Thirteen Guests (8 page)

“I came down to get a book,” she said.

“You read late,” he replied.

“Yes. When I can't sleep. How did you get here? Did you hop?” He nodded. “I'll help you back.”

“I can manage.”

“Don't be silly.”

She came to the door, and assisted him back to the couch. When he was settled, she stood regarding him for a second.

“This is rotten luck on you,” she said.

“I'll get over it,” he answered. “I'm not invalided for life, you know.”

“No—not for life,” she repeated slowly. This was one of the many moments he recalled later. Then she added, her speech quickening, “But it was disgusting of me disturbing you like this. If you tell any one, I'll get into hot water.”

He recognised the request behind the statement.

“Count on me,” he smiled. “Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

A few seconds later he listened to her footsteps fading up the stairs. She had not stopped to get her book.

Chapter XI

Haig

“
Must
you get up so early?” asked Bultin sleepily.

“It's seven o'clock,” replied Pratt, as he crossed to the window and pulled up the blind. “And what a morning!”

“But the fires aren't lit,” protested Bultin.

“One doesn't get up before breakfast to sit by a fire,” retorted Pratt. “One gets up to take a stroll.”

“One does,” murmured Bultin, turning away from the light, “but two don't. For God's sake, pull down that blind!”

Pratt smiled, gazed out for a moment at the lawn, and then satisfied his friend's craving for continued dimness. The blind came down again. Fifteen minutes later he was out on the lawn.

A low white mist was slowly rolling off it. The air was autumn-crisp. Raising his eyes, he rested them on russet bushes, then raised them higher to the sky. It was cloudless, and an early lark was singing the song men envy.

“The illusion of joy and beauty,” reflected Pratt.

Yet it was odd how moments came when intelligence fled and one could enjoy the illusion!

He walked across the lawn, his eyes no longer on the sky but on his boots moist with mist. The movement of the boots had a restless purpose that contrasted with the mist's leisurely drift. He reached the russet bushes, and walked through them to the studio. He was making for the door, when a window caught his attention and diverted his direction. It was smashed.

He stared at the splintered glass beneath the window. He lifted his eyes to the sky for a moment and asked, “What about this, blithe spirit?” and then stared at the glass again. Somebody had broken into the studio. No—in that case, most of the glass would be inside. “Some one has broken out of the studio,” he corrected his thought. “But how did they break in, to break out?”

Now he walked to the door, and producing the key unlocked it. The studio seemed as he had left it on the previous evening. There was the ruined picture of Anne, with its long smudge of crimson paint. It pleased him that he could look at it calmly. There were all the other pictures and easels, including Anne's own large painting of the stag. And the studio furniture. Nothing looked altered.…No, wait a moment.…

He crossed to the picture of the stag. “As bad as it is big,” he murmured. If the criticism were just, the picture was unusually bad, for the canvas almost obliterated the large easel on which it stood, leaving only a few inches of pedestal visible beneath it. He walked behind the canvas.

“Possible,” he murmured. “Possible.”

He stood for a few moments pondering, his eyes scanning the ground. Then he turned in the direction of the picture of Anne, moved a pace to the side, and stooped. He stooped until the top of the canvas he was behind rose in his line of vision, and obliterated the picture of Anne.

“Yes, quite possible,” he said. “And—then?”

He rose, and walked to the broken window. It was a small window in a wall, though not too small for a man to pass through. The larger window in the sloping roof, facing north, was intact. He examined the edges of broken glass, put his head gingerly out, and brought it in again. Then he left the studio, locking it as before, and dropping the key in his pocket.

He walked round the studio. The path continued at the back towards a little wood. He walked towards the wood, his eye attracted by something. It was a brown heap a few yards off the path, lying under a bush. Reaching it, he stooped and touched it. It did not move.

On his way back to the house he passed a gardener.

“I'm afraid one of your dogs has had an accident,” he said. “It's on the left of the path to the wood at the back of the studio. You'd better go and have a look.”

Bultin grunted as Pratt re-entered the bedroom, but did not turn.

“I hoped you'd stay out longer,” he muttered.

“I was out quite long enough,” answered Pratt, throwing himself into an arm-chair. “Are you interested in dead dogs?”

Bultin turned, and opened an eye.

“Should I be?” he inquired.

“I asked if you were,” retorted Pratt.

Bultin considered. Then he closed the eye and murmured, “Not particularly.”

Pratt lit a cigarette.

“You're a horrible bedroom companion,” said Bultin. “Getting up at unearthly hours. Filling the room with foul smoke. And talking of dead dogs. Is that the way you work up your breakfast appetite?”

