Death and the Dancing Footman (5 page)

“But my dear Francis, this is superb. Am I to believe that you will lie in ambush for Nicholas Compline? What weapon shall you choose? Does he wear his sword? I believe that it is not extremely sharp, but one supposes that he could defend himself.”

“Are you in love with him?”

“If I answer No, you will not believe me. If I answer Yes, you will lose your temper.”

“Nevertheless,” said Dr. Hart calmly, “I should like an answer.”

“Nicholas will be at Highford. You may observe us and find out.”

There followed a long silence. The road turned sharply and came out on the height known as Cloudyfold. For a short distance it followed the snow-covered ridge of the hills. On their right, Madame Lisse and Dr. Hart looked down on the frozen woods of Pen Cuckoo, on cold lanes, on slow columns of chimneysmoke and, more distantly, towards a long dark mass that was the town of Great Chipping. On their left the powdered hills fell away smoothly into the Vale of Cloudyfold. Under clouds that hung like a pall from horizon to horizon, the scattered cottages of Dorset stone looked almost black, while their roofs glistened with a stealthy reflected light. A single flake of snow appeared on the windscreen and slid downwards.

“Very well,” said Dr. Hart loudly, “I shall see.”

Madame Lisse drew a gloved hand from under the rug and with one finger touched Dr. Hart lightly behind his ear. “I am really devoted to you,” she said.

He pulled her hand down, brushing the glove aside with his lips.

“You know my temperament,” he said. “It is a mistake to play the fool with me.”

“Suppose I am only playing the fool with Nicholas Compline?”

“Well,” he said again, “I shall see.”

Through the office window of the Salon Cyclamen, Hersey Amblington watched two of her clients walk off down the street with small steps and certain pert movements of their sterns. They paused outside the hated windows of the Studio Lisse, hesitated for a moment, and then disappeared through the entrance.

“Going to buy Lisse Foundation Cream,” thought Hersey. “So that’s why they wouldn’t have a facial!” She turned back into her office and was met by the familiar drone of driers, by the familiar smells of hot hair, setting lotion, and the sachets used in permanent waving, and by the familiar high-pitched indiscretions of clients in conversation with assistants.

“… long after the milk. I look like death warmed up and what I feel is nobody’s business.”

“… much better after a facial, Moddam. Aye always think a facial is marvellous, what it does for you.”

“… can’t remember his name so of course I shall never see them again.”

“Common woman,” thought Hersey. “All my clients are common women. Damn that Lisse. Blasted pirate.”

She looked at her watch. Four o’clock. She’d make a tour of the cubicles and then leave the place to her second-in-command. “If it wasn’t for my snob-value,” she thought grimly, “I’d be living on the Pirate’s overflow.” She peered into the looking-glass over her desk and automatically touched her circlet of curls. “Greyer and greyer,” said Hersey, “but I’ll be shot if I dye them,” and she scowled dispassionately at her face. “Too wholesome by half, my girl, and a fat lot of good ‘Hersey’s Skin Food’ is to your middle-aged charms. Oh, well.”

She made her tour through her cubicles. With her assistants she had little professional cross-talk dialogues, calculated to persuade her clients that the improvement in their appearance was phenomenal. With the clients themselves she sympathized, soothed, and encouraged. She refused an invitation to dinner from the Facial and listened to a complaint from a Permanent Wave. When she returned to the office she found her second-in-command at the telephone.

“Would Madam care to make another appointment? No? Very good.”

“Who’s that?” asked Hersey wearily.

“Mrs. Ainsley’s maid, to say she wouldn’t be coming for her weekly facial to-morrow. The girls say they’ve seen her coming out of the Studio Lisse.”

“May she grow a beard!” muttered Hersey, and grinned at her second-in-command. “To hell with her, anyway. How’s the appointment book?”

“Oh, we’re full enough. Booked up for three days. But they’re not as smart as they used to be.”

“Who cares! I’m going now, Jane. If you should want me to-morrow, I’ll be at my cousin Jonathan Royal’s. Highfold, you know.”

“Yes, Lady Hersey. It looks as if the Lisse was going away for the week-end. I saw her come out of the shop about half an hour ago and get into Dr. Hart’s car. I wonder if there’s anything in those stories. She had quite a big suit-case.”

“I wish she’d have a pantechnicon,” said Hersey. “I’m sick of the sound of the wretched woman’s name. She may live in sin all over Dorset as long as she doesn’t include Highfold in the tour.”

