Watson's Choice (6 page)

‘I don’t know
what
to tell you. I can answer the various bits, but that’s not the same as answering the whole lot of bits when they’re put together. Two more rooms being put out of bounds probably means that people don’t want to be bothered with the competition but do want to get together (probably complete with eats and drinks) and be sociable. There are a tutor and a governess because the governess is Sir Bohun’s mistress and he has to give her some sort of standing in the house because of the guests and the servants. Manoel may hate him, but he may feel he has a duty to Manoel. Besides, a bull-fighter has to have rather more self-control than most people, I would say, and therefore is an unlikely person to be a murderer – meaning that I don’t think he’d do Sir Bohun any harm, no matter how much he hates him.’

‘Yes, I see. Sometimes you’re a comfortable person to talk to, Dog.’

‘As for the Dance couple,’ went on Laura, ‘I think you’ve hit the
nail
on the head there. I don’t think each knew the other had been asked here, and, personally, I think they’re both putting a pretty good face on it. But I do agree with you. One or two of these little points – yes. Explanation probable and doubtless correct. But there are too many little points. So where do we go from here?’

‘Personally,’ said Gavin, looking at his watch, ‘I’m going down, with my nine correct answers, to mix myself a drink. How about you?’

‘Something to do first. I
must
catch you up,’ replied Laura. ‘So far I’ve managed to get four answers, three of which came out of this room. Would you mind if I carried on for a bit?’

‘By no means. Good luck. Don’t forget to listen for the gong.’

They parted (definitely, this time), Gavin to go to the ground floor, Laura to carry out a plan she had formed directly she had heard what he had to say. But first she was determined to inspect the suitcase with which he had been engaged when she had returned to the lumber-room.

She was rewarded. Already handled by Gavin was a wooden box. That he had opened it she felt certain. That he had failed to appreciate its significance she was equally sure. The fact that the lid slid back instead of opening on hinges was the first indication that here was something which gave a clue to the probable contents.

‘
The Musgrave Ritual
,’ muttered Laura, and she quoted, under her breath, ‘a crumpled piece of paper, an old-fashioned brass key, a peg of wood with a ball of string attached to it, and three rusty old discs of metal.’

They were all there. Excitedly, this time, she wrote the tally on her list. Then she went down to the first floor of the house and opened the bottom drawer of the tall-boy. Within was another find. She wrote:

Alice Rucastle’s (or Violet Hunter’s) Hair. The Copper Beeches
.

Then, what that timid Macbeth Gavin had not dared to do, his lady was determined to accomplish. Laura had the kind of imagination which had been the terror of her pastors and masters when she was at school and college. It had been fired by her fiancé’s report of two rooms which, having been left in the game at the beginning, had been taken out of it during the course of the competition.

These rooms she was determined to reopen. Her plan was simple and bold. She was certain she knew which of the rooms had been placed out of bounds originally, and the other two she was prepared to march into and inspect, making neither apology nor excuse if they proved to be occupied. Of course there might have been a change of mind in the baronet himself, and over him Laura wrinkled her brow. She did not like Sir Bohun. He was an oddity, and Laura, although she did not know it, disliked and distrusted any deviation from the normal, at any rate so far as men were concerned.

Before she inspected the two extra out-of-bounds rooms, she decided to enter an open room which, so far, she had not searched. She collected, almost immediately, a prize. It was lying on a walnut table and a paperweight kept it in place. It was a bill. Laura inspected it and said aloud:

‘
Oct. 4th, rooms eight shillings, breakfast two and sixpence, cocktail one shilling
– (cocktail? Didn’t think they were invented before 1920) –
lunch two and sixpence, glass sherry eightpence
. Golly! Wonder whether I’ve got a scoop? This is Francis H. Moulton’s hotel bill.’

She wrote this down on her list, and added:
The Noble Bachelor
. Then she continued upon her rounds, and, finding nothing to arouse her suspicions, she mounted to the first floor again, cast a grateful eye upon the white goose with the barred tail, and then began to go from door to door.

She had not far to go before she found what she had been looking for. It was a bathroom – the one, in fact, which she herself had used that evening. She remembered quite well that when she had passed it on her way down to dinner it had borne no label. But now it bore a notice similar to those on the bedroom doors.