Pratt continued to puff the foul smoke without responding.

“Well?” smiled Bultin.

“It's name is, or was, Haig,” remarked Pratt. “A golden retriever. It is lying at this moment under a hedge, and it has a nasty wound in its side.”

“You mean, some one's killed it?”

“Without doubt.”

“Probably a poacher.”

“That may be the theory.”

“But it's not your theory?”

“No, it's not my theory.”

“Perhaps I'd better get up,” sighed Bultin, rising regretfully from his pillow and sticking a leg out of bed. “What's your theory?”

“I'm not sure that I have one,” admitted Pratt.

“Your guess, then?”

“Well, I'm wondering whether the person who killed the dog is the person who ruined my picture.”

“The connection being?”

“A broken window.”

“Where?”

“Getting interested?”

“Not enough to telephone my editor.”

“I'll wager you a hundred cigars you'll be phoning before the day's finished!” exclaimed Pratt suddenly.

“I'm not a betting man,” replied Bultin. “Where is this broken window?”

“The studio.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Somebody smashed his way out. And shall I tell you why?”

“I have a brain.”

“Use it.”

“Because he wanted to get out.”

“Don't be irritating, Lionel,” pleaded Pratt. “If you wanted to get out of this room, what would you do? You would go out of the door. But this person smashed his way out of the window because he couldn't get out of the door. I'd locked it.”

“When?”

“Yes, let's get the details straight. You'll need them later for a front-page splash. I went to the studio three times yesterday. First, in the morning, when Anne gave me a sitting. I wanted her for the afternoon, but she went riding with Taverley. I took Rowe across, however—that was the second time—to show him the picture—”

“Bait for his future patronage.”

“He's nibbled the bait. But that's not what we're talking about. The second time was just before tea. Say, half-past four. Perhaps a few minutes after. When we passed through the hall, Taverley was talking to Foss, and we had a few words.” He paused for an instant. “Nobody was in the studio during that second visit—I'm sure of that. We went all round it. But—now we're coming to it—I left the key in the door, through an oversight. So somebody could have gone in between the second and third visit. The third visit was after you arrived, and after our chat. Do you remember the time I left you?”

“Nineteen minutes to seven.”

“How on earth do you know?” asked Pratt, surprised.

“I don't know,” replied Bultin, “but I'm a journalist.”

“I see!” laughed Pratt. “Sailors don't care, and journalists always know. Anyhow, you must nearly have hit the mark. I was delayed on my way to the studio—passed Taverley in passage—spoke to Nadine Leveridge on the lawn—and got to the studio, and found the picture ruined, at about ten to seven. And a minute or two later I left the studio for the last time, locking the door.”

“And locking the somebody in?”

“That seems obvious.”

“And the some one got in—let's call him Z—between 4.30 and 6.50.”

“Make it 6.40. That gives him the maximum time to have done his dirty work.”

“Are you sure the window wasn't broken at your third visit?”

“I'd have noticed it.”

“You didn't notice Z.”

“Touché. But I've found out why.”

“Where was he?”

“Behind another canvas. A very large one. I've tested my theory, and found that he could have remained concealed by stooping.”

“Did you find any clues?”

“No.”

“Well, continue. What did Z do after you locked him in?”

“Yes, that's a pretty point,” said Pratt. “If he killed the dog, he didn't get out at once.”

“Why not?”

“Because I know Haig's bark. He was barking late last night.”

“Was that the dog I cursed?”

“The very one.”

“Then he was alive after midnight.”

“Yes.”

“If you're sure it was Haig who barked.”

“Positive.”

“And if you're sure it's Haig who's dead.”

“Equally positive.”

“And if you're sure it was Z who killed him.”

“Of that I'm not positive. But the bark and the broken window fit. A dog would bark if he heard the splinter of glass, and the man he barked at might not like it.”

“So all we've got to find out,” said Bultin, “is why our friend Z stayed in the studio from 6.50 till after midnight. A trifle like that needn't worry us.”

Pratt smiled.

“We'll find it out, Lionel,” he answered. “You shall have it for your front page.”

“I doubt whether a dead dog would make a good headline,” commented Bultin.

“It all depends where the dead dog leads.”

“Where is it going to lead?”

