Watson's Choice by Gladys Mitchell Read Free Book Online Page B

her list. ‘Only one more to find.’ She glanced round the rest of the room so that she did not miss anything, and was very glad she had lingered. Among a collection of cutlery – for the buffet supper was a substantial one – was a small knife which had never been intended for use at table. Laura picked it up, put it down hastily as someone else entered the room, and wrote:
    John Straker’s surgical knife. Silver Blaze .
    ‘Score – ten!’ she thought. Then an uneasy touch of suspicion crossed her mind, for among the food with which the table was so generously laden was a partly-consumed plate of curry. ‘Oh, Lord!’ she said aloud. ‘I was wrong! It isn’t the laudanum bottle. This is the thing.’ She crossed out the reference to the laudanum, and added at the bottom of her list:
    Stable-lad Hunter’s opium-drugged curry. Silver Blaze .
    ‘And yet, I don’t know,’ she thought. ‘It would be better not to have two items from the same story. And yet, again, isn’t it a rather subtle idea, in a way? People would be so bucked about identifying Straker’s scalpel that they wouldn’t think of another Silver Blaze clue.’
    At this moment the room was filled with the sound of the gong which Sir Bohun himself was beating just outside the door. Laura went out immediately, and from various parts of the house came the guests and employees, Charles Mildren the only absentee. Sir Bohun took them all into the ballroom and collected their lists. These he handed over to Bell, who disappeared with them.
    ‘Gone to do his homework,’ said Toby Dance, who, although by no means as drunken as Mildren, appeared to have helped himself fairly freely to the whisky. ‘Let’s have a dance while he does it. Where’s the band? Thought there was going to be a band. What’s happened to it?’
    ‘Lost in the fog,’ replied Sir Bohun. He stared hard at his inebriated guest. ‘Sorry, Toby. The ladies don’t want any more dancing. Sit down, everybody. I’ve got a surprise for you all later on, but we’ll have it after the prizes have been awarded. While Bell checks the lists we’ll vote for the two most effective costumes – can be two men or two women, or one of each; doesn’t matter. I’ve got a bet on about this, but I shan’t hint. Now, then, people, what about paper to vote on, eh? Bell should have left some somewhere. And pencils? Everybody got a pencil?’
    Brenda Dance went to a window-seat, picked up some slips of paper and began to distribute them. As she crossed the room she turned her head, and then she walked towards the wide door which opened on to the terrace.
    ‘What the deuce is Brenda up to?’ demanded Sir Bohun.
    ‘Please, sir,’ said Laura, in the classic schoolboy phrase, ‘she thought she heard a noise. And I did, too,’ she added, sotto voce .
    ‘Oh, that will be the orchestra, then,’ said Sir Bohun. ‘It seems a bit late, but I suppose we’d better have ’em in. Open the door, Grimston, and tell ’em to come straight in here. They’ll see you framed in the doorway against the light.’
    But as Grimston joined Brenda and fumbled with the fastenings – for, during the absence of all the household from the ballroom, the servants had thought it wise to bolt the door top and bottom and put the chain on – the usual precautions at night – the electricity failed, and, except for such light as was given by a large and blazing fire, the ballroom was in darkness.
    The door to the terrace swung open. Grimston gave a shout of surprise and stumbled backwards. Framed in the phosphorescent light which gilded its enormous body was a creature neither human nor nameless.
    ‘Good lord! The Hound of the Baskervilles! ’ shouted a voice. There was a general stampede, and the sounds of the slamming of doors gave evidence of the reaction of those present to the phenomenon. Alone of all the invited guests, Mrs Bradley and Laura were left together in the ballroom, and at that moment the lights came on