The second-in-command laughed. “
That’s
not very likely, Lady Hersey, is it?”

“No, thank the Lord. Good-bye, Jane.”

“Not very propitious weather for looking at a bathing-pool,” said Mandrake, “but I insist on showing it to you.”

He had sent the guests off at a round pace to go through Highfold Wood, where the rides were heavy with sodden leaves, down to Jonathan’s model farm and back up a steep lane to the north side of the house, where he limped out to meet them. Here they came on a wide terrace. Beneath them, at the foot of a flight of paved steps flanked by bay trees, was a large concrete swimming-pool set in smooth lawns and overlooked by a charming eighteenth-century pavilion, now trimmed, like a Christmas card, with snow. The floor of the pool had been painted a vivid blue, but now the water was wrinkled and, in the twilight of late afternoon, reflected only a broken pattern of repellent steely greys flecked by dead leaves. Mandrake explained that the pavilion had once been an aviary but that Jonathan had done it up in keeping with its Empire style and that when summer came he meant to hold
fêtes galantes
down there by his new swimming-pool. It would look very Rex Whistlerish, Mandrake said, and would have just the right air of formalized gaiety.

“At the moment,” said Chloris, “it has an air of formalized desolation, but I see what you mean.”

“Wouldn’t you like to come for a nice bracing plunge with me, Chloris, before breakfast to-morrow?” asked Nicholas. “Do say Yes.”

“No, thank you,” said Chloris.

“It would have been awkward for you,” said William, “if Chloris
had
said Yes.” It was the first remark William had addressed directly to his brother.

“Not at all,” rejoined Nicholas, and he made his stiff little bow to Chloris.

“I’d bet ten pounds,” William said to nobody in particular, “that nothing on earth would have got him into that water before or after breakfast.”

“Would you?” asked Nicholas. “I take you. You’ve lost.”

Mrs. Compline instantly protested. She reminded Nicholas of the state of his heart. William grinned derisively, staring at Chloris; repeated that the bet was on. The absurd conversation began to take an unpleasant edge. Mandrake felt an icy touch on his cheek, and drew attention to a desultory scatter of snowflakes.

“If that was our brisk walk,” said Chloris, “I consider we’ve had it. Let’s go in.”

“Is it a bet?” Nicholas asked his brother.

“Oh, yes,” said William. “You may have to break the ice, but it’s a bet.”

To the accompaniment of a lively torrent of disapprobation from Mrs. Compline they walked towards the house. Mandrake’s interest in William mounted with each turn of the situation. William was as full of surprises as a lucky-bag. His sudden proposal of this ridiculous wager was as unexpected as the attitude which he now adopted. He looked hang-dog and frightened. He hung back and said something to his mother, who set that tragically distorted mouth and did not answer. William gave her a look strangely compounded of malice and nervousness and strode after Chloris, who was walking with Mandrake. Nicholas had joined them and Mandrake felt sure that Chloris was very much aware of him. When William suddenly took her arm she started and seemed to draw back. They returned to the accompaniment of an irritating rattle of conversation from Nicholas.

As soon as they came out on the platform before the house, they found that someone else had arrived. Nicholas’ car had been driven away and in its place stood a very smart three-seater from which servants were taking very smart suit-cases.

“That’s not Hersey Amblington’s car,” said Mrs. Compline.

“No,” said Nicholas. And he added loudly: “Look here, what’s Jonathan up to?”

“What do you mean, darling?” asked his mother quickly.

“Nothing,” said Nicholas. “But I think I recognize the car.” He hung back as the others went into the house, and waited for Mandrake. He still wore Jonathan’s cape over his uniform and it occurred to Mandrake that since Nicholas allowed himself this irregularity he must be very well aware of its effectiveness. He put his hand on Mandrake’s arm. The others went into the house.

“I say,” he said, “
is
Jonathan up to anything?”

“How do you mean?” asked Mandrake, wondering what the devil Jonathan would wish him to reply.

“Well, it seems to me this is a queerly assorted house-party.”

“Is it? I’m a complete stranger to all the other guests, you know.”

“When did you get here?”

“Last night.”

“Well, hasn’t Jonathan said anything? About the other guests, I mean?”

“He was very pleased with his party,” said Mandrake carefully. “He’s longing for it to be an enormous success.”