“I don't know yet. That was an unintelligent question. But then you are unintelligent. You merely know how to fatten on other people's knowledge. Listen. I find my picture ruined. I, a famous artist. And the picture, of an interesting young lady whose photograph has appeared in the
Tatler
, the
Sketch
, and the
Bystander
. Wouldn't another photograph of her ruined portrait be worthy of your front page? Though you sha'n't have it yet. Libretto, ‘Who Did It?' And who
did
? A well-known cricketer, who returned to his room shortly before I visited the studio, and whose cigarette-end I found outside the studio? The key was in the door then. Any one could have entered.”

“Why should Taverley do it?”

“Have I ever told you that sometimes I see red when I meet Taverley? Perhaps he sees the reflection. It's interesting. Chemically, we do not mix. He loathes my picture of Anne, though he has not mentioned the fact aloud.…Or Nadine Leveridge, who dressed early, and was smoking—one of Taverley's cigarettes, by the way—on the lawn when I left the house to cross it? Or Chater, who was on the lawn when I crossed back again, and whom I would rather like to paint in the shape of a toad? Or the unknown person I had a tussle with in the dark, after leaving and locking the studio? Or the other unknown person who, during that tussle, was a prisoner in the studio? You said just now, Lionel, that all we had to find out was why Z stayed in the studio from 6.50 till after midnight. We have got to find something more important than that. We have got to find Z. Are you going to the Meet this morning?”

“I'd thought of it.”

“I'm not. I'm going to hunt something on two legs, not four, nearer home. More in your line, I think.”

Bultin considered, or pretended to. He had already made up his mind.

“I could have a toothache,” he remarked.

“Choose your pack,” answered Pratt. “Both hunts may end in a kill.”

“I'll have a toothache,” said Bultin.

Chapter XII

Undeveloped Details

Breakfast at Bragley Court was a come-as-you-please affair. You could stay in your bedroom and have the meal brought to you on a neat tray, or you could descend to the large dining-room and eat at the long oval table. This morning only two remained in their rooms—Nadine Leveridge and Zena Wilding. The rest, with the exception of Anne, were already seated when Pratt and Bultin appeared.

“Where's Anne?” Lord Aveling was saying. He looked very dapper in his riding kit. “Didn't she go out with you, Harold?”

“Yes,” answered Taverley. “She made me chase her new mare. A beauty.”

“Ah, you like her?”

“Magnificent. It was all I could do to hang on her heels.”

“It's all I can do to hang round their necks,” observed Miss Fermoy-Jones, with rather unexpected humour. She considered it a literary duty to scintillate over breakfast, and performed the duty with difficulty. “I'm glad I'm going in the car. Who will be with me?”

“We will,” answered the Sausage King, deserting his kind for tomatoes-on-toast. “The whole Rowe.”

He laughed loudly at his joke. He always did, in case others did not.

“I am afraid you will miss most of the sport,” said Lord Aveling, “but the chauffeur is a genius, and will keep you in touch as far as he can.”

“Well, I'm always happy when I'm getting local colour,” replied the authoress. “Are you a keen huntsman, Sir James?”

She turned to the Liberal member, whose eyes were wandering towards the door.

“Eh? Oh, I ride with the tide,” Earnshaw responded. He nodded to Pratt and Bultin. “How about Art and Journalism?”

“Art merely hunts commissions,” replied Pratt, “and Journalism has a toothache. Ergo, the Professions will stay at home.”

“Toothache!” exclaimed Lord Aveling. His voice was concerned, giving the impression that, as host, he was responsible. “I hope it is not bad?”

“I shall live,” answered Bultin. “Some animal will not.”

A little silence was broken by Mrs. Rowe, who made one of her rare remarks. She only made it because the silence seemed rather strained, and she thought it might help. Somehow, everything seemed a little strained this morning; she didn't know why. Perhaps it always happened just before a meet.

“Of course, I know it's very wrong of me,” she said, “but I always hope the fox will get away.”

“Stag, mother!” whispered Ruth, as though her mother had dropped an H.

“Oh, well, whichever it is,” murmured Mrs. Rowe.

“It will be foxes next month,” said Lady Aveling, coming to Mrs. Rowe's aid. “As a matter of fact, to-day is the last day for stags. But you needn't feel sorry for them, Mrs. Rowe—they injure crops and damage trees, and are really a thorough nuisance.”

“Then why have a last day for hunting 'em?” inquired Mr. Rowe. “Why not get rid of the lot?”

“That, Mr. Rowe,” replied Pratt, since no one else volunteered an answer, “is a question no true Britisher ever asks.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Personally I am less interested in stags and foxes than dogs,” went on Pratt, his voice becoming solemn. “I suppose my discovery has been reported to you, Lord Aveling?”

Lord Aveling frowned.

