much doubt that his eyes are wild, although I admit I can’t see them from here. However, I
‘Are your Dobermanns loose? I see that there is a dog in the back of that car. Your pets may not like to have another animal on their territory.’
‘George has taken them out for a run in the forest. He’ll have them belted up and under control as soon as he reaches the outskirts of the village. Anyway, they wouldn’t attack anybody unless the situation looked threatening. This visitor is putting on quite a bit of an act, though. I think I had better loiter in the vicinity, as it were, when he’s shown in. He now looks to me less like what I said than something out of the mad-house scene in
‘As Lady Boxe said of the Provincial Lady, you are always so well informed,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘All very well to laugh. I feel in my bones that this one spells trouble,’ said Laura. Dame Beatrice looked thoughtful. She respected Laura’s almost uncanny knowledge of what the future might hold and the behaviour of the man in the car had certainly been of a kind to cause remark. It would not be the first time that an ill-wisher had attempted to pass himself off as a patient for psychiatric treatment.
The car was lost to sight as it took the curve which led to the front door but not before both watchers had confirmed their impression that not only was there a dog on the back seat, but that beside the man whose strange gestures had caused Laura so much misgiving was the older of the Rant sisters, who was driving. Of the younger sister there was no sign. It was the first time Dame Beatrice and Laura had not seen them together.
‘I’ll tell you another thing,’ said Laura before she slipped out into the hall. ‘I think the Rants are taking big chances by naming those hounds of theirs after the gods and goddesses of Ancient Egypt. That can’t bring them anything but bad luck. What is worse, they have even given that Labrador bitch of theirs the name of the goddess of Sekhmet, so that she shan’t feel at a disadvantage compared with the hounds. Goodness knows, I’m pretty soft in the head myself where dogs and horses are concerned, but I call that maudlin, don’t you? — besides being so utterly unsuitable.’
Before Dame Beatrice could answer, the front-door bell pealed and pealed throughout the fine old house.
‘Here we go!’ said Laura. She crossed to the door, opened and closed it quietly, and walked down the hall away from the front door, which one of the maids was preparing to open.
2
Eccentric Patient
« ^ »
Out in the hall, but hidden in the shadow cast by the staircase, Laura listened to the exchanges between the caller and the maid.
‘Good afternoon, sir. Are you expected?’ This was the formula which Laura had impressed upon the servants that they were to use unless they knew and recognised the caller. Dame Beatrice’s incursions into cases of murder were ever in Laura’s mind, and precautions, in her watch-dog opinion, were always necessary and had more than once been justified.
The caller, who had removed his hat, although he had not yet crossed the threshold, flourished the headgear and then held it over his heart in the way male Olympic athletes do in salute when they pass in the opening procession in front of the seats of honour. He said, handing her the hat, and stepping inside, ‘The honourable lady of the house, which is she?’
‘I expect you mean Dame Beatrice, sir. Shall I take your stick?’
‘No, no, not Beatrice. Wrong play, wrong play! The lady of the house was called Olivia.’ He gave the maid his hat, but retained the stick.
‘There’s no one of that name here, sir.’
‘Why, then, I pray you, sweet creature,’ he said, ‘tell me your own name, that in my orisons it may be remembered.’
‘My name is Polly, sir.’
‘Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell
Why thy canoniz’d bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urned,
Have oped his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast thee up again.’
‘What name shall I say, sir?’
Instead of answering, the visitor began to carol. He had a resonant, not unpleasing voice. He sang, “O, pretty, pretty, pretty Poll! Without disguise, breathing sighs, doting eyes, my constant heart discover.” ’
Laura decided that it was high time she came forward.
‘All right, Polly,’ she said. She then addressed the visitor. ‘Name, please.’
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings, but, in this unenlightened day and age, my contemporaries call me Robin Goodfellow.’
‘
‘You jump to erroneous conclusions. My paternal name is Goodfellow. A misguided mother insisted on having me named Robin.’
