The Burning Court by John Dickson Carr Read Free Book Online Page B

stalking something imaginary in the hall, sidled round Miles’s foot and into Miles’s room. Miles liked Joachim. He said something about the cat being all the company he needed; he told us to have a good time, and, closed the door. So we all went to dress.”
    Stevens threw in a question with apparent irrelevance. “I think you told me,” he suggested, “that Lucy went to this party dressed as Madame de Montespan?”
    “Yes. That is… officially she did,” replied Mark, and seemed (for some reason) startled for the first time. He eyed Stevens. “Edith—I don’t know what had got into her head—insisted it should be Madame de Montespan. Maybe she had an idea it would be more respectable.” He grinned crookedly. “Actually, her dress (Lucy made it herself) was an exact copy of one in a full-length portrait in the gallery. It’s a portrait of a lady contemporary with Montespan, anyhow: though who it may be is still dubious. Most of the face and part of the shoulder have been defaced with some sort of acid, apparently very many years ago. I remember my grandfather once told me somebody had tried to have it restored; but it was impossible to do it. Anyhow, it appears to be a genuine Kneller, which is why they keep it, though it looks like nothing on earth. It’s supposed to be a picture of a certain Marquise de Brinvilliers. … What the devil’s the matter with you, Ted?” he demanded, with a fretful jump, as though his nerves were wearing thin.
    “I need food, I suppose,” Stevens said, casually. “All right. Keep on going. You mean the seventeenth-century French poisoner? How do you happen to have a picture of her?”
    Partington muttered to himself. He leaned out, with his usual laborious movements, and this time was not backward about pouring himself more whisky.
    “If I remember,” said Partington, looking up, “there’s some traditional connection, isn’t there? Or she was associated with some one in your family back in the very misty past?”
    Mark was impatient. “Yes. Didn’t I tell you our name’s been changed and Anglicized? It used to be spelled Desprez, and it was French. But never mind madame la marquise. I was only telling you that Lucy copied the costume in the picture, and made it herself in three days.
    “We left the house about nine-thirty. Lucy was in her finery, Edith in her Florence Nightingale hoopskirts, and I in some contraption which the man at the costumer’s in town confidently declared to be ‘cavalier.’ It was surprisingly comfortable, considering the look of it; and, anyway, who can resist wearing a sword when you get the chance? Down we went to the car, with Ogden standing on the porch under the roof light and making riotous comments. Just as we turned down the drive, we passed Henderson in the Ford, coming back from the station with Mrs. H.
    “The dance wasn’t a great success. For a masquerade, it was a tame and much-too-sober affair. I was frankly bored stiff, and spent most of the time sitting round, while Lucy did the dancing. We left at a little past two o’clock. It was a fine night, with a moon, and I felt cool and comfortable for the first time in hours. Edith had torn her lace trousers, or whatever they call those things under the hoopskirts, and she was inclined to be pettish; but Lucy sang all the way home. The house seemed to be all dark. When I ran the car in the garage, the Ford was there, but Ogden’s Buick hadn’t come in yet. I gave the key of the front door to Lucy, and she ran on ahead to open it, with Edith. I stood out in the drive and just breathed. That’s my domain, and I like it.
    “Then Edith called out from the porch. I went round, up the steps and into the hall. Lucy was standing with one hand on the light switch, half looking up at the ceiling, and she was frightened.
    “She said to me: ‘There was some sort of horrible noise. There was! I heard it just a second ago.’
    “That hall is very old, and sometimes it gives you