Thirteen Guests Read online

  “Then—would you take me— ?” began the young man, and paused.

  “Yes? Where?” inquired Nadine.

  Obviously, even a man who fell out of a train had some destination beyond the platform. For the sake of the adventure she had delayed referring to it.

  “Not sure,” said the young man, and the reply pleased Nadine. The autumn sun was in a very generous mood, and she had no wish to end the adventure. “Isn’t there an inn somewhere?”

  Nadine turned to the chauffeur, who was still awaiting instructions.

  “Bragley Court, Arthur,” she said, “and don’t worry about speed limits.”

  There was always something vaguely personal in her use of the word “Arthur.” It implied no social unbending on her part, and permitted no familiarity on his, but it recognised his existence; almost, his male existence. Now it added two miles to the speedometer.

  “Bragley Court doesn’t sound like an inn,” commented the young man wearily. He found he couldn’t fight.

  “It certainly isn’t an inn,” answered Nadine. “The only two inns within reasonable distance—as far as I know—are the Black Stag and the Cricketers’ Arms. The Black Stag is by the station. No stag has ever been known there, although I think there is a rumour that years ago one hid behind the bar, but there’s plenty of blackness. It comes from the tunnel. I believe the inn puts up one traveller a year, and never the same traveller. The Cricketers’ Arms is much more lively. That’s why it is even less desirable. All sorts of company. And I’m told the bed, like Venice, is built round seven lumps. I really think, if you went to the Cricketers’ Arms, you might die of it.”

  He did his best to smile. Watching him closely, she assured him the smile was not necessary.

  “You’re quite understanding,” he said suddenly.

  “I know you’re in pain,” she replied. She had to restrain an impish desire to give him a more personal answer. “I was thrown once, and couldn’t listen to a funny story for a week. Does my prattle worry you?”

  “No, please go on.”

  “I don’t know if there’s anything to go on about. Oh, yes—Bragley Court. We are racing there to catch the doctor before he leaves one patient to go on to another, that’s all.” She laughed. “You are to be sandwiched between old age and youth—an old lady of over seventy, and a baby minus two hours.”

  It was true her prattling did not worry him. It helped him wonderfully, for there was a vital quality behind its levity that forced some part of his attention, diverting it from his pain. But he did not quite know how to handle it.

  “I hope the old lady is not very ill?” he said rather conventionally.

  “She is very ill,” returned Nadine. “She does jig-saws, and is a lesson to everybody. That is, if anybody ever is a lesson to anybody else, which I doubt. I’ve only known two people in my life who could make me feel a pig. She’s one of them.”

  “I know what it is,” thought the young man. “She’s so confoundedly natural!” Aloud he asked, “Your mother?”

  “It would have been politer to have asked if she were my grandmother! I forgive you. She’s neither. She is our—my hostess’s mother. Bragley Court is the place of the Avelings, you know. Or don’t you know?”

  “What! Lord Aveling?” She nodded. “I say—do you think you’d better take me there?”

  “Why not? Are you Labour?”

  He did not reply at once. He was frowning. In the distance the dogs were barking again. A bird, too fat to emigrate, sent a note of shrill sweetness from a bough. “I have just eaten a worm,” sang the bird. It was happy. The snow was a long way off.

  “I don’t know whether you realise what I’m realising,” said the young man seriously, “but I may have to stay a bit where you set me down.”

  “That’s exactly why—since you’ve given me no other address—I’m taking you to Bragley Court. I’ve already implied that if I took you to either of the local inns here I might be had up for murder.”

  “But—”

  “Do you think, if you tried terribly hard, you could stop worrying? If we catch the doctor, let him decide.”

  “And if we don’t?”

  “Then Lord Aveling can decide. And I know his decision in advance, or I wouldn’t risk inviting it.”

  “I’m not too sure of that,” said the young man. “You do take risks.”

  “Do I?”

  “You’ve risked—me!”

  “So I have!”

  “What makes you think Lord Aveling won’t kick against having a stranger lumped upon him, even temporarily?”

