A Man Lay Dead (3 page)

“Hullo, here he is!” exclaimed Sir Hubert. “Everybody down? Then let’s go in.”

Nobody got up very early at Frantock on Sunday mornings. Nigel, wandering down to breakfast at half-past nine, found himself alone with the sausages.

He had scarcely turned his attention to the
Sunday Times
when he was told that a long-distance call had come through for him from London. He found Jamison, his taciturn chief, at the other end of the wire. “Hullo, Bathgate. Sorry to tear you away from your champagne. How are the seats of the mighty?”

“Very much like other people’s seats, only not so kickworthy,” said Nigel.

“Coarse is never comic, my boy. Look here, isn’t your host a bit of an authority on Russia? Well, an unknown Pole has been stuck in the gizzard in Soho, and there’s some hare been started about a secret society in the West-End. Sounds bogus to me, but see if you can get a story out of him. ‘Are Poles Russians, or are they Poles apart?’ Something of that sort. Remember me to the third footman. Good morning.”

Nigel grinned and hung up the receiver. Then he paused meditatively.

“What with daggers, deaths, and eavesdroppings,” he pondered, “there’s an undercurrent of sensation in this house-party. All rather fun, but I wish old Charles wasn’t cast for the first philanderer’s part.”

He walked back to the dining-room. Ten minutes later he was joined by his host, who suggested a leisurely excursion through the fields.

“Arthur has a paper to write for the British Ethnological Conference, Doctor Tokareff spends his mornings in improving his vocabulary and performing other mysterious intellectual rites, Angela housekeeps, and the others are so late always that I have given up making plans for them. So if it wouldn’t bore you…”

Nigel said eagerly that he would be anything but bored. They set out together. A thin clear flood of wintry sunshine warmed the stark trees and rimy turf of Farntock. A sudden wave of goodwill towards anybody and everybody exhilarated Nigel. The covert ugliness of Rankin’s relationship to Mrs. Wilde and perhaps to Rosamund Grant was forgotten. He had been an unwilling eavesdropper — well, what of it? It could be forgotten. On an impulse he turned to his host and told him how much he was enjoying himself.

“But that is really charming of you,” said Handesley. “I’m as susceptible as a woman to compliments about my parties. You must come again if journalism, a tiresomely exacting job, I know, will allow you the time.”

This seemed a very excellent opportunity for Nigel to get his story. He plucked up his courage and told Sir Hubert of the telephone call from his office.

“Jamison suggested that perhaps you could give me some personal experiences of these societies — please don’t if it’s a nuisance — but apparently the murder of this Pole is attributed to some sort of feud in a similar organization in London.”

“I suppose it is a possibility,” said Handesley cautiously. “But I should like to know a great deal more about the circumstances. I have written a short monograph on the Russian ‘brotherhoods,’ or rather on certain aspects of them. I’ll let you have it when we go in.”

Nigel thanked him, but tentatively made the journalist’s monotonous appeal for “something a little more personal.”

“Well,” said Handesley, “give me time, and I’ll try. Why not attack Doctor Tokareff? He seems to be full of information on the subject.”

“Wouldn’t he be furious? He is so very… is it remote?”

“And therefore beyond annoyance. He will either oblige with a sententious dissertation or refuse with a wealth of symbolism. You never know with the Russian whether he is really talking about the things he seems to be talking about, or whether they merely represent an abstract procession of ideas. Try him.”

“I will,” said Nigel, and they finished their walk in companionable silence.

Looking back on the Frantock affair after it was all over, Nigel always thought of that walk as the one perfect and peaceful episode during his visit. At luncheon he was aware once more of the secondary theme of dissonance between Rankin, Rosamund, and Mrs. Wilde. He suspected, too, an antagonism between Tokareff and Rankin and, being particularly sensitive to the timbre of emotional relationships, was mentally on tenterhooks.

After luncheon they all went their ways — Handesley and Tokareff to the library, Mrs. Wilde and Rankin for a stroll, Nigel and Angela to explore the house (with a view to the former learning his way about it for the Murder Game), and then to play badminton in the barn. Rosamund Grant and Wilde had disappeared, whether severally or together Nigel had no idea. He and Angela got extremely hot, laughed a great deal and, each delighted with the other’s company, arrived back in the hall in time for tea.

