"Do have some of your own soup, Uncle Maurice," urged Katharine. She suddenly leaned back and began to laugh hysterically. It had a thin sound in the big room; and it was as though the draught that passed over the candle-flames symbolized a new presence there. Jervis Willard's heavy and sardonic gaze moved round the table.
"I say, Maurice," he observed; "I don't want to interrupt all this pleasant theorizing about soup and poison. But let's be sensible for a while, shall we? In the first place, all this can't be very pleasant hearing for-" He stopped. He seemed again heavy and bewildered, as he had been that afternoon; and now it was as though he were cursing himself for saying something he had not intended.
"I don't mind," said Louise, in a thin but clear voice. She looked up from studying the table. "I wasn't trying to poison myself, you know. Only to sleep. It's a curious thing, but I don't mind anything now. All I want is to get a train back to town, and see that father's all right, and isn't upset."
They had not told her about the trouble with John Bohun even yet: so much was clear from her tone. But Bennett, glancing swiftly at Maurice, thought he could follow at least a part of the thought that twisted behind those flickering dead-gray eyes. Maurice weighed surgical knives, wondering which to apply. He chose the second knife.
"A train back to town?" he repeated. "I feel sure we all applaud your solicitude, and so would my brother John if he were here. But I fear the police would not be so obliging. Perhaps nobody has heard? Ah! Well, we are to act our parts as of last night; we are to reenact the attempted murder of poor Marcia on the staircase in King Charles's Room. Sir Henry thinks it should be helpful: For the moment I will say no more. I should be deeply regretful if I were to spoil anyone's dinner."
A start went round the table; more, it seemed, of surprise than any other feeling. Thompson moved in deftly, and, as though everybody became aware of his presence, there was a silence for a long time. The moving of the dishes seemed unnaturally loud. Although Bennett did not look up, he found himself watching hands. Hands against the dark polished oak of the table, moving, idle, shifting against the silver. Maurice's slender hands, with shadows hollowed along the backs, brushed together with a washing motion. Louise's pink-tinted nails making a faint scraping noise on the oak. Willard's big spatulate fingers, the forefinger tapping slowly on the line of spoons. Katharine's hands, as white as the laced linen circles for the dishes, clenched and motionless. Then Bennett glanced at Rainger's empty chair, and remembered a scene at the bottom of the stairs where somebody's hands had been busy..
"What's this nonsense?" demanded Willard.
"I trust," said Maurice, "nobody has any objection? It would look exceedingly odd to Sir Henry, you know."
Katharine said in a clear voice: "I think it's rather horrible. But if we must go on with it, we must. Still, I shouldn't think you would take much interest in reconstructing the scene of any attempt, Uncle Maurice, if Mr. Rainger couldn't be there."
"I have my reasons," Maurice answered, nodding meditatively. "It is most interesting, even if Mr. Rainger's place must be taken by somebody else. I venture to assert that our young friend from America will have considerably more success in the part than Mr. Rainger. Let us say no more about it"