‘Now, why?’ muttered Laura. She tried the handle. ‘If anybody decided to take a bath he’d only to lock the door. Why the phoney notice?’ The handle turned and the door opened. There was nobody within. On the window-ledge stood a bottle of laudanum. ‘Well!’ thought Laura wrathfully. ‘What a dirty little trick! Somebody spotted the laudanum and put the label on so that nobody else should get it! Wonder which of them would do a thing like that!’

She wrote on her paper:

Isa Whitney’s Laudanum. The Man with the Twisted Lip
.

Then she took the notice off the door and left the door wide open so that the phial was in full view of anybody who cared to look in. As she was cramming the notice into the pocket of her suit there was a gasping sound, and she looked up to see the tutor Grimston, white-faced and horror-stricken.

‘Hullo,’ she said. ‘This door had one of the notices on it. It shouldn’t have, should it?’

‘I’ve – I’ve no idea,’ Grimston stammered. ‘I – I shouldn’t think so.’

‘Pretty feeble of somebody,’ said Laura, severely. She went off to find Gavin and to tell him, casually, that she had removed one of the new notices. She found him helping Ethel Mildren to get Mildren to his room, and waited while, between them, they dumped him on the bed and took off his boots, his collar, and his tie. When Gavin emerged she told him about the bathroom, but, keeping to the rules of the competition, she did not mention the laudanum.

‘Funny ideas some people have,’ said Gavin. ‘Have you identified the other room which was sealed off?’

‘Oh, yes, but I haven’t been into it yet. Well, I’ll be seeing you. I’ve still to find two or three more items.’

She found the first of these in the room which held the buffet supper. Poked in among a dish of oranges was an envelope.

‘Eureka!’ said Laura, extracting the five dried orange pips which it contained. She put them back again, replaced the envelope, and added the item to her list. ‘Only one more to find.’ She glanced round the rest of the room so that she did not miss anything, and was very glad she had lingered. Among a collection of cutlery – for the buffet supper was a substantial one – was a small knife which had never been intended for use at table. Laura picked it up, put it down hastily as someone else entered the room, and wrote:

John Straker’s surgical knife. Silver Blaze
.

‘Score – ten!’ she thought. Then an uneasy touch of suspicion crossed her mind, for among the food with which the table was so generously laden was a partly-consumed plate of curry. ‘Oh, Lord!’ she said aloud. ‘I was wrong! It isn’t the laudanum bottle. This is
the
thing.’ She crossed out the reference to the laudanum, and added at the bottom of her list:

Stable-lad Hunter’s opium-drugged curry. Silver Blaze
.

‘And yet, I don’t know,’ she thought. ‘It would be better not to have two items from the same story. And yet, again, isn’t it a rather subtle idea, in a way? People would be so bucked about identifying Straker’s scalpel that they wouldn’t think of another
Silver Blaze
clue.’

At this moment the room was filled with the sound of the gong which Sir Bohun himself was beating just outside the door. Laura went out immediately, and from various parts of the house came the guests and employees, Charles Mildren the only absentee. Sir Bohun took them all into the ballroom and collected their lists. These he handed over to Bell, who disappeared with them.

‘Gone to do his homework,’ said Toby Dance, who, although by no means as drunken as Mildren, appeared to have helped himself fairly freely to the whisky. ‘Let’s have a dance while he does it. Where’s the band? Thought there was going to be a band. What’s happened to it?’

‘Lost in the fog,’ replied Sir Bohun. He stared hard at his inebriated guest. ‘Sorry, Toby. The ladies don’t want any more dancing. Sit down, everybody. I’ve got a surprise for you all later on, but we’ll have it after the prizes have been awarded. While Bell checks the lists we’ll vote for the two most effective costumes – can be two men or two women, or one of each; doesn’t matter. I’ve got a bet on about this, but I shan’t hint. Now, then, people, what about paper to vote on, eh? Bell should have left some somewhere. And pencils? Everybody got a pencil?’

Brenda Dance went to a window-seat, picked up some slips of paper and began to distribute them. As she crossed the room she turned her head, and then she walked towards the wide door which opened on to the terrace.

‘What the deuce is Brenda up to?’ demanded Sir Bohun.

‘Please, sir,’ said Laura, in the classic schoolboy phrase, ‘she thought she heard a noise. And I did, too,’ she added,
sotto voce
.

