Wicked Uncle (10 page)

Gregory shepherded them.

“Mrs. Tote, shall we lead the way? No formality, I think. I am afraid our numbers don’t balance, but at an oval table that doesn’t matter so much, does it?”

As they crossed the hall, Justin felt a sharp pinch on the arm. Looking down, he saw Dorinda’s hand withdrawn, her eyes imploring. He fell back a pace and let the rest go by.

“What is it?”

Almost without moving her lips she said,

“He’s the Wicked Uncle.”

“Who is?”

“Mr. Porlock.”

“Nonsense!”

She gave an emphatic nod.

“He is.”

And with that they were at the dining-room door.

When they were in their places Dorinda found herself looking across the length of the table at Gregory and Mrs. Tote. Between her and them on her right were Mr. Masterman, Mrs. Oakley, Mr. Tote, Miss Masterman, Gregory; and on her left Justin, that odd-looking Leonard Carroll, Moira Lane, Martin Oakley, and Mrs. Tote.

Her eyes came back to Moira, laughing with Leonard Carroll. Quite honestly and doggedly she accepted her as something quite out of her own class—a beautiful magical creature dispensing smiles and wit with easy charm and perfect poise. She took her soup soberly, and had so far forgotten Gregory that when Justin said, “Did you mean that?” she had lost the thread and could only give him a blank look.

“What you said just now,” he prompted. “It seems incredible.”

“Sorry—I was thinking of something else. Of course I did.”

“You can’t be sure.”

“Oh, but I am. Quite—quite—quite sure.”

“Then we’d better talk about something else.”

Dorinda looked again at Moira Lane. Leonard Carroll was leaning towards her with his crooked smile. A rapid cut and thrust flashed back and forth between them. She said quite low to Justin,

“How beautiful she is.”

She wondered why he should be amused.

“Decorative creature,” he said. “All the lights on tonight. I wonder why.”

Something in Dorinda’s mind said, “Oh, Justin, they’re for you.” Didn’t he know? She thought he must. But perhaps you didn’t when it was for you… She wondered about that. When you were very, very fond of anyone, did it make you see clearly, or did it make a kind of mist in which you had to grope your way? She thought it might do both these things—not at the same time of course, but first one and then the other. Like with her and Justin—because sometimes she felt that she could see right into his mind and know just what he was thinking, like when he hated her blue dress, but other times she didn’t know at all, like just now about Moira Lane.

She emerged from this train of thought to help herself to an entrée. Justin and Moira were talking across Leonard Carroll. No, he was talking too. They were laughing together. On her right Mr. Masterman was staring at his plate. Mrs. Oakley beyond him had turned to Mr. Tote, to whom she could be heard recounting some instance of Marty’s unusual precocity and intelligence. The words, “And he was only three at the time,” impinged upon Dorinda’s ear. They must have impinged upon Mr. Tote’s ear too, but he gave no sign that they had done so. He had taken a very large helping and was eating his way through it in an impervious manner.

Urged by social duty, Dorinda addressed Mr. Masterman’s profile.

“I do hope it isn’t going to snow—don’t you?”

His full face was even less reassuring than his profile. He looked at Dorinda as if she wasn’t there and said,

“Why?”

“Messy—so perfectly horrid when it thaws. And never enough of it to do anything with.”

She got the profile again. He had taken up a fork and begun upon the entrée, but with the same air of not noticing what it was. Which seemed a terrible waste, because it was frightfully good and very intriguing. Even in the middle of feeling how beautiful Moira was, and what a marvellous wife she would make for Justin, Dorinda couldn’t help wondering what it was made of. The three on her left all laughed again. Justin sat turned away, making no attempt to include her. She couldn’t guess how devoutly he was hoping that she had not heard the joke.

It was at this moment that Linnet Oakley, having finished her anecdote, found herself addressed by Gregory Porlock across Miss Masterman and Mr. Tote. Just what prompted him remains a matter for conjecture. On his right Mrs. Tote was engaged with her other neighbour, Martin Oakley. They appeared to be comparing notes upon the intelligence of infants as exemplified by Marty and her daughter Allie’s child. Gregory had, perhaps, exhausted the flow of conversation which he had been perseveringly directing towards Miss Masterman, and to which she had remained completely unresponsive. He may have been provoked to malice, he may merely have felt that a diversion of some kind was a necessity. Be that as it may, he addressed Linnet by name.