“Now,” said Handesley, when Angela had poured out the last cup, “it’s twenty-five minutes past five. At half-past the Murder Game is on. By eleven it must be an accomplished fact. You all know the rules. Last night Vassily gave the scarlet plaque to whichever one of us he selected as murderer. I remind you that the ‘murderer’ is to turn out the lights and sound the gong, that you are not by word or look to suggest that you have been discarded or selected by Vassily as actor for the part of assassin. The ‘murderer’ has had a day in which to formulate his plans. There — that’s all.”

“Okay, chief,” drawled Rankin.

“Meet me behind the arras, be your purpose bloody,” said Wilde sweetly.

“Any questions?” asked Handesley.

“Sush admirable terse discourse makes no jot of confusion. Already I am, as you say, on tendercooks,” murmured Doctor Tokareff.

“Well,” concluded Handesley cheerfully, “let us wish the murdered at any rate an interesting amount of success.”

“I’m not sure,” said Mrs. Wilde, “that this game isnt going to be rather terrifying.”

“I call it a definite thrill,” remarked Angela.

Sir Hubert walked over to the gong and took the leather-padded hammer in his hand. They all watched the grandfather clock that stood in the farthest corner of the hall. The long hand jerked across the last division, and the clock, deep voiced, told the half hour. At the same moment Hendesley struck the gong.

“Murder is afoot,” he said theatrically; “the gong shall not sound again until it is accomplished… Shall we move into the drawing-room?”

Nigel, thankful that Vassily’s choice had not fallen upon himself, speculated on the possible identity of the “murderer,” determined to make a mental note of everybody’s movements, and equally to be left alone with no single member of the house-party, since he felt that the role of “corpse” would be less amusing than that of witness or Prosecuting Attorney.

In the drawing-room Mrs. Wilde started a rag by suddenly hurling a cushion at — of all people — Doctor Tokareff. To the astonishment and discomfiture of every body the Russian, after a brief moment of blank bewilderment, suddenly developed a species of mad playfulness. Always, to English people, there is something rather embarrassing about a foreigner playing the fool. Doctor Tokareff, however, was quite unaware of this racial self-consciousness.

“Is not this,” he exclaimed joyously, “indication of British tatter or scrap? I am reading that when English lady propels cush at head of gentleman, she connotes sporting desire.” And with that he hurled the cushion at Mrs. Wilde with such accuracy and force that she completely lost her balance and fell into Rankin’s arms. With one hand he held her closely against him and with the other whirled the cushion about his head, striking the Russian full in the face.

For a second Nigel saw that Doctor Tokareff’s face was capable of expressing something divorced from tranquil amiability.

“Look out!” he shouted involuntarily.

But the doctor had stepped back with a little bow and was smilingly holding up his hands. There was an uncomfortable silence.

“I’m on Doctor Tokareff’s side,” said Angela suddenly, and collared Rankin about the knees.

“So am I,” said Rosamund. “Charles, do you like your face rubbed up or down?”

“Let’s de-bag old Arthur,” suggested Rankin, emerging breathless from the hurly-burly. “Come on, Nigel… come on, Hubert.”

“There’s always something wrong with old Charles when he rags,” thought Nigel. But he held the protesting Wilde while his trousers were dragged off, and joined in the laugh when he stood pale and uncomfortable, clutching a hearthrug to his recreant limbs and blinking short-sightedly.

“You’ve smashed my spectacles,” he said.

“Darling!” screamed Mrs. Wilde, “you look too stupid to be believed. Charles, what a horror you are to make such nonsense of my husband!”

“I feel I look rather magnificent,” declared Wilde. “Who’s got my trousers? You, Angela! My Edwardian blood congeals at the sight. Give them up, child, or I grow churlish.”

“Here you are, Adonis,” said Rankin, snatching the trousers from Angela and tying them round Wilde’s neck. “Gosh, what a lovely sight! Perfect picture of a gentleman who has stroked his eight to victory.”

“Run and put them on, my pet,” said Mrs. Wilde, “or you’ll get growing pains.”

Wilde obediently disappeared.

“Last time I de-bagged Arthur was at Eton,” said Rankin. “God, what ages ago it seems!”

He turned to the wireless and began tuning in to a concert of dance music.

“Come on, Rosamund,” he said, “let’s dance.”

“I’m too hot,” said Rosamund, who had been talking to Tokareff.

“Marjorie!” shouted Rankin, “can you bear to trip a measure?”

“Has Rosamund turned you down? Too dreary for you, Charles.”

