‘Not a bit,’ murmured Nigel.
‘Zis knife,’ continued Doctor Tokareff, ‘is sacred…how you say?…symbol of one society…very ancient. To make presentation…’ his voice rasped suddenly, ‘was not orthodox. Therefore to personage, however noble, outside of bratsvo or brotherhood, to have zis knife is unenviable.’
Vassily surprisingly uttered a short rumbling phrase in Russian.
‘This peasant agrees wis me,’ said Doctor Tokareff.
‘You may go, Vassily,’ said Sir Hubert.
‘Dressing-gong should have gone a long time ago,’ said Vassily, and hurried away.
‘Help!’ exclaimed Angela, ‘it’s eight o’clock! Dinner in half an hour! Hurry, everybody.’
‘Are we all in our usual rooms?’ asked Mrs Wilde.
‘Yes…oh, wait a minute…Mr Bathgate doesn’t know. Do show him, Arthur. He’s in the little Welsh room and will share your bath, my angel. Don’t be late, will you, or Uncle Hubert’s cook will give notice.’
‘Which heaven forbid!’ said Rankin fervently. ‘One more…a very little one…and I’m gone.’
He poured himself out a half portion of Vassily’s cocktail, and without consulting her filled Mrs Wilde’s glass again.
‘Charles, you’ll make me drunk,’ she announced. Why does a certain type of young woman think this remark unfailingly funny? ‘Don’t wait for me, Arthur. I shall have Angela’s bathroom when she’s out of it.’
Angela and Sir Hubert had already gone. Doctor Tokareff was halfway upstairs. Arthur Wilde turned his spectacles on Nigel.
‘Are you coming?’
‘Yes, rather.’
Nigel followed him up the shallow staircase to a dimly lit landing.
‘This is our room,’ explained Wilde, pointing to the first door on the left. ‘The next little room I use as a dressing-room.’ He opened a door farther along. ‘Here you are…the bathroom is between us.’
Nigel found himself in a charming little oak room furnished austerely with one or two heavy old Welsh pieces. In the left wall was a door.
‘This leads into our joint bathroom,’ said Wilde, opening it. ‘My dressing-room communicates too, you see. You go first with the bath.’
‘What a jolly house it is!’
‘Yes, it is extraordinarily right in every way. One grows very attached to Frantock. I expect you will find that.’
‘Oh,’ said the diffident Nigel. ‘I don’t know…this is my first visit…I may not come again.’
Wilde smiled pleasantly.
‘I’m sure you will. Handesley never asks anybody unless he is sure he will want them again. I must go and help my wife find all the things she thinks her maid has forgotten. Sing out when you’ve finished with the bath.’
He went out through the farther door of the bathroom, and Nigel heard him humming to himself in a thin, cheerful tenor.
Finding that his very battered suitcase had already been unpacked, Nigel lost no time in bathing, shaving, and dressing. He thought of his rather grim little flatette in Ebury Street, and reflected 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