“Mrs. Oakley, I hope you were successful in getting the luminous paint you wanted.”

Her helpless, startled air was noticed then, and remembered later. Mr. Tote noticed it. Woman looked like a frightened rabbit—just about that much brain. Mr. Masterman on her other side would not, perhaps, have been roused to notice anything if it had not been for the fact that her left hand was on the table between them, and that when she started in that senseless way she very nearly had his champagne-glass over. On the other side of the table Mrs. Tote thought Mrs. Oakley very nervous, and Martin Oakley, watching her change colour, wondered whether she wasn’t feeling well.

Linnet drew a fluttering breath and said, “Oh, yes,” took another, and said,

“It was Miss Brown who got it.”

“Without any trouble, I hope,” said Gregory Porlock, to Dorinda this time. And the moment he said it Dorinda was perfectly sure that he knew just what had happened at the De Luxe Stores. Their eyes met. Each said something to the other. Gregory’s said, “You see—take care.” Dorinda’s said, “I know.”

And she did. She would never be able to prove it, but she was quite, quite sure that he had pulled the strings which took her to the De Luxe Stores and took someone else there to put stolen goods in her pocket. Why? To get her away from the Oakleys, where she couldn’t help meeting him and might be inconvenient enough to recognize a Wicked Uncle.

She came back to the conversation, to find that practically everyone round the table had entered it. Martin Oakley was saying,

“The stuff has been extraordinarily difficult to get, and we wanted it for Marty’s clock. I was really grateful to you for the tip, Greg. I told my wife to get on with it, as Miss Brown was going up to town.”

Dorinda sorted that out. Gregory Porlock had told Martin Oakley that the De Luxe had luminous paint, and Martin had told his wife. It all fitted in. As she got there, Mrs. Tote said,

“But, Mr. Porlock, whatever did you want with luminous paint?”

Leonard Carroll broke in with a laugh.

“Don’t you know? I guessed at once. He goes creeping round with it in the dead of night looking for kind deeds to do by stealth. The perfect host—nothing escapes him. Comfort for the guest, and a twenty-four hour service—that’s the way it goes.”

Gregory laughed too. Mrs. Tote considered that “that Mr. Carroll” had had quite enough champagne. Something in the acting line, and a bit too free with his tongue. Some of the things he’d been saying to Miss Lane—well, really! And all she did was laugh, when what he wanted was a good setting-down. Give that sort an inch, and they’ll have the whole bolt of cloth before you can turn your head.

Gregory was laughing too.

“I’m afraid I’m not quite as attentive as that. I wanted the paint for that beam which runs across as you go down a step into the cloakroom. I don’t know why they built these old houses up and down like that—I suppose they didn’t bother to get their levels. Anyhow it’s a bit awkward for anyone who doesn’t know his way. You can reach the switch without going down the step, but only just, and you clear the beam if you’re not over six foot, but an extra tall guest is liable to brain himself, and anyone might come a cropper over the step. So I had the bright idea of painting the beam and the switch with luminous paint. By the way, I must apologize for the smell. It’s had one coat, which I hope is dry, but it’s got to have another, so we left the paint in the cupboard.”

Mrs. Oakley said in rather a high voice,

“Marty loves his clock. Martin gave it another coat just before we came out. Marty says he loves to wake up in the night and see it looking at him. He says it’s like a big eye. He has so much imagination.”

Mr. Tote turned a cross red face.

“How can it look like an eye? It’s only the hands that’s painted! Funny sort of an eye!”

Linnet gave a flustered laugh.

“Oh, well—you see—Marty painted the whole face. He didn’t know. And Nurse says it doesn’t matter, because the hands can be painted black, and then she’ll get quite near enough to the time by the position they’re in without bothering about the numbers. And of course Marty doesn’t care so long as it shines in the dark.”

“So shines,” proclaimed Mr, Carroll, “a good deed in this naughty world. Much ado about nothing. Night’s candles are burnt out. Let us eat, drink, and be merry. I could go on for hours like this if anyone would like me to.”

“They wouldn’t,” said Moira.