  “Three things, my dear man. Is that too familiar? One, Lord Aveling. Conservatives with ambition are splendid hosts. Two, myself. I’ve an instinct—and Lord Aveling likes me, and knows I’d never let him down. Three—isn’t that an old school tie?”

  This time he laughed.

  “Satisfied?” she laughed back.

  “Sounds pretty good,” he admitted.

  “Thank God for that,” sighed Nadine. “Because here we are, and there’s no turning back now. By the way, what’s your name?”

  Chapter II

  Inventory

  Half an hour later John Foss, bandaged and stretched out on a rose-coloured settee, reviewed his position.

  He had been received at Bragley Court with the utmost ease and courtesy. Indeed, when he realised the vastness of the space in which Lord and Lady Aveling moved, he became a little less anxious over the dislocation he would cause. His advent at the Black Stag or the Cricketers’ Arms might have created a flutter, but Bragley Court gave no outward sign of vulgar emotion. The indoor and outdoor staff numbered twenty-six, and each member had been trained to meet any situation or emergency with smoothness and efficiency. Emotionally there was no difference between passing a toast-rack and conveying a stranger with a crocked ankle from a car to a couch.

  Nevertheless, he was conscious that something more important than efficient service had dealt with his arrival and had sanctioned it. He might have been treated courteously as a necessary evil—his sensitive mind would quickly have fathomed that—but instead Lord Aveling had appeared in person while the doctor did unpleasant things to his leg, and had even half-humorously held the end of a bandage for the doctor, thereby proving (as Nadine pointed out later) that he, also, could be influenced by an old school tie.

  Then, when the doctor had concluded his task, and had impressed on an elderly woman hovering in the background the necessity of frequent applications of surgical spirit, Lord Aveling had insisted that it would be wise for him to remain on the settee a while longer.

  “You won’t be in the way here,” he said. “We can move you to your room later.”

  “He will have to be moved very carefully,” commented the doctor.

  “Why move him at all?” suggested Nadine. “Why not move the couch? When I missed my fence two years ago, I was rolled for the night into the ante-room.”

  “Excellent idea,” agreed Lord Aveling. “Some time after tea.”

  “Yes, when the poor man gets tired of being looked at,” smiled Nadine.

  Lord Aveling had departed amiably. “The right sort,” ran his thoughts. “Good family, obviously. Interesting. Not many youngsters this week-end. Bultin coming down by next train. Make good paragraph. Yes, Bultin will use it. Another example of Aveling hospitality. Followed by list of guests. Wonder if this was the right week-end for Zena Wilding? And the Chaters? Still, of course, I had to have the Chaters.…Pity this young chap makes the thirteenth.…”

  But welcome alone did not reign in the spacious lounge-hall that glowed in the late afternoon sunshine and flickered in the light of an enormous log-fire. Something brooded as well. The shadows seemed to contain uneasy secrets, and none of the people John had so far met reflected complete mental ease. Lady Aveling, when she had momentarily deserted a
card-table in the drawing-room for a kindly peep at the casualty, had appeared nervously anxious to get back again. Two guests—a thin, angular, cynical man in a black velvet coat and large artist’s tie, and a short, stout, grey-haired man of the retired-pork-butcher-and-made-a-damn-lot-out-of-it type (he had made a cool hundred thousand out of it, which alone explained his presence here)—struck a vaguely jarring note when they passed through the hall together. The elderly woman deputed to apply surgical spirit at intervals had been grim. A pretty maid on her way up the carved staircase with a tray had been flushed. A butler had followed her to the stairs, and then turned round and vanished.

  “Something’s wrong,” reflected John. “What is it?”

  He wondered whether the two new people who were just entering the hall would continue the impression.

