Death and the Dancing Footman by Ngaio Marsh Page A

Lisse saying that she would watch from her bedroom window. Mandrake tried to get up a party to play Badminton in the barn, but nobody really listened to him. An atmosphere of bathos hung over them like a pall and through it William remained complacent and Nicholas embarrassingly flamboyant.
    Finally, it was resolved by the Complines that Nicholas should go down to the pavilion, change there into a bathing suit and, as William put it, go off at the shallow end. William was to watch the performance and Nicholas, rather offensively, insisted upon a second witness. Neither Hersey nor Chloris seemed able to make up her mind whether she would go down to the pool. Jonathan had gone out saying something about Dr. Hart. It appeared that Mandrake would be obliged to witness Nicholas’ ridiculous antics and, muttering to himself, he followed him into the hall.
    The rest of the party had disappeared. Nicholas stood brushing up his moustache and eying Mandrake with an air half mischievous, half defiant. “Well,” he said, “this is a pretty damn-fool sort of caper, isn’t it?”
    “To be frank,” said Mandrake, “I think it is. It’s snowing like hell again. Don’t you rather feel the bet’s fallen flat?”
    “I’ll be damned if I let Bill take that tenner off me. Are you coming?”
    “I’ll go up and get my coat,” said Mandrake unwillingly.
    “Take one out of the cloak-room here. I’m going to. The Tyrolese cape.”
    “Jonathan’s?
    “Or Hart’s!” Nicholas grinned. “Hart’s mantle may as well fall across my shoulders, what? I’ll go down now and change in that bloody pavilion. You follow. Bill’s running down from the west door when he’s given me time to undress.”
    Nicholas went into the cloak-room and reappeared wearing one Tyrolese cape and carrying another. “Here you are,” he said, throwing it at Mandrake. “Don’t be long.”
    He pulled the hood of his cape over his head and went out through the front doors. For a moment Mandrake saw him, a fantastic figure caught in a flurry of snow. Then Nicholas lowered his head to the wind and ran out of sight.
    Mandrake’s club-foot prevented him from running. It was some distance from the front of the house to the pool and he remembered that the west door opened directly on a path that led to the terrace above the pool. He decided that, like William, he would go down that way. He would go at once, before William started. He loathed people to check their steps to his painful limp. Imitating Nicholas, he pulled the hood of the second cape over his head and made his way along a side passage to the west door and, as he opened it, heard somebody call after him from the house. He ignored the call and, filled with disgust at the whole situation, slammed the door behind him and limped out into the storm.
    The north wind drove against him, flattening the cloak against his right side and billowing it out on his left. He felt snow on his eyelids and lips and pulled the hood further over his brows so that he could see only the ground before him. As he limped forward, snow squeaked under his steps. It closed over his sound foot above the rim of his shoe. The path was still defined and he followed it to the edge of the terrace. Below him lay the pool and the pavilion. The water was a black hole in a white field but the pavilion resembled a light-hearted decoration, so well did the snow become it. Mandrake was tempted to watch from the terrace but the wind was so violent there that he changed his mind and crept awkwardly down the long flight of steps, thinking to himself that it would be just like this party if he slipped and broke his good leg. At last he reached the rounded embankment that curved sharply above the pool, hiding the surface of the water from anybody who did not climb its steps. Mandrake reached the top of this bank with difficulty and descended the far side to the paved kerb, now covered in snow. He glanced at the pavilion and saw Nicholas wave from one