“Then I’ll tell you the latest, the very latest scandal—night’s scandals being by no means all burnt out.” He dropped his voice, and Justin turned back to Dorinda with the feeling that this was the most ill-assorted company he had ever been in, and that he wouldn’t be sorry when the evening was over.

It was at this moment that it occurred to him to wonder why a man of Gregory Porlock’s unquestionable social gifts should have assembled at his table people so incompatible as the Totes and Leonard Carroll, the Mastermans and Moira Lane, to mention only the extremer instances. To this “Why?” he had no reply, but it was to return and clamour for an answer before the night was out. For the moment he dismissed it and fell into easy, natural talk with Dorinda.

You can bring a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. Assembled in the drawing-room after dinner, Gregory Porlock’s guests exemplified this proverb. As far as the Totes and the Mastermans were concerned, they might have been compared to a string of mules gazing blankly at a stream at which they had no intention of quenching their thirst.

Neither Mrs. Tote nor Miss Masterman played cards, but Gregory drove them with determination into other games. It is, of course, one way of breaking the ice, but it is not always a very successful way. Required to write down a list of things all beginning with the letter M which she would take to a desert island, under such headings as Food, Drink, Clothes, Livestock, and Miscellaneous, Miss Masterman gave up a perfectly blank sheet, while Mrs. Tote contributed Mice and Mustard. Mr. Carroll’s list was witty, vulgar, and brief; Dorinda’s rather pains-taking; and Gregory’s easily the longest. Mr. Tote declined to participate, and Mr. Masterman was found to be absent. Returning presently, he participated in the second round with a kind of gloomy efficiency, and came in second.

Uphill work as it had been, there was some slight thawing of the frost. When Moira suggested charades, no one except Mr. Tote absolutely refused to play. There was no doubt that the suggestion came from Moira. Everyone was to be clear about that, and that it was Leonard Carroll who violently objected to a charade, as he said that to drive totally incompetent amateurs through one scene would endanger his sanity, but that to attempt three would certainly wreck it, so he wasn’t prepared to go beyond doing a proverb. Whereupon Moira cut in with an “All right, you pick up for one side, and Greg for the other.” And Leonard Carroll put an arm round her shoulders and sang in his high, dry tenor, “You are my first, my only choice!” To which she replied with a short laugh, “You’ll have to take your share, darling. You can’t land Greg with all the rest.”

Gregory at once picked Martin Oakley, thus making it practically certain that Linnet would fall into the other camp.

In the end the party to go out under Leonard Carroll consisted of Mrs. Oakley, Moira, Mr. Masterman, and Mrs. Tote, while Gregory remained in the drawing-room with Miss Masterman, Dorinda, Martin Oakley, and Justin Leigh, Mr. Tote continuing to sit in a large armchair and smoke with an air of having nothing to do with the proceedings. His wife threw him rather an odd look as she left the room. There was apprehension in it, and something like reproof. It is all very well to be angry, but you needn’t forget your manners, and Albert was old enough to know when he’d had as much drink as he could carry. A couple of cocktails, and all that champagne, and goodness knew how much port wine—no wonder he didn’t feel like playing games. Well, no more did she, if it came to that. Games were for young people, and a pretty sight to see them enjoying themselves. They’d always had a Christmas party for Allie. Pretty as a picture she’d look with her fair hair floating.

It was just as the party reached the hall that the butler crossed it on his way to fetch the coffee-tray. He came back with it in a moment, a thin, narrow-shouldered man with a face which reminded Mrs. Tote of a monkey. Something about the way the eyes were set and the way his cheeks fell in. It was the first time she had noticed him. She did so now with pleasurable recollections of taking Allie to the Zoo and seeing the chimpanzees have their tea.

One of the drawbacks to games of the charade type is that half the company is consigned to a long, dull wait, whilst the other half has all the amusement of dressing up and quarrelling over what they are going to act. Leonard Carroll made it perfectly clear that he was going to have the star part, and that the others were only there to do what they were told. He was going to be the devil. Moira was to be a nun— “Go and get a sheet and two towels.” Mr. Masterman was to wear a long black cloak— “There’s one hanging up in the lobby.” Mrs. Tote a mackintosh and the largest man’s hat she could lay hands on. Mrs. Oakley could stay as she was. If she liked to take some of the flowers off the dinner-table and make herself a wreath she could. “And remember, everything’s going to depend on the timing, so if anyone doesn’t do what he’s told, off to hell he goes in my burning claws! Oh, and we’ll have to do it out here.”

