Dance to Your Daddy

'You mean that she is Romilly's wife?'

'That is a possibility, among other things.'

'What other things?'

'Let us go back to the beginning of my acquaintance with the inmates of Galliard Hall. Almost immediately I arrived there, I was given two versions of the same thing. A bevy of relatives had been invited as members of a house-party. Judith informed me that they had been invited by Rosamund. Rosamund insisted that they were Romilly's guests.'

'Well, on that, I should be prepared to accept Rosamund's version. It doesn't seem that she was in a position to invite hordes of relatives to the house.'

'I did accept her version, and I am inclined to continue to do so, but with certain mental reservations. She may not have issued the invitations, but I think she supplied the addresses.'

'So, on point number one, she wasn't lying.'

'On the second point, however, I think she was. She claimed to possess no modern clothes. She insisted that Romilly and Judith caused her to wear nothing but fancy dress so that she could not hope to escape from Galliard Hall without attracting so much attention that she would inevitably be traced and brought back. There is evidence, however, that she had a wardrobe filled with suitable attire which, for her own purposes, she declined to wear.'

'If so, she lied, and the score is one-all, but what makes you think she did lie?'

'There is the fact that I was never allowed to see Rosamund's room.'

'That was at Romilly's suggestion, though, didn't you tell me?'

'Oh, no. It was at Rosamund's own wish. Romilly merely pleaded that the room was very untidy.'

'Well, we'll keep an open mind about the clothes, then, with the balance in favour of a lie by Rosamund, but it's all very sketchy, you know.'

'I realise that. I am not trying to blacken Rosamund's character, but nothing is lost by going over the ground in a critical spirit, and it is always interesting to see what a thing looks like from another angle. Well, then came the rather odd affair of the picture which covered the squint in my bedroom wall. It was Rosamund herself who drew my attention to it.'

'Only because she said it had not been there before you came. You thought you'd been given that particular room because the squint was there, and you deduced that anybody in the adjoining room could hear what passed between Rosamund and yourself while she was having her treatment.'

'Yes, but suppose Rosamund drew my attention to the picture because she wanted me to take it down?'

'But why should she want that?'

'I have not yet made up my mind whether that is what she wanted, but there is something about which I have misled you. When I realised that a rifle-shot, fired through the squint, would have a fair chance of killing anybody lying in my bed, and when I discovered that the bed was clamped to the floor, so that its position could not be altered, I told you that I took the precaution of changing round the bedding, so that my head was out of range of a gunshot. My feet were in no danger, since I am considerably shorter than a full-length bed. Well, the disturbance I mentioned took place in my room.'

'Good Lord! You don't mean somebody did take a pop at you?' Laura looked so horrified that Dame Beatrice cackled. 'Do you know who it was?'

'No. However, I am very much obliged to you for saving my life.'

'When did I do that?'

'Well, as I said before, but for a long and fascinating study of your swashbuckling, romantic nature, I should never have envisaged the possibilities of that squint. Enough of that. Let us proceed. I realised, of course, that if Rosamund really needed psychiatric treatment, the atmosphere in a houseful of guests was the last which I would choose. I suggested to Romilly, therefore, that I should remove Rosamund to my own house and continue the treatment there. To my astonishment he consented, making no conditions and placing no obstacles in my way. I was suspicious of his attitude, I must confess. On the other hand, it hardly coincides with Rosamund's complaint that she was never allowed to leave Galliard Hall.'

'All the same, he did his best to persuade you not to take her to Swanage that first day.'

'I have thought about that, too. His concern for my safety may have been genuine.'

'But you had George with you.'

'Romilly does not know George as well as we do. Besides, a young woman who was prepared to murder me, would have no scruples about making sure that my chauffeur did not live to tell the tale. In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Against a determined gunman, even the most resourceful and courageous of the unarmed are at a serious disadvantage.'

'But she didn't have a gun?'

'Oh, yes, she had a gun, child, but then, you see, so had I. The difference was that hers was an old flint- lock pistol-part of her costume, she assured me-and mine was a modern automatic.'

'So, in the country of the one-eyed, the two-eyed man was king. Well, all I can say is that, for my own sake, I'm glad I didn't know about this at the time. All the same, you can't mean that it was Rosamund who shot at you through the squint? Why should she, anyway?-not that I'm sticking up for her, of course.'

'The bullet came from a .22 rifle, so I keep an open mind. However, I was not sorry when the time seemed ripe for me to leave Galliard Hall.'

'I should think not, indeed! Of course, Rosamund could have had the horse-pistol merely for show, or to protect herself against Romilly and Judith, I suppose, and an old horse-pistol isn't a rifle.'