“Is he, my God!” said Nicholas. He turned on his heel and walked into the house.

Mrs. Compline and Chloris went up to their rooms; the three men left their overcoats in a downstairs cloak-room where they noticed the twin of Jonathan’s cape. When they came back into the hall they could hear voices in the library. As if by common consent they all paused. There were three voices — Jonathan’s, a masculine voice that held a foreign suggestion in its level inflections, and a deep contralto.

“I thought as much,” said Nicholas, and laughed unpleasantly.

“What’s up?” William asked Mandrake.

“Nothing, so far as I know.”

“Come on,” said Nicholas. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go in.”

He led the way into the library.

Jonathan and his new arrivals stood before a roaring fire. The man had his back turned to the door, but the woman was facing it with an air of placid anticipation. Her face was strongly lit by a wall lamp and Mandrake’s immediate reaction to it was a sort of astonishment that Jonathan could have forgotten to say how spectacular she was. In Mandrake’s world women were either sophisticated and sleek or hideous and erratic. “Artificiality,” he was in the habit of saying, “is a fundamental in all women with whom one falls in love, and to so exquisite an extreme has artifice been carried that it sometimes apes nature with considerable success.” This subtlety of grooming appeared in Madame Lisse. Her hair was straight and from a central parting was drawn back and gathered into a knot at the nape of her neck. It lay close to her head like a black satin cap with blue high-lights. Her face was an oval, beautifully pale; her lashes needed no cosmetic to darken them; her mouth alone proclaimed her art, for it was sharply painted a dark red. Her dress was extremely simple, but in it her body seemed to be gloved rather than clothed. She was not very young, not as young as Chloris Wynne, not perhaps as pretty as Chloris Wynne either, but she had to the last degree the quality that Mandrake, though he knew very little French, spoke of and even thought of as “
soignée
. And, in her own vein, she was exceedingly beautiful.

“Madame Lisse,” Jonathan was saying, “you know Nicholas, don’t you? May I introduce his brother; and Mr. Aubrey Mandrake? Hart, do you know…” Jonathan’s introductions faded gently away.

Dr. Hart’s bow was extremely formal. He was a pale dark man with a compact paunch and firm white hands. He was clad in the defiant tweeds of a firmly naturalized ex-Central-European. Mandrake gathered from his manner that either he had not met Nicholas Compline and didn’t wish to do so, or else that he had met him and had taken a firm resolve never to do so again. Nicholas, for his part, acknowledged the introduction by looking at a point some distance beyond Dr. Hart’s left ear, and by uttering the words “How do you do?” as if they were a malediction. Madame Lisse’s greeting to Nicholas was coloured by that particular blend of composure and awareness with which Austrian women make Englishmen feel dangerous and delighted. With something of the same air, but without a certain delicate underlining, she held out her hand to William and to Mandrake. Mandrake remembered that Nicholas had known Madame Lisse was coming to the party and saw him take up a proprietary position beside her. “He’s going to brazen it out,” thought Mandrake. “He’s going to show us the sort of dog he is with the ladies, by Heaven.” Mandrake was right. Nicholas, with a sort of defiant showmanship, devoted himself to Madame Lisse. He stood beside her in an attitude reminiscent of a Victorian military fashion-plate, one leg straight and one flexed. Occasionally he placed one hand on the back of her chair, while the other went to his blond moustache. Whenever Dr. Hart glared at them, which he did repeatedly, Nicholas bent towards Madame Lisse and uttered a loud and unconvincing laugh calculated, Mandrake supposed, to show Dr. Hart how vastly Nicholas and Madame Lisse entertained each other. Madame was the sort of woman whose natural habitat was the centre of a group of men and, with the utmost tranquillity, she dominated the conversation and even, in spite of Nicholas, contrived to instil into it an air of genuine gaiety. In this she was ably supported by Jonathan and by Mandrake himself. Even William, who watched his brother pretty closely, responded in his own odd fashion to Madame’s charm. He asked her abruptly if anybody had ever painted her portrait. On learning that this had never been done he started to mutter to himself, and Nicholas looked irritated. Madame Lisse began to talk to Mandrake about his plays, Jonathan chimed in, and once again the situation was saved. It was upon a conversation piece, with Madame Lisse very much in the centre of vision, that Mrs. Compline and Chloris made their entrances. Mandrake thought that Mrs. Compline could not be aware of the affair between Nicholas and Madame Lisse, so composedly did she acknowledge the introduction. But if this was the case, what reason had Chloris given for the broken engagement with Nicholas? “Is it not impossible that everybody but his mother should be aware of
l’affaire Lisse
?”

