Thirteen Guests (12 page)

He glanced up the stairs as he replaced the receiver.

“They've found Chater?” asked Bultin quietly, watching his host's face.

“At Mile Bottom,” answered Aveling. “With a broken neck.”

Chapter XVII

Nadine's Story

“Well, Mr. John Foss,” said Nadine, as she sat on the pouffe that had been waiting for her all day, “shall we pool our knowledge and see whether we can make anything out of it?”

“I'm afraid my own knowledge is very incomplete,” answered John.

“So is mine. So, I believe, is everybody's. Just bits and pieces which they're trying hard not to give up. Even Mr. Taverley.” She paused, and added suddenly, “I don't know whether you can feel it in here—this room is a sort of backwater—most reposeful—but the atmosphere in the rest of the house is positively—what?”

“Secretive?” he suggested.

“Gives one the creeps. Yes, even quite apart from the fact that two dead people are lying in the studio. We're all on guard against each other. Split up into small parties. That's why I want to form a party with you. I wasn't born for just my own company.”

“I shouldn't have thought you ever had to endure loneli-
ness.”

“I don't often. Perhaps that explains why I object to it so strongly when it happens. We're all divided into groups of fours and twos and ones, and I refuse to be one of the ones!”

“Who are the other ones?” he asked, smiling. She considered for a moment, puckering her brow, then became conscious of his smile and responded to it.

“You've got a nice smile, John,” she said. “Frank. I like it. But don't take that as too much of a compliment—these are meagre times. And I gathered this morning that
you
were worried, too. Who are the other ones? Well, Sir James. Do you like him? Mrs. Chater. I won't ask if you like her. And—all this is strictly private.”

“Of course.”

“At the moment I'm counting Lady Aveling. I hope it's only at the moment, because I like the Avelings immensely and have had some wonderful times here.…Am I speaking too freely? Yes, I expect I am. But it's not gossip, it's—reaction. Perhaps also because I want to help. Though I'm not sure about that. I'm not usually a very helpful person.”

“If you start pitching into yourself, we sha'n't make a good team.”

“All right. I won't. We'll say, rightly or wrong, that part of my impulse in talking to you is because I have a wonderful nature and burn to do good in the world!” She made a grimace. “Nadine Leveridge, Good Samaritan! That's almost worthy of one of Bultin's posters!”

“Who are the twos?”

“At the risk of shocking you, I'll begin with Lord Aveling and Zena Wilding. That's why I've isolated Lady Aveling. I don't like your expression quite so much now, John.”

“What's the matter with it?”

“It's almost disapproving.”

“It's not meant to be.”

“What is it meant to be? Are you going to become an oyster like the rest? I'm human, my dear man, and this is going to be a fifty-fifty business, or nothing.”

“It's fifty-fifty, Nadine,” he answered, after a moment's pause. “And that means I believe you really
do
want to help. So do I. I've nothing against gossip—”

“Liar!”

“Right. I loathe it. But I know this isn't gossip. My expression meant that—that I agreed with you. I'll explain more later. Please go on.”

She nodded.

“Our collaboration continues. Mr. Taverley and Anne make another two. I sensed that when I rode back with them from Mile Bottom. I came upon them just after they had made their unpleasant discovery. Straight from one ‘kill' to another! But luckily I wasn't in at the second death!”

“He was dead when you arrived, then?”

“Yes. You've heard all about that, haven't you?”

“No one's told me anything.”

“Then how do you know anything?”

“That wasn't quite accurate,” he corrected himself. “Lord Aveling and Pratt were in this room shortly before tea, and I heard from them about the man in the quarry, and then the maid who brought my tea said the doctor had arrived. But beyond that all I've heard has come through the door.”

She listened.

“You've got good ears. I can't hear anything.”

“The hall's probably empty at the moment. Still, I have got good ears. Not that one needed good ears to hear Mrs. Chater when she went off the reel. It was pretty horrible. Then I heard Lord Aveling at the telephone—that was when Anne phoned about Chater—and, later on, I heard you all return. That was an hour ago, wasn't it?”