‘Oh, that will be the orchestra, then,’ said Sir Bohun. ‘It seems a bit late, but I suppose we’d better have ’em in. Open the door, Grimston, and tell ’em to come straight in here. They’ll see you framed in the doorway against the light.’

But as Grimston joined Brenda and fumbled with the fastenings – for, during the absence of all the household from the ballroom, the servants had thought it wise to bolt the door top and bottom and put the chain on – the usual precautions at night – the electricity failed, and, except for such light as was given by a large and blazing fire, the ballroom was in darkness.

The door to the terrace swung open. Grimston gave a shout of surprise and stumbled backwards. Framed in the phosphorescent light which gilded its enormous body was a creature neither human nor nameless.

‘Good lord!
The Hound of the Baskervilles!
’ shouted a voice. There was a general stampede, and the sounds of the slamming of doors gave evidence of the reaction of those present to the phenomenon. Alone of all the invited guests, Mrs Bradley and Laura were left together in the ballroom, and at that moment the lights came on again.

‘Come, boy,’ said Mrs Bradley, holding out her hand to the dog.

‘Poor old chap! He’s hungry. Wonder what’s left of the buffet supper?’ said Laura. The great hound wandered in. His friendly, unintelligent, square head was lifted to Mrs Bradley’s caress. The luminous spottings on his coat were rendered invisible under the strong electric light of the ballroom. Mrs Bradley talked to him quietly and confidentially while Laura foraged. He was fed.

‘And now, friend,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘outside for you.’ The dog sighed and did her bidding. Laura closed the heavy door and looked enquiringly at her employer. Mrs Bradley laughed, and then looked thoughtful.

‘I wonder why?’ she said. ‘We had better let the others know that the dog did not tear us in pieces.’

‘They don’t deserve to know it, the silly haddocks,’ said Laura. ‘Let them trickle back when they think the coast might be clear. Talk about Bottom with the ass’s head on him! They ought to be impersonating Quince and Co. But isn’t it just a bit odd?’

‘What is?’ Mrs Bradley enquired.

‘Why, that Sir Bohun ran away, too. After all, I suppose he was responsible.’

‘For what, child?’

‘Beth-Gelert, or whatever the hound is called.’

Mrs Bradley shook her head.

‘I don’t think Sir Bohun knew anything about the dog,’ she said,
‘for
if he had known about it he would not have run away with the rest of the party, but would have remained here with us to enjoy the success of his surprise item.’

She went to the door which opened into the hall and pushed at it. A sheepish collection of individuals followed their host into the room.

‘Well, well! Well, well, well!’ said Sir Bohun, rubbing his hands together. ‘Where has that fine fellow gone? Your idea, Beatrice, I take it? Vastly entertaining, I
must
say. Wish I’d thought of it myself! Oh, very good! But how did you get him here? You didn’t bring him from Kensington?’

‘I didn’t bring him at all,’ Mrs Bradley composedly replied. ‘I know no more about him than you do.’

‘I shouldn’t be surprised,’ interposed Brenda Dance, ‘if it means the band has turned up, Boo, darling. I expect the dog is their mascot, and they painted him up to help out the Sherlock Holmes party. They’ll probably expect a thumping tip.’

‘Might have frightened some of you ladies into a fit,’ remarked Sir Bohun, ignoring his own ignominious flight from the
Hound of the Baskervilles
, ‘and that’s what I shall say to them. Go out, Bell, and tell Cummins to send them in. They’ve delayed us long enough already. We’ll just give them time to warm up, and, meanwhile, we’d better cast our votes.’

Bell went out, but returned shortly to inform his employer that there was still no sign of the orchestra.

‘So the dog wasn’t theirs,’ remarked Laura. ‘We turned him out again on to the terrace. I’d better go out and make certain he doesn’t eat the band if they
do
turn out.’

‘No, no, Miss Laura. I’ll go,’ said Toby Dance chivalrously. ‘It’s damned foggy and cold out there.’ He did not wait for Laura to answer, but went out of the room, flinging back the end of the sentence as he shut the door behind him.

‘I hope he’s got a torch,’ said Bell. ‘Hullo! What’s happened to Miss Campbell? She hasn’t come back into the room.’

Linda came in at that moment, escorted by Dance.

‘There you are, you see. It’s quite all right,’ he was saying as he led her up to the fire and put her into a chair.