Death and the Dancing Footman

NGAIO MARSH

On the afternoon of a Thursday early in 1940, Jonathan Royal sat in his library at Highfold Manor. Although daylight was almost gone, curtains were not yet drawn across the windows, and Jonathan Royal could see the ghosts of trees moving in agitation against torn clouds and a dim sequence of fading hills. The north wind, blowing strongly across an upland known as Cloudyfold, was only partly turned by Highfold woods. It soughed about the weathered corners of the old house, and fumbled in the chimneys. A branch, heavy with snow, tapped vaguely at one of the library windows. Jonathan Royal sat motionless beside his fire. Half of his chubby face and figure flickered in and out of shadow, and when a log fell in two and set up a brighter blaze, it showed that Jonathan was faintly smiling. Presently he stirred slightly and beat his plump hands lightly upon his knees, a discreetly ecstatic gesture. A door opened, admitting a flood of yellow light, not very brilliant, and a figure that paused with its hand on the door-knob.

‘Hallo,’ said Jonathan Royal. ‘That you, Caper?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Lighting-up time?’

‘Five o’clock, sir. It’s a dark afternoon.’

‘Ah,’ said Jonathan, suddenly rubbing his hands together, ‘that’s the stuff to give the troops.’

‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

‘That’s the stuff to give the troops, Caper. An expression borrowed from a former cataclysm. I did not intend you to take it literally. It’s the stuff to give my particular little troop. You may draw the curtains.’

Caper adjusted Jonathan’s patent blackout screens and drew the curtains. Jonathan stretched out a hand and switched on a table lamp at his elbow. Fire and lamplight were now reflected in the glass doors that protected his books, in the dark surfaces of his desk, in his leather saddle-back chairs, in his own spectacles, and in the dome of his bald pate. With a quick movement he brought his hands together on his belly and began to revolve his thumbs one over the other sleekly.

‘Mr Mandrake rang up, sir, from Winton St Giles rectory. He will be here at 5.30.’

‘Good,’ said Jonathan.

‘Will you take tea now, sir, or wait for Mr Mandrake?’

‘Now. He’ll have had it. Has the mail come?’

‘Yes, sir. I was just –’

‘Well, let’s have it,’ said Jonathan eagerly. ‘Let’s have it.’