“And nothing since?”

“Nothing and nobody. It's been as quiet out there as it is now.”

“Yes—it's quiet,” murmured Nadine. “We're talking in whispers. Even Mr. Rowe's voice is almost musically soft.” She stared at the toe of her shoe, raising it slightly from the ground. Once she had done it consciously to attract attention to her shapely foot, but now it was a habit. Last night, John recalled, the shoes had been gold. Now they were red-bronze, matching her hair. “You haven't heard the latest, then?” she said, lowering her toe again as though to dismiss it.

“What?” he asked.

“Well—in a minute. I'll go back to Mile Bottom, and lead up to it. Or down to it. When I came upon Anne and Mr. Taverley, they were staring at Mr. Chater. They were off their horses. Mr. Chater's had already gone. It's a wild spot. It has always rather appealed to me—I like wild places—but I shan't think of Mile Bottom again without a shudder! He was lying on a patch of stubble a little way from some boulders. The stubble was quite soft. There was a stream close by, and the ground was wet.” She paused. “Anything strike you?”

“I can't say that it does,” he answered.

“It struck me at once. I've seen plenty of accidents. But I didn't say anything, and Anne and I went off to the nearest village to telephone while Mr. Taverley stayed by the body.…I always think that transformation of terms is particularly callous. Alive we are people, but the moment we die we become bodies!

“Well, we telephoned, as you know. Did you hear the conversation?”

“Lord Aveling's end.”

“Did you gather how Anne reported it?”

“Yes. You had found Chater with a broken neck.” Nadine nodded.

“He certainly looked, from his position, as though his neck had been broken, but when we got back after telephoning, bringing assistance, we found that it wasn't.”

“Do you mean he wasn't dead?” exclaimed John.

“Oh, yes, he was dead,” she replied. “What I said was that his neck wasn't broken. He had just fallen off his horse into some wet earth, and died from shock.”

“I see,” murmured John, slowly.

“Do you?”

“I hope not. Well?”

“We got him in a car, and followed the car home. We didn't talk much. Of all the depressing rides! I'd been bursting before I met them to describe the end of the hunt—it was a wonderful run and I'd stuck it to the finish and seen the kill—but I expect my appetite for blood was gone, and I never said a word about it. Instead I found myself watching Anne and Mr. Taverley, and growing more and more depressed. I'll be frank with you,” she went on, “and admit I didn't feel in the least depressed for Mr. Chater. Call that rotten, if you like, but it's the truth.”

“I don't call it in the least rotten,” answered John. “What did depress you, then?”

“I hardly knew. Something in their attitudes. Not Anne's, perhaps. Behind her horror she seemed puzzled, but that was natural.
I
was puzzled. No, it was Mr. Taverley who worried me. There was something very personal in his anxiety—and I'm quite sure he didn't love Mr. Chater any more than you and I did. Excepting, of course, in the sense that his idiotic philosophy tries to find an excuse for everybody!”

“Let me get one point clear before we go any further,” said John. “You haven't got any idea, have you, that Taverley has had anything to do with the accident?”

Nadine laughed.

“That idea is as likely as the idea that Mussolini could turn into a pacifist,” she answered. “No nothing of that sort.” Then she quickly grew serious again. “When we got back, a second shock was waiting for us. We heard about the other accident. Dr. Pudrow has had a busy day.”

“He has. What does he say? About Mr. Chater?”

“Do you know what he's said about the other man?”

“No.”

“From something I overheard I believe there's a suggestion of strangulation.”

“That sounds pretty bad.”

“It does rather. And so does the way you're taking it. A few hours ago you'd have said, ‘My God!' Now you're so numb that you merely think strangulation is pretty bad. Don't take that personally, of course. I am merely being symbolic! I'm afraid the next suggestion will give you a shock, though. It's that Mr. Chater was poisoned.”

John stared at her in astonishment. The only reason he did not say “My God!” this time was because she had taken the words out of his mouth.

