Jonathan to interfere but he merely remarked on the hardihood of the modern young man and drew a somewhat tiresome analogy from the exploits of ancient Greeks. Nicholas suddenly developed a sort of gaiety that set Mandrake’s teeth on edge, so falsely did it ring.

“Shall you come and watch me, Chloris?” asked Nicholas, seating himself beside her.

“I don’t approve of your doing it.”

“Oh, Chloris! Are you angry with me? I can’t bear it. Tell me you’re not angry with me. I’m doing it all for your sake. I must have an audience. Won’t you be my audience?”

“Don’t be a fool,” said Chloris. But, damn it, thought Mandrake, she’s preening herself all the same. Dr. Hart arrived and was very formal with his greetings. He looked ghastly and breakfasted on black coffee and toast. Nicholas threw him a glance curiously compounded of malice and nervousness and began to talk still more loudly to Chloris Wynne of his bet with William. Hersey, who had evidently got sick of Nicholas, suddenly said she thought it was time he cut the cackle and got to the ’osses.

“But everybody isn’t here,” said William. “Madame Lisse isn’t here.”

“Divine creature!” exclaimed Nicholas affectedly, and showed the whites of his eyes at Dr. Hart. “She’s in bed.”

“How do you know?” asked William, against the combined mental opposition of the rest of the party.

“I’ve investigated. I looked in to say good morning on my way down.”

Dr. Hart put down his cup with a clatter and walked quickly out of the room.

“You are a damned fool, Nick,” said Hersey softly.

“It’s starting to snow again,” said William. “You’d better hurry up with your bath.”

Mandrake thought that no wager had ever fallen as inauspiciously as this one. Even Jonathan seemed uneasy and when they drifted into the library made a half-hearted attempt to dissuade Nicholas. Lady Hersey said flatly that she thought the whole affair extremely boring and silly; Chloris Wynne at first attempted an air of jolly house-party waggishness, but a little later Mandrake overheard her urging William to call off the bet. Mrs. Compline somehow got wind of the project and sent down a message forbidding it, but this was followed by a message from Madame Lisse saying that she would watch from her bedroom window. Mandrake tried to get up a party to play Badminton in the barn, but nobody really listened to him. An atmosphere of bathos hung over them like a pall and through it William remained complacent and Nicholas embarrassingly flamboyant.

Finally, it was resolved by the Complines that Nicholas should go down to the pavilion, change there into a bathing suit and, as William put it, go off at the shallow end. William was to watch the performance and Nicholas, rather offensively, insisted upon a second witness. Neither Hersey nor Chloris seemed able to make up her mind whether she would go down to the pool. Jonathan had gone out saying something about Dr. Hart. It appeared that Mandrake would be obliged to witness Nicholas’ ridiculous antics and, muttering to himself, he followed him into the hall.

The rest of the party had disappeared. Nicholas stood brushing up his moustache and eying Mandrake with an air half mischievous, half defiant. “Well,” he said, “this is a pretty damn-fool sort of caper, isn’t it?”

“To be frank,” said Mandrake, “I think it is. It’s snowing like hell again. Don’t you rather feel the bet’s fallen flat?”

“I’ll be damned if I let Bill take that tenner off me. Are you coming?”

“I’ll go up and get my coat,” said Mandrake unwillingly.

“Take one out of the cloak-room here. I’m going to. The Tyrolese cape.”

“Jonathan’s?

“Or Hart’s!” Nicholas grinned. “Hart’s mantle may as well fall across my shoulders, what? I’ll go down now and change in that bloody pavilion. You follow. Bill’s running down from the west door when he’s given me time to undress.”

Nicholas went into the cloak-room and reappeared wearing one Tyrolese cape and carrying another. “Here you are,” he said, throwing it at Mandrake. “Don’t be long.”

He pulled the hood of his cape over his head and went out through the front doors. For a moment Mandrake saw him, a fantastic figure caught in a flurry of snow. Then Nicholas lowered his head to the wind and ran out of sight.

Mandrake’s club-foot prevented him from running. It was some distance from the front of the house to the pool and he remembered that the west door opened directly on a path that led to the terrace above the pool. He decided that, like William, he would go down that way. He would go at once, before William started. He loathed people to check their steps to his painful limp. Imitating Nicholas, he pulled the hood of the second cape over his head and made his way along a side passage to the west door and, as he opened it, heard somebody call after him from the house. He ignored the call and, filled with disgust at the whole situation, slammed the door behind him and limped out into the storm.