“You mean—Haig?” Pratt nodded. “We were talking about it before you came down. A real tragedy.”

“Have they found out how it happened?”

His eyes strayed towards Chater, while Lord Aveling replied:

“Probably the work of a poacher.”

“I see—making too much noise. But how did the dog get out of the kennel?”

Suddenly conscious of Pratt's gaze, Chater raised his head.

“Mightn't it have got out while the poacher was trying to get in?” he suggested.

“Why should the poacher try to get in?” asked Pratt.

“To knock it on the head.”

“No, he used a knife,” said Pratt.

A little shudder ran round the table. Mrs. Chater was the only member of the company who remained entirely motionless. Bultin turned his head and watched her as she stared at her plate with static accusation. “She wants to smash it,” thought Bultin, almost pityingly. Edyth Fermoy-Jones's eyes goggled, and Mrs. Rowe gave a little gasp.

“Knife!” she murmured.

“I hadn't heard that,” said Earnshaw.

“There are other things that haven't been heard,” remarked Pratt. “One of the studio windows has been smashed.”

Now Lord Aveling looked astonished.

“That wasn't reported to me!” he exclaimed.

“Then I'm first with the news,” answered Pratt.

“I suppose the poacher—or whoever he was—was breaking into the studio when the dog began barking,” suggested Earnshaw. “Was the studio door locked?”

“I have the only key,” nodded Pratt.

“You've been in this morning, of course?”

“Yes.”

Bultin found Pratt's boot pressing his toe under the table.

“Well, what did you find?”

“Apart from the broken window,” replied Pratt, “everything was just as I'd left it the night before.”

The statement was accompanied by a perfect example of silent teamwork. While Pratt's eyes casually combed one side of the breakfast-table, Bultin's combed the other.

“Then no one had designs on your latest work of art, Pratt,” observed Taverley.

Pratt gave no indication of the degree to which the remark interested him. It was Chater who replied:

“Vandalism? The knife really meant for the picture?”

“Yes, now that
is
an idea!” exclaimed Edyth Fermoy-Jones. “Perhaps it wasn't a poacher, after all, but some jealous brother artist! Have you a rival, Mr. Pratt? I believe I'm getting a plot!”

Lord Aveling interposed definitely.

“Do not let this spoil our day,” he said. “Shall we change to a more cheerful subject?”

“Yes, I agree, my Lord,” answered Chater. “Is it true you are backing a play?”

Earnshaw, whose eyes had been wandering towards the door again, suddenly turned them on Chater, as though an idea had struck him, and as he did so the person he had been watching for entered. She was wearing her dark-green riding habit, and she looked very different from the feminine creature John Foss had surprised on the night before. Her mouth was tightly set, and her attitude was almost aggressively assertive.

“Sorry I'm so late,” she exclaimed. “I expect the tea will be black!”

“What kept you, dear?” asked Lady Aveling vaguely.

“I just popped in to see Grandma,” answered Anne.

“How was she?”

“Not too good. Coffee, please, Bessie. Well, everybody, it's going to be a perfect day.”

Her mood cut across the moods of others. They accepted it, and followed it. Conversation veered away from uneasy subjects, and became appropriately centralised in the hunt.

In the ante-room John was finishing his breakfast alone. He had awakened late, to his annoyance—he hated oversleeping—and the first hour had been devoted to the rather tedious business of medical attention and a few kind inquiries. The particular kind inquiry he was waiting for had not yet materialised, and as he concluded his lonely repast his gaze continually travelled to the door.

His mood was not contented. Apart from the annoyance of being tied to one spot, he felt decentralised. He did not belong to the spot he was tied to, and he was worried also by knowledge that did not belong to him. He ached, with a stranger's aching, to talk to somebody he knew intimately. There was one person here whom, in a sense, he did feel he knew intimately, despite the shortness of their acquaintance, but perfect ease of intercourse was denied by her physical beauty. That did not belong to him, either. He wished Nadine had been plain, so that he could have enjoyed her companionship with a free mind and conscience. Yet had she been plain, would that companionship have been so keenly desired? He refused to face the question.

The door opened. He concealed his disappointment as Lady Aveling stood in the doorway.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

The interminable question! Lady Aveling had herself asked it once before that morning.

“Fine,” answered John. “Don't worry about me, please.”

“It must be very tantalising for you. I suppose you ride?”

“Never been on a horse in my life. Perhaps that's lucky.”

“Why?”

“What you don't know, you don't miss. I'll be quite happy with all these books.”

Lord Aveling had brought him half a dozen.