  They were a man and a girl in riding kit, and they bore the dust and atmosphere of hard going. The girl’s cheeks were tingling from her ride, and she instinctively brushed her hand across her forehead as she entered, as though to sweep away the sudden fuggy warmth of the blazing logs. She was beautiful, in a slim boyish way, and although she looked well in her dark green riding habit, a stranger longed instinctively to see her in more definitely feminine attire. It was odd that a certain hardness around her mouth, a hardness held there by the set of her lips, did not detract from her beauty. Possibly because one could not quite believe it.

  The man, large and well-built, reminded you pleasantly of cricket, which in fact he played.

  “Half-past four,” said the girl, glancing at a clock on her way to the wide staircase.

  “Does that mean tea in your room?” inquired the man, pausing to light a cigarette.

  “No, I’ll be down,” she replied. “But the bath comes first. These things are sticking to me.”

  The settee on which John lay was fitted into a shadowed angle of the wall. The sun was slipping down behind a distant wood, preluding quick gloaming, and a servant entered the lounge-hall and switched on lights. The girl at the foot of the staircase turned her head and saw the patient.

  John endured an awkward moment. It occurred to him that perhaps, after all, the routine of Bragley Court had its little flaws. It should have protected him against the necessity of explaining himself. Yet it was unreasonable to expect some one to be in perpetual attendance on him, and even Lord Aveling’s generously-planned staff did not run to a Cook’s guide. So, after enduring the girl’s curious scrutiny for a moment or two, he remarked bluntly:

  “I’ve had an accident, and Lord Aveling’s been good enough to give me temporary shelter.”

  “Bad luck,” said the man. “Not riding, was it?”

  “No—a prosaic train. I jumped out while it was moving, and it tried to take my foot on to the next station.”

  The man smiled, and held out his case.

  “Have one?” he invited. “We smoke anywhere. Reassure him, Anne.”

  The girl advanced with a little nod.

  “Of course—quite in order,” she said. “I am Lord Aveling’s daughter. And this is Mr. Harold Taverley.”

  “Thanks awfully,” answered John. The momentary awkwardness created by these two had vanished very quickly. “It does help knowing! Mine’s John Foss. And my whole object in life just now is not to be a confounded nuisance. Please don’t delay that bath.”

  Anne laughed. Her mouth lost its hardness. She turned and ran upstairs. But her companion lingered.

  “Don’t you feel sticky?” asked John.

  “Oh, I’ve got a few minutes,” replied Taverley. He had a clear, full voice, but rarely raised it. The retired Pork King could only make his carry when he shouted. “I suppose there’s nothing I can do?”

  “Well—yes, there is,” said John impulsively. This was the kind of fellow you could talk to. “I’d like to know something about the people here. One feels such a fool, you know. Rather like a monkey in a zoo.”

  “I know,” smiled Taverley. “That is, if monkeys really do feel like that.” He squatted on a stool. “I suppose you’ll be staying a bit?”

  “There’s been some talk of rolling me into an ante-room for the night. Everybody’s frightfully decent.”

  “The ante-room? That’s where—” He paused. “Well, let’s run over the inventory. Who’ve you seen so far?”

  “Lord Aveling.”

  “He’s easy. Fifth baron. Hopes to be first marquis or earl. Conservative. I hope politics don’t make you feel suicidal?”

  “One has to bear them; but I’m not particularly interested.”

  “Just as well. You’ll be able to keep out of arguments. Have you seen Lady Aveling?” John nodded. “She needn’t worry you. She follows her husband’s lead. The daughter you’ve just met. The Honourable Anne. Keen on horses. Hunting people here, you know. And golfing. Private course. Anne can drive two hundred.”

  “I like her,” said John.

  “She’s O.K.” Taverley paused for an instant, then added: “She liked you.”

  “You made up your mind quickly!”

  “So did she about that. So did you. Well, let’s finish the family. There’s only one more.”

  “The son?”

  “No. That’s the disappointment. Lady Aveling’s mother. Mrs. Morris. You’re not the only invalid in the house. But you won’t see Mrs. Morris—she sticks to her room!”