“Believe me, John, things are pretty grim,” said Nadine. “My nerves are supposed to be a hundred per cent., but they've been severely tested these last two hours. Mr. Chater poisoned! Do you realise what that means, if it's true? Not many of us here had any reason to love him!”

John nodded. More had reason to fear him. Whose secrets had died with Chater?

But secrets can be resuscitated. John strove to steady his mind while the events of the previous night began to whirl round it in a chaotic circle.

“Now you know why the house is so silent, and why we are all talking in whispers,” Nadine went on. “And why I have come in here for a little cheerful company! I feel—I believe we all do—that if I wanted to pack my bag and walk out of the house, I wouldn't be free to do it—that even if I took a stroll in the grounds, some one would follow me.…This means the police, John.”

“Obviously,” he replied.

“And questions.”

“
You
needn't fear those.”

“So that makes it all right?”

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that—I know you're thinking of others.”

“I can sometimes, if I strain very hard.”

“But—look here—you said it was a suggestion. Dr. Pudrow isn't
sure
Chater was poisoned?”

“His conviction hasn't been officially made public. It probably won't be till he's had a heart-to-heart with the local police inspector.”

“Then how did
you
hear of it?”

“By overhearing a scrap of conversation between the doctor and Lord Aveling,” she answered. “They were in the room next to mine—‘What! You think Chater's been poisoned?' It was Lord Aveling's voice. Then it dropped again.”

“Still, Dr. Pudrow may be wrong. He can't have proved it yet.”

“I'm certain he's not wrong.”

“What makes you certain?”

“You remember I told you that something struck me when I first saw Mr. Chater lying on the ground?”

“I remember you mentioned the ground was soft—I suppose you meant it was unlikely he'd have been killed by the fall?”

“More unlikely than if he had fallen and struck one of the boulders.”

“But it could happen.”

“It could.”

“Or the horse might have kicked him. Or what about a weak heart?”

“Yes—all those things. As a matter of fact I believe Mr. Chater's health was rotten—his wife wouldn't let him take his whisky neat yesterday—she reminded him he'd been ordered not to. But there's something I haven't told you yet—something that convinced me this wasn't an ordinary riding accident. It was his colour.…I've seen that colour once before, and I've never forgotten it.”

After a pause he asked:

“How is Mrs. Chater taking it?”

“I believe there was a ghastly scene. Thank God I escaped it.”

“Have you seen her?”

Nadine shook her head.

“I was in a hot bath. Something's in your mind? What is it?”

He met her challenging gaze with a depressed smile.

“I don't quite know,” he answered. “Perhaps just a feeling of impotence. One feels that one ought to be doing something, and one doesn't quite know what.”

“Don't you mean, one doesn't quite know whether?” she returned shrewdly. “If you're referring to the unburdening of awkward knowledge?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “I don't want to make matters worse.”

“It won't make matters worse if you unburden it to me—and I think it's your turn. You'll be asked to unburden it to the police before long, anyway!”

“And the question is—do I? I mean, the lot? Some, of course.”

“I can't help you to answer that question unless I know what the lot is.”

“You're forgetting something.”

“Am I?”

“If some of the knowledge isn't unburdened—I'm only saying ‘if'—won't it be easier for you not to know it? When
you're
being cross-examined?”

“That's a point,” she admitted. “I can't say. But—well, it would be rotten team-work, John! You see, I might advise you to get rid of that ‘if.' I might advise that, with things in their present muddle, it may be better to take all the fences.”

“You'd probably be right,” he answered thoughtfully. “After all—if a murder
has
been committed.…Queer how one seems to forget that this is really Mrs. Chater's tragedy—”

“I know. I keep on trying to remind myself. It's so difficult to feel sympathetic towards a woman of that sort—and I dare say Mr. Chater was a tragedy to her alive as well as dead, so—” She broke off. “Anyway, she's bent on spreading the tragedy.”

“What do you mean?”

“I gather she's saying she's going to make some one swing for it. And, as you said,
if
a murder has been committed, it may be that somebody should. But, don't forget, I haven't definitely advised you
yet
to part with all your knowledge, and I'm not going to till I hear it. So—may I?”