that it would be pleasant to be able to abandon geysers and gas-rings for a cook who must not be kept waiting, and for constant hot water. In fifteen minutes he was dressed, and as he left the room could hear Wilde still splashing in the bath next door.
Nigel ran blithely downstairs, hoping that Miss Angela North had also gone down early. A door across the hall to the right of the stairs was standing open. The room beyond being brilliantly lit, he walked in and found himself alone in a big, green-panelled salon that meandered away into an L-shaped alcove, beyond which was another smaller room. This proved to be a sort of library and gun-room combined. It smelt delectably of leather bindings, gun-oil, and cigars. A bright fire was burning on the open hearth, and the gleaming barrels of Sir Hubert’s sporting armoury spoke to Nigel of all the adventures he had longed for and never been able to afford.
He was gazing enviously at a Männlicher eight when he suddenly became aware of voices in the drawing-room behind him.
It was Mrs Wilde who was speaking, and Nigel, horrified, realized that she and her companion had come in after him, had been there for some minutes, and that he had got himself into the odious position of an unwilling eavesdropper, and finally that, distasteful as this was to him, it was too late for him to announce his presence.
Hideously uncomfortable, and completely at a loss, he stood and perforce heard.
‘…so I say you’ve no right to order me down like this,’ she was saying in a rapid undertone. ‘You treat me as if I were completely at your beck and call.’
‘Well…don’t you rather enjoy 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