  At that moment Mrs. Morris was lying two floors above, propped up on pillows, in an ecstasy of joy. She was almost free from grinding pain. The world was very good.…

  “Fine old lady,” said Taverley. “Example to the lot of us. Right. Now for the guests. Who have you seen of those?”

  “A lady brought me here.”

  “Rather large and stout? Impressive glasses?”

  “My God, no!”

  “Would ‘distracting’ be the adjective?”

  “I can’t think of a better,” agreed John, fighting an annoying moment of self-consciousness.

  “That sounds like Nadine Leveridge. I heard she was coming on the 3.28. Was that your train? The one that tried to pull you to bits?”

  “Yes. And Leveridge was the name.”

  “Our attractive widow. Susceptible people need to keep out of her way. She can break hearts while she passes.”

  “That almost sounds like advice,” said John.

  “Well, if it is, it’s good advice,” parried Taverley unrepentantly. “That kind of woman can put a man through hell. Make pulp of his will-power. And—what’s the use?”

  “I see you don’t like her.”

  “You’re wrong, Foss. I like her immensely. What’s a woman to do with her beauty? Scrap it? One sticks to oneself. I like her, and I liked her husband. He and I played cricket together. He used to tell me that the only moment he could forget Nadine was when he brought off a leg-glide. There’s something about a leg-glide. Then only he got perfect peace. After he’d passed through a particularly difficult time you could always bowl Leveridge l.b.w.—he would try for that leg-glide. Even with the ball on the off-stump.”

  “Did they quarrel, then?” asked John.

  “Like hell,” answered Taverley. “And loved like hell. The person who next marries Nadine will know all there is to know. Well, that’s Number One of the guests. Seen any more?”

  “Yourself.”

  “Sussex. Batting average, 41.66. We won’t talk about the bowling average. Lord Aveling loves a show, and I’m part of it.” He laughed, then frowned at himself. “Don’t get a wrong impression of our host. He’s all right.”

  “It seems to me you think everybody’s all right.”

  “So they are, if we dig down far enough. But you’ll need to hold on to your faith this week-end—you’ll bump into some odd people.”

  “Here come the only others I’ve bumped into,” said John, as the front door opened abruptly and the velvet-
coated man and the retired merchant came in. A draught of keen air came in with them.

  “Brrh!” exclaimed the retired merchant, rubbing his hands together. “Shut the door, quick!”

  “Mistake to admit you’re cold in company,” commented the velvet-coated man. “It stamps you with a hot water-bottle.”

  “Well, I love my hot water-bottle, and I don’t care a damn who knows it!”

  “You’ll lose respect. Life, being itself hot, only sympathises with a poor circulation.”

  “Oh, does it? Well, blood ain’t the only thing that circulates!” The retired merchant tapped his pocket and laughed. “Life respects that! Besides, where’s your company, anyhow?” Then he became conscious of it. “Ah, Taverley! We’ve just been across to the studio. It’s going to be a masterpiece. How’s the patient? How’s it go?”

  “First rate, thanks,” answered John. “I shan’t be on your hands long.”

  “Glad to hear it. I mean, glad you’re feeling better. Nasty things, these twisted ankles. I bunged mine up once playing draughts. Ha, ha! Well, come along, Pratt, or we’ll have no tea.”

  He strode to the stairs and disappeared, but Pratt paused for a moment before following.

  “Described us yet?” he inquired.

  “No. You’re next on the list,” smiled Taverley. “So you’d better hurry!”

  Pratt smiled back and left them, with just enough speed to indicate that he could respond to a jest without losing his dignity. John grinned.

  “Leicester Pratt?” he asked. Taverley nodded. “Rather the rage just now, isn’t he?”

  “Very much so. That’s why he’s here. Women flock to him to be painted, and Pratt ruthlessly reveals their poor little souls. Queer, isn’t it, how some people will strip themselves for notoriety—and not know they’re doing it?”

  “I saw one of Pratt’s pictures last May. I thought it was clever, but—well—”

  “Horrible?”

  “Struck me that way. What’s this latest masterpiece? Is he painting anybody here?”