He opened the drawing-room door abruptly and addressed the group inside.

“We’re doing it out here. Auditorium round the fire, nice and warm. Masterman will let you know when we’re ready.”

Inside the drawing-room Miss Masterman and Mr. Tote sat silent and the others talked. Dorinda found herself admiring the Uncle’s flow of bonhomie. It really was quite easy to be amused and to join in. Perhaps the fact that Justin had come over to sit on the arm of her chair made it easier than it would have been if he had been out in the hall with Moira Lane. But of course Mr. Carroll wouldn’t want him there. He admired Moira himself.

Mr. Carroll was a fast worker. It was certainly not more than ten minutes before the door opened and Mr. Masterman beckoned to them with an arm shrouded in black drapery.

Coming out of the brightly lighted room, the hall seemed dark. The glow had gone from the fire. All the lights had been extinguished except a small reading-lamp. It stood on the stone mantelpiece, its tilted shade covered and prolonged by thick brown paper in such a manner as to throw one bright beam across the hall. It fell slantingly and made a pool of light between the foot of the stair and a massive oak table placed against its panelled side. All beyond this was shadowy, the stair itself, the space around it, the back of the hall—degrees of darkness receding into total gloom.

Masterman piloted them to the hearth, around which chairs had been assembled, placed on a slant to face the stairway and the back of the hall. A point on which everyone afterwards, seemed uncertain was whether Mr. Tote had taken his place among the rest. No one could declare that he had, and no one was prepared to say that he had not.

From somewhere above their heads a high, floating voice said, “The curtain rises,” and down the length of the stair came a movement of shadowy forms, becoming more distinct as they came nearer to the pool of light, entering it and passing out of it again into the deeper shade beyond. Masterman first, really an effective figure in his black cloak, always the most macabre of garments, and a bandage, white and ghastly, blinding one eye and blotting out half his face. After him Mrs. Tote, bent double over a crotched stick, her grey satin and diamonds hidden by an old stained waterproof, her head lost in a battered wide-brimmed hat. She passed out of the light, and Linnet Oakley took her place—a dazzle of rose and silver, flowers in her hair, flowers in her hands. She had been told to smile, but as she stepped into the lighted space she was suddenly afraid. Her lips parted, her eyes stared. She stood for a moment as if she was waiting for something to happen, and then with a visible shudder went on into the dark. The tall white nun who followed her was Moira Lane. She walked with eyes cast down and a string of beads between her hands. Then full in the beam of light, the eyelids lifted, the head turned, the eyes looked back over her shoulder.

She passed on. At the moment she came level with the oak table something moved on the stair above her and the single light went out, leaving the hall quite black. Upon this blackness there appeared the luminous shape of a face, two jutting horns, two luminous thrusting hands. They were high up—they were lower—they came swooping down. Moira’s scream rang in the rafters, and was followed by a horrid chuckling laugh.

She did not scream again when Len Carroll caught her about the shoulders and brought his crooked mouth down hard upon her own, but she very nearly made her thumb and forefinger meet in the flesh of his under arm.

When Mr. Masterman switched on all the lights the devil was back on the table from which he had swooped, a dark pullover hiding his shirt, and a daubed paper mask dangling from his hand. The horns were paper too. They stuck out jauntily above a face which for the moment really did look devilish. The audience clapped, and Gregory called out, “Bravo, my dear fellow! First-class! But we’ve guessed your proverb—‘The devil takes the hindmost.’ ”

Leonard Carroll waved a hand whitened with paint and came down from the table in an agile leap.

“Your turn now,” he said. “I must go and get this stuff off, or it will be all over the place.” He came forward as he spoke.

Everyone was to be asked about how near he was to Gregory Porlock. The evidence on this point presents a good deal of confusion. There is general agreement that he joined the group by the fire, spoke to one or two people, was congratulated on the success of the charade, and then turned away and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Where the evidence fails is on the point of any direct contact with Gregory. When he was asked why he didn’t wash in the downstair cloakroom he had his answer ready—he had to get rid of the pullover and resume the dinner-jacket which he had left in his room.