The north wind drove against him, flattening the cloak against his right side and billowing it out on his left. He felt snow on his eyelids and lips and pulled the hood further over his brows so that he could see only the ground before him. As he limped forward, snow squeaked under his steps. It closed over his sound foot above the rim of his shoe. The path was still defined and he followed it to the edge of the terrace. Below him lay the pool and the pavilion. The water was a black hole in a white field but the pavilion resembled a light-hearted decoration, so well did the snow become it. Mandrake was tempted to watch from the terrace but the wind was so violent there that he changed his mind and crept awkwardly down the long flight of steps, thinking to himself that it would be just like this party if he slipped and broke his good leg. At last he reached the rounded embankment that curved sharply above the pool, hiding the surface of the water from anybody who did not climb its steps. Mandrake reached the top of this bank with difficulty and descended the far side to the paved kerb, now covered in snow. He glanced at the pavilion and saw Nicholas wave from one of the windows. Mandrake walked to the deep end of the pool where there was a diving platform and stood huddled in his cloak, watching fleets of snow die on the black surface of the water. He looked back towards the terrace steps but the embankment hid the bottom flight. There was nobody on the top flight. Perhaps, after all, none of the others would come. “Damn!” said Mandrake. “Damn Nicholas, damn William, and damn Jonathan for his filthy party. I’ve never been so bored or cold or angry in my life before.” He staggered a little against a sudden gust of wind and snow.

The next moment something drove hard against his shoulders. He took a gigantic stride forward into nothingness and was torn from head to foot with the appalling shock of icy water.

The fabric of the cape was in his eyes and mouth and clamped about his arms and legs. The cold cut him with terrible knives of pain. As he sank he thought: “This is disgusting. This is really bad. A terrible thing has happened to me.” Water rushed in at his nose and ears. His heavy boot pulled at his leg. His arms fought the cape and after a timeless interval it rose above his head, free of his face, and he saw a green prison about him. Then, with frozen limbs, he struggled and fought; and at last, feeling the bottom of the pool, struck at it with his feet and rose into the folds of the cape. His lungs were bursting, his body dying of cold. His hands wrenched at the fastening about his throat and broke it, his arms fought off the nightmare cape, and after an age of suffocating despair, he reached the surface. He drew a retching gasp and swallowed air. For a moment he felt and saw snow and heard, quite close by, a voice. As he sank again, something slapped the water above his head. “But I can swim a little,” he thought, as wheels clashed and whirred behind his brain, and he made frog-like gestures with his arms and legs. Immediately the fingers of his right hand touched something smooth that slipped away from them. He made a more determined effort and, after three violent strokes, again reached the surface. As he gasped and opened his eyes, he was confronted by a scarlet face, beaked, on the end of a long scarlet neck. He flung his arms round this neck, fell backwards and was half-suffocated with another in-drawn jet of water. Then he found himself lying on the pond, choking into the face of a monstrous bird. Again he heard voices, but they now sounded unreal and very far away.

“Are you all right? Kick. Kick out. You’re coming this way.”

“But this is
my
cloak.”

“Kick, Aubrey, kick.”

He kicked and, after an aeon of time, floated into the view of five faces, upside down with their mouths open. His head struck against hardness.

“The rail. There’s a rail here. Get hold of it.”

“You’re all right, now. Here!”

He was drawn up. His arms scraped against stone. He was lying on the edge of the pool clasping an inflated India-rubber bird to his bosom. He was turned so that his face hung over the edge of the pond. His jaws had developed an independent life of their own and his teeth chattered like castanets. His skin, too, leapt and jerked over the surface of his frozen muscles. When he tried to speak he made strange ugly noises. Acrid water trickled from his nostrils over his lips and chin.

“How the devil did it happen?” somebody — William — was asking.

“The edge is horribly slippery,” said Chloris Wynne. “I nearly fell in myself.”

“I didn’t fall,” Mandrake mouthed out with great difficulty. “I was pushed.” Nicholas Compline burst into a shout of laughter and Mandrake wondered dimly if he could make a quick grab at his ankle and overturn him into the pool. It was borne in on Mandrake that Nicholas was wearing bathing drawers under his cape.

“Did he fall or was he pushed?” shouted Nicholas.

“Shut up, Nicholas.” That was Chloris Wynne.

“My dear fellow,” Jonathan made a series of little dabs at Mandrake, “you must come up at once. My coat. Take my coat. Ah, yours too, William, that’s better. Help him up, now. A hot toddy and a blazing fire, eh Hart? There never was anything more unfortunate. Come now.”

Mandrake was suddenly torn by a violent retching. “Disgusting,” he thought, “
disgusting
!”

“That will be better,” said a voice. Dr. Hart’s! “We should get him up quickly. Can you walk, Mr. Mandrake?”

“Yes.”

“Your arm across my shoulders. So. Come, now.”

“I’ll just get into my clothes,” said Nicholas.

“Perhaps, Mr. Compline, as you are in bathing dress, you will be good enough to retrieve my cape.”