'Off with you, woman! Margot will be back by the time you've got your things on.'
Mrs. Chalmers, who had known it was hopeless all the time, consented to go.
'Now, Sheringham, what about that drink?' said Dr. Chalmers. They strolled into the other room, to the bar.
Dr. and Mrs. Mitchell decided that it was high time for them to go too, and husband and wife divided in the same directions as the Chalmers. The other dancers, realizing that the party was breaking up, drifted automatically towards the bar.
'Oh, there you are, Mike,' said Margot Stratton. 'I was looking for you. We'd better go too, I suppose.'
'Had a good party, Margot?' asked her late husband.
'A marvellous party, Ronald, thank you.'
'It's been a grand party,' Colin Nicolson chimed in. 'Have another drink before you go, Margot.'
'Well, it is getting cold out now,' Margot agreed.
Mike Armstrong said nothing.
'Wonderful, our Margot, isn't she?' Dr. Chalmers appealed to Roger. 'Getting on for three in the morning, and not a hair out of place. I believe if Margot was in a liner that sunk, she'd be found sitting on a lifebelt, perfectly powdered and waved, and looking as if she'd stepped straight out of a bandbox.'
'Thank you, Phil,' said Margot affably.
'Ha, ha,' said Mike Armstrong suddenly and blushed.
'What was that you said just now, Colin?' asked Mr. Williamson thoughtfully. 'Another drink, eh? Was that it? Well, that's not a bad idea. Eh? That isn't a bad idea at all, is it?'
'It's a magnificent idea, Osbert.'
'It is,' affirmed Mr. Williamson, much struck. 'It is a munificent idea, Colin. Mine's whiskey.'
'Oh, Osbert,' said Mrs. Williamson tentatively, 'do you really think you'd better?'
'I said, mine's a whiskey,' repeated Mr. Williamson firmly. 'Yes, and make it a double one. Thanks, Colin. Well, cheerio, Margot!'
'Cheerio, Osbert.'
'Osbert, you are awful,' said Mr. Williamson's wife and removed herself, somewhat huffily.
The women took their usual time to get their things on, delayed in this case longer than usual by the arrival of Margot Stratton in the bedroom just as they were ready to leave. At last, however, they presented themselves, cloaked and befurred, and the chorus of farewells arose.
'Well, good - night, Ronald. . . . It's been a lovely party. . . . Good - night, Mr. Sheringham... . Good - night, I'll ring you up tomorrow. . . . Perhaps you and Ronald would dine with us one night, Mrs. Lefroy? . . . Say good - night to Mrs. Williamson for me. . . . Don't forget that book you promised me, Mr. Nicolson. . . . Well, goodnight, Sheringham. . . . Good - night. . . . It's been a marvellous party, Ronald, darling. . . . Well, good - night. . . .'
At last and at last only the house party remained.
'We are seven,' said Ronald, looking round the circle of faces. 'Or should be, I think. Do we go to bed, or not? I think not. Then help yourselves to more drinks, everyone, and be merry. Seven has always struck me as absolutely the ideal number for a party.' The party complied.
'I don't want to dance any more,' announced Mr. Williamson, suddenly and weightily.
'No,' agreed Mrs. Lefroy. 'Let's turn out the lights and sit round the fire, while Mr. Sheringham tells us about his murders.'
'Oh, yes, Roger!' said Celia with enthusiasm.
'That's a good idea,' Ronald backed them up. 'In the strictest confidence, Roger, of course.'
'I really ought not,' said Roger happily.
'Oh, do, Mr. Sheringham!' begged Mrs. Lefroy.
'Come along, Roger, be a man,' added Colin Nicolson. 'It won't go any further.'
'Oh, very well,' said Roger.
Mr. Williamson went to the landing and roared like a bull.
'LILIAN!'
'Hullo?' came a faint and distant voice.
'You're wanted!'
'What for?'
'MURDER!' howled Mr. Williamson and left it at that. Certainly it brought him his Lilian, hotfoot; but then he had all the bother of explaining.
In the meantime chairs were being pulled into a semicircle round the fire which still glowed on the big open Jacobean hearth, and the party settled down to enjoy itself.
'Sheringham!' said Mr. Williamson, in a confidential tone.
'Hullo?'
'Before you begin, will you promise me one thing?'
'What?'
'That if I murder Lilian, you won't give me away. You won't, will you? Eh?'
'That,' said Roger, 'depends entirely on the amount of provocation you've had.'
'Oh, I've had plenty. You see,' said Mr. Williamson, still more confidentially, 'I can't bear her wearing my trousers.' And having delivered himself of this complaint, Mr. Williamson leaned back in his chair and instantly went to sleep.
'Carry on, Sheringham,' Ronald Stratton ordered comfortably.
Roger was clearing his throat while he wondered on which case to begin, when a voice from the doorway checked him. It was David Stratton, changed and in a lounge suit.
'Sorry to interrupt,' he said, 'but can I speak to you a minute, Ronald?'
Ronald was only out of the room for a couple of minutes before he returned with his brother.
'David says Ena doesn't seem to have gone home. He thinks she may still be here. We're just going to have a look round.'
'Magnificent!' said Nicolson, jumping up 'We'll help you.'
'Oh, it doesn't matter,' David demurred. 'Don't you bother. Ronald and I can manage.'
'Not a bit of it; of course we'll give you a hand. Come along, Osbert, you lazy devil.'
'Eh? What? What's up?'
'Hide - and - seek,' said Nicolson. 'You're seeking. Get up and do it.' Under his rousing energy the whole party was stirred into action.
Roger noticed that after a first few moments of uncertainty, everyone seemed to be taking the search as a huge joke. Even David's deprecatory air did not check the growing hilarity. No doubt it was the best way to treat the situation, and really, for David's own sake, the most tactful. It was no good going about with long faces, silently sympathizing with the unfortunate Stratton in his possession of an almost insane wife. Ena was after all a joke, if rather a bad one. Come out in the open and laugh with David, instead of weeping with him.
In twos and threes the search party worked through the various rooms. Ronald Stratton's house was Jacobean and spacious. It had belonged to the Stratton family for nearly three hundred years, almost ever since its erection as the dower house of a mansion nearly six miles away. Ronald had inherited it, but not the land and the farms which had once belonged to it, or the money to keep it up properly. He had made the latter and bought back the former.
Since it had come into his hands Ronald had spent a great deal on it. In a thoroughly dilapidated condition, it had been actually in danger of collapsing altogether. Ronald had reroofed it, re - planned it, and almost rebuilt it. The top of the three stories, where the party had been held, had been completely reorganized by him. Originally this had consisted of almost a dozen small bedrooms; Ronald had ruthlessly knocked more than half of these into one huge room, running from front to back of the house, and one other almost as big; the former, with a parquet floor added, had become the ballroom; the other, with one of its walls knocked completely out to open onto the lovely well staircase, was anything from a studio to a music room. Tonight it had done duty as a bar parlour. The rest of the top floor, served by another staircase, constituted the servants' quarters.
Ronald had been as ruthless with the roof as with the top story. He had kept only the main gables in the front of the house. The rest he had levelled and put in a concrete roof with an asphalt surface, which was just large enough for a badminton court. The game was a little windy at such a height, but Ronald played it with zest. This