Conversation broke out below. Dorinda looked across at Moira and saw her stand just where she had been when the lights went on, between the table and the hearth. She was taking off the two white face-towels which had bound brow and chin for the nun’s head-dress. Her eyes were angry, her fingers moved with energy. She threw the towels down upon the table, stepped clear of the sheet which had formed her robe, and flung it after the towels in a bundle, hit or miss. It slid on the polished surface and fell in a heap to the floor, taking one of the towels with it. Moira’s hands went to her hair. There was no mirror in the hall. She shook out her full crimson skirt and came over to Justin.

“How is my hair? I can’t be bothered to go upstairs. Will it do?”

He nodded.

“Not a wave out of place.”

“Oh, well, I was pretty careful. How did it go?”

“As Porlock said—a first-class show. We shan’t do half so well. You have a magnificent scream. A pity we can’t borrow you.”

She laughed.

“Would you like to?” Then with a jerk in her voice, “Oh, Len was the star turn.”

Gregory had gone over towards the stair. He stood a little clear of the group about the fire and raised his voice.

“Well, it’s our turn now. I’m afraid we shan’t be a patch on you. You were really all most awfully good. Will you go back into the drawing-room now and leave us to do the best we can— Mrs. Tote, Mrs. Oakley, Moira, Masterman. Carroll won’t get that stuff off in a hurry—he’ll have to join you later. I don’t think we want to wait for him. The rest stay here.”

He began to walk towards them, but before he had taken a couple of steps the lights went out again. Linnet Oakley gave a little startled scream. Mr. Masterman called out, “Who did that?” There was a general stir of movement. Someone knocked over a chair. And right on that there was something between a cough and a groan, and the sound of a heavy fall.

Justin Leigh reached for Dorinda and pushed her back against the wall. If he groped his way along it he would come to the front door. He had no idea where the other light switches were, but in every civilized house there is at least one which you can turn on as you come in from outside. Disregarding the confusion of voices behind him, he made his way past a door whicn he didn’t yet know to be that of the study, and arrived. Reckoning from the groan, it might have been three quarters of a minute before he found a switch and the light came on in the candles all round the hall.

The scene rushed into view—everyone fixed in the sudden, startling light—everyone fixed finally and distinctly in Justin’s thought. The sketch he was to make an hour or two later shows everyone’s position. In the open drawing-room door on the left, Mr. Tote staring in on what had been darkness but had suddenly changed to most revealing light. Coming down the stairs, but only three steps from the top, Leonard Carroll, one hand on the baluster, one foot poised for the next descent. Round the hearth, Dorinda where he had pushed her against the wall, Masterman, Mrs. Tote, Miss Masterman, and on the far side Martin Oakley. Between these people and the foot of the stair, two women and a man—Moira Lane, Gregory Porlock, and Linnet Oakley.

He lay face downwards on the floor between them, one arm flung out, the other doubled beneath him. Between his shoulder blades something caught the light—a burnished handle like a hilt, the handle of a dagger.

Everyone in the hall was looking at it. Having looked, Justin’s eyes went to the panelling above the hearth. Between the sconces hung a trophy of arms—crossed flintlocks; a sword with an ivory handle; a sword in a tarnished velvet scabbard; a couple of long, fine rapiers; half a dozen daggers. He looked for a break in the pattern and found it. There was a gap in the inner ring—there was a dagger short. After the briefest glance his eyes went back to that burnished hilt between Gregory Por-lock’s shoulders.

No one had spoken. No one moved. No one seemed to breathe, until Linnet Oakley screamed. She screamed, took two steps forward, and went down on her knees, calling out, “Oh, Glen! He’s dead! Glen’s dead—he’s dead! Oh, Glen—Glen— Glen!”

It was like a stone dashed into a reflection. The picture broke. Everyone moved, drew breath, exclaimed. Mr. Tote came out of the drawing-room. Mr. Carroll came down the stairs. Moira took a backward step, and then another, and another, all very slowly and stiffly, as if the body inside her damask dress had been changed from flesh and blood to something heavy, hard, and cold. She went on going back until she struck against a chair and stood in front of it, quite still, quite motionless, her face one even pallor, her eyes still fixed upon the spot where Gregory Porlock lay.

Martin Oakley went to his wife. She wept hysterically and cast herself into his arms, sobbing. “It’s Glen—and somebody’s killed him! He’s dead—he’s dead—he’s dead!”