Death and the Dancing Footman. Ngaio Marsh
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Miss Chloris broke off her engagement to Nicholas. After an interval so short that one suspects she acted on the ricochet, she accepted William, who had previously courted her and been cut out by his brother. My private opinion is that when William returns to the front, Nicholas is quite capable of recapturing the lady, and, what’s more, I think she and William both know it. Nicholas and William had quarrelled in the best tradition of rival brothers and, as I say, have not met since the second engagement. I need not tell you that Mrs Compline, William, and his betrothed, none of them knows I have invited Nicholas, nor does Nicholas know I have invited them. He knows, however, that Madame Lisse will be here. That, of course, is why he has accepted.’
‘Go on,’ said Mandrake, driving his fingers through his hair.
‘Madame Lisse, the ambiguous and alluring woman of our cast, is an Austrian beauty specialist. I don’t suppose Lisse is her real name. She was among the earliest of the refugees, obtained naturalization papers, and established a salon at Great Chipping. She had letters to the Jerninghams at Pen Cuckoo, and to one or two other people in the county. Diana Copeland at the rectory rather took her up. So, as you have gathered, did Nicholas Compline. She is markedly a dasher. Dark-auburn hair, magnolia complexion, and eyes – whew! Very quiet and composed, but undoubtedly a dasher. Everybody got rather excited about Madame Lisse … everybody, that is, with the exception of my distant cousin, Lady Hersey Amblington, who will arrive for dinner tomorrow evening.’
The spectacles glinted in Mandrake’s direction, but he merely waved his hands.
‘Hersey,’ said Jonathan, ‘as you may know, is also a beauty specialist. She took it up when her husband died and left her almost penniless. She did the thing thoroughly and, being a courageous and capable creature, made a success of it. The mysteries of what I believe is called “beauty culture” are as a sealed book to me, but I understand that all the best complexions and coiffures of Great Chipping and the surrounding districts were, until the arrival of Madame Lisse, Hersey’s particular property. Madame Lisse immediately began to knock spots out of Hersey. Not, as Hersey explained, that she now has fewer customers, but that they are not quite so smart. The smart clientele has, with the exception of a faithful few, gone over to the enemy. Hersey considers that Madame used unscrupulous methods and always alludes to her as “The Pirate.” You haven’t met my distant cousin, Hersey?’
‘No.’
‘No. She has her own somewhat direct methods of warfare, and I understand that she called on Madame Lisse with the intention of giving her fits. I’m afraid Hersey came off rather the worse in this encounter. Hersey is an old friend of the Complines and, as you may imagine, was not at all delighted by Nicholas’s attentions to her rival. So you see she is linked up in an extremely satisfactory manner to both sides. I have really been extraordinarily fortunate,’ said Jonathan, rubbing his hands. ‘Nothing could be neater. And Dr Hart fills out the cast to perfection. The “heavy,” I think, is the professional term for his part.’
‘Doctor –?’
‘Hart. The seventh and last character. He, too, is of foreign extraction, though he became a naturalized Briton some time after the last war. I fancy he is a Viennese, though whether I deduce this conclusion subconsciously from his profession I cannot tell you.’ Jonathan chuckled again and finished his sherry.
‘What, in Heaven’s name, is his profession?’
‘My dear Aubrey,’ said Jonathan, ‘he is a plastic surgeon. A beauty specialist par excellence. The male of the species.’
IV
‘It seems to me,’ said Mandrake, ‘that you have invited stark murder to your house. Frankly, I can imagine nothing more terrifying than the prospect of this weekend. What do you propose to do with them?’
‘Let them enact their drama.’
‘It will more probably resemble some disastrous vaudeville show.’
‘With myself as compère. Quite possibly.’
‘My dear Jonathan, you will have no performance. The actors will either sulk in their dressing-rooms or leave the theatre.’
‘That is where we come in.’
‘We! I assure you –’
‘It is where I come in, then. May I, without exhibiting too much complacency, claim that if I have a talent it lies in the direction of hospitality?’
‘Certainly. You are a wonderful host.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jonathan, beaming at his guest. ‘It delights me to hear you say so. Now, in this party I have set myself, I freely admit, a stiff task.’
‘I’m glad you realize it,’ said Mandrake. ‘The list of opponents is positively ghastly. I don’t know if I have altogether followed you, but it appears that you hope to reconcile a rejected lover both to his successor and to his late love, a business woman to her detested rival, a ruined beauty to an exponent of the profession that made an effigy of her face, and a mother to a prospective daughter-in-law who has rejected her favourite son for his brother.’
‘There is another permutation that you have not yet heard. Local gossip rings with rumours of some secret understanding between Dr Hart and Madame Lisse. It appears that Madame recommends Dr Hart’s surgery to those of her clients who have passed the stage when Lisse creams and all the rest of it can improve their ageing faces.’
‘A business arrangement?’
‘Something more than that if Hersey, a prejudiced witness, certainly, is to be believed. Hersey’s spies tell her that Dr Hart has been observed leaving Madame Lisse’s flat at a most compromising hour; that he presented to an exciting degree the mien of a clandestine lover, his hat drawn over his brows, his cloak (he wears a cloak) pulled about his face. They say that he has been observed to scowl most formidably at the mention of Nicholas Compline.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Mandrake, ‘it’s really a little too much. I boggle at the cloak.’
‘It’s a Tyrolean cloak with a hood, a most useful garment. Rainproof. He has presented me with one. I wear it frequently. You shall see it tomorrow.’
‘What’s he like, this face-lifter?’
‘A smoothish fellow. I find him amusing. He plays very good bridge.’
‘We are not going to play bridge?’
‘No. No, that, I feel, would be asking for trouble. We are going to play a round game, however.’
‘O God!’
‘You will enjoy it. A stimulating game. I hope that it will go far towards burying our little armoury of hatchets. Imagine what fun, Aubrey, if on Monday morning they all go gaily away, full of the milk of human kindness.’
‘You’re seeing yourself in the detestable rôle of uplifter. I’ve got it! This is not Pirandello, nor is it vaudeville. Far from it. But it is,’ cried Mandrake with an air of intense disgust, ‘it is “The Passing of the Third Floor Back.”’
Jonathan rose and stood warming his hands at the fire. He was a small man, very upright, with a long trunk and short legs. Mandrake, staring at him, wondered if it was some trick of firelight that lent a faintly malicious tinge to Jonathan’s smile; it was merely his thick-lensed glasses that gave him that air of uncanny blankness.
‘Ah, well,’ said Jonathan, ‘A peacemaker. Why not? You would like to see your room, Aubrey. The blue room, as usual, of course. It is no longer raining. I propose to take a look at the night before going up to change. Will you accompany me?’
‘Very well.’
They went out, crossing a wide hall, to the entrance. The wind had fallen, and as Jonathan opened his great outer doors the quiet of an upland county at dusk entered the house, and the smell of earth still only lightly covered