A Man Lay Dead - Ngaio Marsh

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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 3 ‘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 kick-worthy.’

      ‘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 Frantock. 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,

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