Mandrake speculated. “Perhaps she sees him as a sort of irresistible young god, choosing where he will, and, without resentment, accepts Madame as a votaress.” There was no doubt about Chloris’ reaction. Mandrake saw her stiffen and go very still when Jonathan pronounced Madame Lisse’s name. For perhaps a full second neither of the women spoke and then, for all the world as if they responded to some inaudible cue, Chloris and Madame Lisse were extremely gracious to each other. “So they’re going to take
that
line,” thought Mandrake, and wondered if Jonathan shared his feelings of relief. He felt less comfortable when he saw Mrs. Compline’s reaction to Dr. Hart. She murmured the conventional greeting, looked casually and then fixedly into his face, and turned so deadly white that for a moment Mandrake actually wondered if she would faint. But she did not faint. She turned away and sat in a chair farthest removed from the light. With the effect of entering on a cue, Caper brought in sherry and champagne cocktails.

The cocktails, though they did not perform miracles, helped considerably. Dr. Hart in particular became more sociable. He continued to avoid Nicholas but attached himself to Chloris Wynne and to William. Jonathan talked to Mrs. Compline; Mandrake and Nicholas to Madame Lisse. Nicholas still kept up his irritating performance — now, apparently, for the benefit of Chloris. Whenever Madame Lisse spoke he bent towards her and, whether her remark was grave or gay, he broke out into an exhibition of merriment calculated, Mandrake felt certain, to arouse in Chloris the pangs proper to the woman scorned. If she suffered this reaction she gave no more evidence of her distress than might be discovered in an occasional thoughtful glance at Nicholas, and it seemed to Mandrake that if she reacted at all to the performance, it was pleasurably. She listened attentively to Dr. Hart, who became voluble and bland. Chloris had asked if anyone had heard the latest wireless news. Hart instantly embarked on a description of his own reaction to radio. “I cannot endure it. It touches some nerve. It creates a most disagreeable — an unendurable—
frisson
. I read my papers and that is enough. I am informed. I assure you that I have twice changed my flat because of the intolerable persecution of neighbouring radios. Strange, is it not? There must be some psychological explanation.”

“Jonathan shares your dislike,” said Mandrake. “He has been persuaded to install a wireless next door in the smoking-room, but I don’t believe he ever listens to it.”

“My respect for my host grows with everything I hear of him,” said Dr. Hart. He became expansive, enlarged upon his love of nature and spoke of holidays in the Austrian Tyrol.

“When it was still Austria,” said Dr. Hart. “Have you ever visited Kaprun, Miss Wynne? How charming it was at Kaprun in those days! From there one could drive up the Gross-Glockner, one could climb into the mountains above that pleasant
Weinstube
in the ravine, and on Sunday mornings one went into Zell-amsee. Music in the central square. The cafés! And the shops where one might secure the best shoes in the world!”

“And the best cloaks,” said Chloris with a smile.

“
Hein
? Ah, you have seen the cloak I have presented to our host.”

“Nicholas,” said Chloris, “wore it when we went for a walk just now.”

Dr. Hart’s eyelids, which in their colour and texture a little resembled those of a lizard, half closed over his rather prominent eyes. “Indeed,” he said.

“I hope,” said Jonathan, “that you visited my swimming-pool on your walk.”

“Nicholas is going to bathe in it to-morrow,” said William, “or hand over ten pounds to me.”

“Nonsense, William,” said his mother. “I won’t have it. Jonathan, please forbid these stupid boys to go on with this nonsense.” Her voice, coming out of the dark corner where she sat, sounded unexpectedly loud. Dr. Hart turned his head and peered into the shadow. When Chloris said something to him it appeared for a moment that he had not heard her. If, however, he had been startled by Mrs. Compline’s voice he quickly recovered himself. Mandrake thought that he finished his cocktail rather rapidly and noticed that when he accepted another it was with an unsteady hand. “
That’s
odd,” thought Mandrake. “He’s the more upset of the two, it appears, and yet they’ve never met before. Unless — but no! that would be too much. I’m letting the possibilities of the situation run away with me.”

“Lady Hersey Amblington, sir,” said Caper in the doorway.