“I’ve let him off his duty dance,” said Rosamund. “Doctor Tokareff is telling a story a thousand years old, and I must hear the end.”

“This is a history,” began Tokareff, “of a hospodin… a noble… and two ladies. It is what you call eternal triangle… very old motif in human history.”

“So old that it is, don’t you think, rather boring?” asked Rankin.

“Do dance, Marjorie,” said Angela.

Without waiting for her consent, Rankin put his arm round Mrs. Wilde, and at once Nigel saw that she was translated.

There are some women who, when they dance, express a depth of feeling and of temperament that actually they do not possess. He saw that Mrs. Wilde was one of these women. Under the spell of that blatantly exotic measure she seemed to flower, to become significant and dangerous. Rankin, rapt and serious, was at once her foil and her master. He never took his eyes off hers, and she, unfriendly, provocative, stared back at him as though she were insulting him. Nigel, Angela, and Handesley stopped talking to watch these two, and Wilde, returning, stood stock still in the doorway. Only the Russian seemed disinterested. He had bent over the wireless set and was examining it intently.

The quicker second movement slid back into the original theme of the tango. The dancers had come together in the first steps of their final embrace, when an ear-splitting shriek from the wireless shattered the spell.

“What the devil!” exclaimed Rankin angrily.

“Please forgive,” said Tokareff calmly. “Evidently I have blundered. Sush a funny muck-up and screechiness I never before have heard…”

“Wait a moment… I’ll get it back,” suggested Handesley.

“No, no, don’t bother — it would be too stupid to go on,” answered Rankin ungraciously. He lit a cigarette and walked away from his partner.

“Charles,” said Handesley quickly, “Arthur and I have been discussing your dagger. It really is enormously interesting. Do be a little more forthcoming about its history.”

“All I can tell you,” said Rankin, “is this. I pulled a wild-looking gentleman out of a crevasse in Switzerland last year. I don’t speak Russian, and he didn’t speak English. I never saw him again, but apparently he traced me — through my guide, I suppose — to my hotel, and thence, presumably, to England. The knife with the two words ‘Switzerland’ (so lavish) and ‘thanks’ only reached me yesterday. I conclude it was from him.”

“Will you sell it to me, Charles?” asked Sir Hubert. “I’ll give you much more than you deserve for it.”

“No, Hubert, I won’t. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll leave it to you. Nigel here gets all my possessions. Nigel! If I kick the bucket, my lad, Hubert is to have the dagger. Bear witness, all of you.”

“It shall be done,” said Nigel.

“Considering I’m ten years your senior, it’s not what I should call a handsome offer,” complained Handesley. “Still, let’s have it in writing.”

“You old ghoul, Hubert!” laughed Rankin.

“Hubert!” shrieked Marjorie Wilde, “how can you be so utterly bloodsucking!”

Rankin had walked to the writing-desk.

“Here you are, you maniac,” he said. “Nigel and Arthur can witness.”

He wrote the necessary phrase and signed it. Nigel and Wilde witnessed, and Rankin handed it to Handesley.

“You’d much better sell it to me,” said Handesley coolly.

“Excuse me, please,” boomed Doctor Tokareff. “I do not entirely understand.”

“No?” The note of antagonism had crept into Rankin’s voice. “I merely leave instructions that if a sticky end should overtake me—”

“Excuse me, please… a sticky end?”

“Oh, damn! If I should die, or be murdered, or disappear from view, this knife which you, Doctor Tokareff, consider has no business to be in my possession, shall become the property of our host.”

“Thank you,” said Doctor Tokareff composedly.

“You do not approve?”

“
Niet
. No. By my standpoint of view, zis knoife does not belong by you.”

“The knife was given to me.”

“Such indiscretion has doubtless been suitably chastised,” remarked the Russian peacefully.

“Well,” broke in Handesley, noting perhaps the two little scarlet danger signals in Rankin’s cheeks, “let us hope it will give no offence by hanging for to-night at the foot of my stairs. Come and have a cocktail.”

Charles Rankin lingered in the drawing-room with his cousin. He slipped his arm through Nigel’s.

“Not a very delicious gentleman, that dago,” he said loudly.

“Look out, he’ll hear you!”

“I don’t give a damn.”

Wilde paused in the doorway and detained them.

“I shouldn’t let it worry you, Charles,” he said in his diffident voice. “His point of view is not unreasonable. I know something of these societies.”