“You like reading?”

It was all very polite. He felt she was not really in the least interested, and did not see why she should be.

“Rather. And there's one of Masefield's.”

“Yes, I like him, too. His novels are always so…well, be sure to ask for anything you want. The bell's by you. And I'll tell Mr. Pratt and Mr. Bultin to come and talk to you—they're staying behind. Oh, no, perhaps not Mr. Bultin—he's got a toothache.”

She recalled that the journalist had only made one remark during breakfast.

Some one passed behind her. “Don't be long, Anne,” she called over her shoulder. “We start in a quarter of an hour.”

“What time is the meet?” asked John.

“Eleven. We're leaving at ten-thirty.”

She smiled and departed. John watched for the door to open again. It opened in two minutes.

“How's the patient?” boomed Mr. Rowe.

“First-rate,” replied John.

“That's good,” said Mr. Rowe. “I'm not sure that I don't envy you! You've a nice fire.”

Bessie, the maid, passed behind Mr. Rowe as he spoke. She was carrying a tray on which John noticed a blue glass jug of water. He did not know that he had noticed it till later. The glint of translucent colour only lived in his vision for an instant, then vanished towards the staircase.

“Well, be good,” concluded Mr. Rowe, seeking an effective peroration. “Not much chance of being anything else, eh? Ha, ha!”

About to close the door, he suddenly stood aside.

“Ah, good-morning, Mrs. Leveridge!” he exclaimed. “All dressed up and somewhere to go, eh? Well, I must say, if you'll take it from an old man, riding togs suit you!”

He melted away as Nadine entered. The atmosphere of the room changed to the man on the couch. Before, it had been dead. Now it was electrically alive. He forgot his foot for a moment and made a movement to rise, then lay back again with the sensation that he was behaving like a schoolboy.

“Please don't ask me how I'm feeling,” he begged. “I couldn't stand it!”

“You've answered me without my having to ask,” she laughed. “You're better.”

“How do you know that?”

“Your sense of humour.”

“Nonsense!” he retorted. “That's heroism. Well, I won't pay you a compliment. You've just had one.”

“Two's company.”

“All right. You look wonderful. And you've no right to, because riding clothes are really hideous. How did you sleep?”

“I always sleep well. How did you?”

“Too well the last part—rottenly the first.”

“Foot?”

“No.”

“Me?”

“Not even that!”

“I'm glad. What kept you awake, then?”

He hesitated. He wanted to tell her. He couldn't make up his mind.

“How long before you start?” he asked.

“Almost at once.”

“I hoped you'd come and say good-morning earlier. When will you be back?”

“That depends on the stag.”

“Assume the stag behaves like a nice, normal creature?”

“Assume that, and it won't! The meet's at eleven, but we may not get away till half-past, or even twelve—you never know.”

“And when you do get away, how long is the run?”

“That also depends on the stag. The run may be ten miles or twenty, and north, south, east or west! We ought to be back well before tea. But if you've anything special to tell me—”

“Ah! Our interesting invalid!” exclaimed Edyth Fermoy-Jones behind her. “Are you feeling better? That's one advantage of my profession—no matter how ill you are, you can always write. Unless, of course, you are unconscious. Do you know, Mr. Foss, I wrote the whole of
Steep Hill
while recovering from appendicitis.”

She shoved her generous frame forward, and Nadine, as she was displaced, gave a humorous little pout behind the authoress's shoulder.

“Well, I'll see you when I return,” said Nadine. “Look after yourself.”

“I will. Good hunting,” he called.

Miss Fermoy-Jones waited a moment or two, and when Nadine had gone she asked:

“Did you read
Steep Hill
, by any chance?”

“No, I think I missed that one,” replied John, striving to be polite against his inclination. Actually, he had missed every book Edyth Fermoy-Jones had ever written, and was none the poorer for it.

“It might have interested you,” the authoress went on. “There was a character in it almost exactly like Mrs. Leveridge. She's an interesting type—don't you think so?”

“Type?” queried John, without enthusiasm.

“We're
all
types,” she answered. “
You
are.
I
am. Oh, yes, certainly I am.” She spoke as though she were making a handsome admission. “Learn to classify people, and that's half the battle. This type reacts this way, that type reacts that way. Get your situation, group your characters around it, and if you've got a good situation, and if you understand your types—that's essential—the book practically writes itself. I remember when I began
The Crack in the Floor
. That was the title of the
novel;
it came out serially under the name of
Lovely Lady
. It's an odd thing, Mr. Foss, but no two people ever agree about titles—”