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Vassily surprisingly uttered a short rumbling phrase in Russian.
“This peasant agrees wis me,” said Doctor Tokareff.
“You may go, Vassily,” said Sir Hubert.
“Dressing-gong should have gone a long time ago,” said Vassily, and hurried away.
“Help!” exclaimed Angela, “it’s eight o’clock! Di
“Are we all in our usual rooms?” asked Mrs. Wilde. “Yes… oh, wait a minute… Mr. Bathgate doesn’t know. Do show him, Arthur. He’s in the little Welsh room and will share your bath, my angel. Don’t be late, will you, or Uncle Hubert’s cook will give notice.”
“Which Heaven forbid!” said Rankin fervently. “One more… a very little one… and I’m gone.”
He poured himself out a half portion of Vassily’s cocktail, and without consulting her filled Mrs. Wilde’s glass again.
“Charles, you’ll make me drunk,” she a
Angela and Sir Hubert had already gone. Doctor Tokareff was half-way upstairs. Arthur Wilde turned his spectacles on Nigel. “Are you coming?”
“Yes, rather.”
Nigel followed him up the shallow staircase to a dimly lit landing.
“This is our room,” explained Wilde, pointing to the first door on the left. “The next little room I use as a dressing-room.” He opened a door further along. “Here you are… the bathroom is between us.”
Nigel found himself in a charming little oak room furnished austerely with one or two heavy old Welsh pieces. In the left wall was a door.
“This leads into our joint bathroom,” said Wilde, opening it. “My dressing-room communicates too, you see. You go first with the bath.”
“What a jolly house it is.”
“Yes, it is extraordinarily right in every way. One grows very attached to Frantock. I expect you will find that.”
“Oh,” said the diffident Nigel, “I don’t know… this is my first visit… I may not come again.” Wilde smiled pleasantly. “I’m sure you will. Handesley never asks anybody unless he is sure he will want them again. I must go and help my wife find all the things she thinks her maid has forgotten. Sing out when you’ve finished with the bath.” He went out through the further door of the bathroom and Nigel heard him humming to himself in a thin cheerful tenor.
Finding that his very battered suitcase had already been unpacked, Nigel lost no time in bathing, shaving, and dressing. He thought of his rather grim little flatlette in Ebury Street, and reflected that it would be pleasant to be able to abandon geysers and gas-rings for a cook who must not be kept waiting, and for constant hot water. In fifteen minutes he was dressed, and as he left the room could hear Wilde still splashing in the bath next door.
Nigel ran blithely downstairs, hoping that Miss Angela North had also gone down early. A door across the hall to the right of the stairs was standing open. The room beyond being brilliantly lit, he walked in and found himself alone in a big green-panelled salon that meandered away into an L-shaped alcove, beyond which was another smaller room. This proved to be a sort of library and gun-room combined. It smelt delectably of leather bindings, gun oil, and cigars. A bright fire was burning on the open hearth, and the gleaming barrels of Sir Hubert’s sporting armory spoke to Nigel of all the adventures he had longed for and never been able to afford.
He was gazing enviously at a Manlicher eight when he suddenly became aware of voices in the drawing-room behind him.
It was Mrs. Wilde who was speaking, and Nigel, horrified, realized that she and her companion had come in after him, had been there for some minutes, and that he had got himself into the odious position of an unwilling eavesdropper, and finally that, distasteful as this was to him, it was too late for him to a
Hideously uncomfortable, and completely at a loss, he stood and perforce heard.
“… so I say you’ve no right to order me down like this,” she was saving in a rapid undertone. “You treat me as if I were completely at your beck and call.”
“Well… don’t you rather enjoy it?”
Nigel felt suddenly sick. That was Charles’s voice. He heard a match scrape, and visualized his cousin’s long face and sleek head slanted forward to light his cigarette. Marjorie Wilde had begun again.
“But you are insufferable, my good Charles… Darling, why are you such a beast to me? You might at least—”
“Well, my dear? I might at least — what?”
“What is the position between you and Rosamund?”
“Rosamund is cryptic. She tells me she is too fond of me to marry me.”
“And yet all the time… with me… you — oh, Charles, can’t you see?”
“Yes, I see.” Rankin’s voice was furry — half tender, half possessive.
“I’m a fool,” whispered Mrs. Wilde.
“Are you? Yes, you are rather a little goat. Come here.”
Her broken murmuring was suddenly checked. Silence followed, and Nigel felt positively indecent.
“Now, Madam!” said Rankin softly.
“Do you love me?”
“No. Not quite, my dear. But you’re very attractive. Won’t that do?”
“Do you love Rosamund?”
“Oh, good Lord, Marjorie!”
“I hate you!” she said quickly. “I could — I could…”
“Be quiet, Marjorie — you’re making a scene. No, don’t struggle. I’m going to kiss you again.”
Nigel heard a sharp, vicious little sound, rapid footsteps hurrying away, and a second later a door slammed.
“Damn!” exclaimed Charles thoughtfully. Nigel pictured him nursing his cheek. Then he, too, evidently went out by the far door. As this door opened Nigel heard voices in the hall beyond.
The booming of the gong filled the house with clamour. He went out of the gun-room into the drawing-room.
At that instant the drawing-room lights went out.
A moment later he heard the far door open and quietly close again.
Standing stock still in the abrupt darkness of this strange place, his mind worked quickly and coherently. Marjorie Wilde and Rankin had both gone into the hall, he knew. Obviously, no one else had entered the drawing-room while they had been there. The only explanation was that someone else had been in the drawing-room, hidden in the L-shaped alcove when he walked through to the gun-room, someone who, like himself, had overheard the scene between those two. His eyes soon adapted themselves to the comparative darkness. He made his way gingerly to the door, opened it, and walked out into the hall. Nobody noticed him. The entire house-party was collected round Rankin, who seemed to be concluding one of his “pre-prandial” stories. Under cover of a roar of laughter, Nigel joined the group.
“Hullo, here he is!” exclaimed Sir Hubert. “Everybody down? Then let’s go in.”
Chapter III
“You Are The Corpse”
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.”