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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 ma
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 Wy
“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 Wy
“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.
Mandrake’s first impression of Hersey Amblington was characteristic of the sort of man his talents had led him to become. As Stanley Footling of Dulwich, he would have been a little in awe of Hersey. As Aubrey Mandrake of the Unicorn Theatre, he told himself she was distressingly wholesome. Hersey’s face, in spite of its delicate make-up, wore an out-of-doors look, and she did not pluck her dark brows, those two straight bars that guarded her blue eyes. She wore Harris tweed and looked, thought Mandrake, as though she would be tiresome about dogs. A hearty woman, he decided, and he did not wonder that Madame Lisse had lured away Hersey’s smartest clients.