A bright, crooked glance zig-zagged from one to the other of the group which faced him. This group was, in point of fact, a half circle fanning out from where Mr. Masterman leaned against the mantelpiece. Leonard Carroll stood in the open side of the half circle and let his malicious glance run to and fro, flicking over the hands with which Miss Masterman held up her newspaper screen, over the congested face of Mr. Tote, who had dropped the Times across his knees, over Miss Silver and her knitting, over Mrs. Tote with her reddened eyelids, past Mr. Masterman’s frown, to where Justin Leigh was leaning back with an abstracted air between a girl who had flushed and a girl who was pale.
Dorinda looked sideways and saw that Justin was angry. When he looked like that it meant that he was very angry indeed. It meant that he was holding himself in. The foolish, useless wish came into her mind that the evening might be over and everyone safe in bed. And all this just a dream to wake up from next day, and say, “How silly!” and say, “It doesn’t matter how silly it is, as long as it isn’t true.”
Leonard Carroll’s flickering glance came home again. He repeated his last words in a meditative tone.
“A damned good view. Leigh was so very quick, wasn’t he? He may have been a thought too quick for someone. It’s just possible-well, isn’t it? And Leonard Carroll on that third step from the top of the stairs would have such a damned good view. If there was anything to see, he could hardly have missed it-well, could he?”
Mr. Tote lifted his heavy bulk, flinging round in the padded chair to fix small angry eyes upon Carroll’s face. It was a look which might have given some men pause.
“What’s all this hinting? Why don’t you come and sit down and behave yourself? If you’ve got anything to say, why don’t you say it and have done? And if you haven’t, what’s the good of hinting that you have?”
Carroll laughed.
“Oh, you mustn’t be too hard on my poor entertainment. A little mystery-a little conjecture-a sprinkle of what you call hints-I’m afraid we can’t do without them. For instance, take your own case. I’m not saying what I saw, or what I didn’t see, but-now who was it was telling me you threw a pretty dart?… Oh, yes-it was your wife.”
Mr. Tote’s neck became quite alarmingly red.
“What’s that to you?”
Carroll’s lips twisted in a smile.
“To me? Oh, nothing. To Gregory Porlock perhaps a great deal. That dagger could have been thrown-well, I mean, couldn’t it? And I’m still not saying what I saw or didn’t see from my balcony stall.”
“Look here-” Mr. Tote’s voice choked with fury on the second word.
Miss Silver glanced brightly across her clicking needles and said,
“Dear me-how extremely interesting! Such an original entertainment! But quite impersonal of course-is it not, Mr. Carroll?”
He returned her look with one of light contempt. It changed to sparkling malice as he shifted it to Geoffrey Masterman.
“How very fortunate to have a balcony stall-isn’t it? So pleasantly removed from the struggling herd in the pit. You know, that light really did come on a bit sooner than it was meant to-just a bit sooner. Just a bit too soon for somebody.” His glance moved on, touching Dorinda, passing Justin, settling on Moira Lane. “Odd how you see things when the lights come on suddenly like that. Extraordinary sharp and clear. Pitch dark one minute, and then biff-everything hits you in the eye. Quite an odd experience, and-yes, that’s the word-unforgettable. Quite, quite unforgettable.” He walked over to the tray and set down his coffee-cup. “And now, as you are all so pressing, I will entertain you upon the piano. Our lamented Gregory having engaged me for that purpose, I imagine that I shall have a claim upon his estate for my fee.”
There certainly was a slight drag in his step as he walked over to the grand piano and opened it. The silence which had followed what might be called the first part of his entertainment persisted. Nobody moved, nobody spoke. More than one person must have been thinking furiously.
Carroll had a charming touch on the piano. A few chords came into the silence, followed by a light malicious voice in the words and the tune of an old nursery rhyme:
“Who killed Cock Robin?
I said the Sparrow,
With my bow and arrow,
I killed Cock Robin.”
Chapter XXX
Before ten o’clock the party had separated for the night. An evening of profound discomfort was now something to look back upon with feelings of interest, doubt, suspicion, uncertainty, fear, or derisive amusement. Whichever of these feelings predominated in Mr. and Mrs. Tote, Mr. Carroll, Mr. and Miss Masterman, Moira Lane, Dorinda, and Justin, there is no doubt that Miss Silver had been very much interested. She had been in her room for some twenty minutes, but she had not so much as unfastened her bog-oak brooch, when a light tap sounded on her door. Opening it, she beheld Pearson, with an air of meek mystery and a finger at his lips.
Emerging, Miss Silver looked the enquiry she forbore to speak, and was beckoned farther along the passage. They passed Dorinda’s room on the right, and that occupied by Miss Masterman on the left, descended three of those unreasonable and quite dangerous steps so frequent in old houses, turned the corner, and came into an irregularly shaped room where an overhead light shone down upon bookshelves, a large globe on a mahogany stand, a battered upright piano, and what had obviously been a schoolroom table. Hovering midway between the butler and the fellow detective, Pearson hoped that Miss Silver didn’t mind his disturbing her-“but I thought you ought to know.”
“Certainly, Mr. Pearson. What is it?”
“You don’t find it cold here?”
Since she had not removed that old and well-tried friend her black velvet coatee, Miss Silver was able to reply,
“Not in the least. Pray tell me what has happened.”
It must be admitted that Pearson had been feeling a little out of it. Not that he wanted to be involved in a murder case-very far from it. But to be, as it were, unavoidably in the midst of one, and yet not to know what was going on was bound to put a strain on him. He had rather leapt at the first opportunity of relieving this strain. He was now hoping that his leap was not going to be considered precipitate. Like so many well-meaning people, he was given to doubts when they could no longer serve any useful purpose. Miss Silver was an unknown quantity. Her manner was gracious, but from a certain distance, and without quite knowing why, it daunted him; She saw his eyes shift like those of a nervous horse.
Quite unexpectedly she smiled. It was the smile with which in her distant governessing days it had been her wont to encourage a diffident or backward pupil. It encouraged Pearson to the point of speech.
“Seeing Mr. Carroll go into the study and shut the door, it came into my mind in what I might call rather a forcible manner that possibly it was his intention to use the telephone, and if such was the case, I thought it might be a good thing, as it were, if I was to-” He stuck, and Miss Silver helped him out.
“To listen in on the pantry extension?”
“Yes, Miss Silver. And when I heard the number-”
“You recognized it?”
“It was the Mill House number, and he asked straight away for Mrs. Oakley. Well, of course that was no go, because she never comes to the telephone, not if it was ever so. But he got Mr. Oakley, and directly he started in I could see he was going to be nasty. It’s my opinion he’d had a good bit more to drink than he could carry, as I dare say you may have noticed yourself when he came into the drawing-room. Not to say drunk, he wasn’t, but pretty far on with feeling he was cock of the walk, and not minding whether he got across anyone else or not.”