“What do you suppose that means?”

“I know what it sounded like,” Cressida said. “It sounded like murder. And I mean that. Murder.”

It was at this point that Troy began to feel really disturbed. She began to see herself, as if she was another person, alone among strangers in an isolated and falsely luxurious house and attended by murderers. That, she thought, like it or lump it, is the situation. And she wished with all her heart she was out of it and spending her Christmas alone in London or with any one of the unexceptionable friends who had so warmly invited her.

The portrait was almost finished. Perhaps quite finished. She was not sure it hadn’t reached the state when somebody with wisdom should forcibly remove her from it and put it out of her reach. Her husband had been known to perform this service, but he was twelve thousand miles away and unless, as sometimes happened, his job in the Antipodes came to a quick end, would not be home for a week. The portrait was not dry enough to pack. She could arrange for it to be sent to the framers and she could tell Hilary she would leave — when? Tomorrow? He would think that very odd. He would smell a rat. He would conclude that she was afraid and he would be dead right. She was.

Mr. Smith had said that he intended returning to London the day after tomorrow. Perhaps she could leave with him. At this point Troy saw that she would have to take a sharp look at herself. It was an occasion for what Cressida would probably call maintaining her cool.

In the first place she must remember that she was often overcome, in other people’s houses, by an overpowering desire to escape, a tyrannical restlessness as inexplicable as it was embarrassing. Every nerve in her body would suddenly telegraph “I must get out of this.” It could happen, even in a restaurant, where, if the waiter was slow with the bill, Troy suffered agonies of frustration. Was her present most ardent desire to be gone no more than the familiar attack exacerbated by the not inconsiderable alarms and eccentricities of life at Halberds? Perhaps Hilary’s domestics were, after all, as harmless as he insisted. Had Cressida blown up a servants’ squabble into a display of homicidal fury?

She reminded herself of the relatively quick recovery of the Forresters from the incidents and, until the soap episode, of Mr. Smith. She took herself to task, tied her head in a scarf, put on her overcoat, and went for a short walk.

The late afternoon was icily cold and still, the darkening sky was clear and the landscape glittered. She looked more closely at Nigel’s catafalque, which was now frozen as hard as its marble progenitor in the chapel. Really Nigel had been, very clever with his kitchen instruments. He had achieved a sharpness and precision far removed from the blurred clumsiness of the usual snow effigy. Only the northern aspect, Troy thought, had been partly defaced by the wind and occasional drifts of rain and even there it was the snow-covered box steps that had suffered rather than the effigy itself. Somebody should photograph it, she thought, before the thaw comes.

She walked as far as the scarecrow. It was tilted sideways, stupid and motionless, at the impossible angle in which the wind had left it. A disconsolate thrush sat on its billycock hat.

By the time she had returned, tingling, to the warm house, Troy had so far got over her impulsive itch as to postpone any decision until the next day. She even began to feel a reasonable interest in the party.

And indeed Halberds simmered with expectation. In the enormous hall with its two flights of stairs, giant swags of fir, mistletoe and holly caught up with scarlet tassels hung in classic loops from the gallery and picture rails. Heroic logs blazed and crackled in two enormous fireplaces. The smell was superb.

Hilary was there, with a written timetable in his hand, issuing final instructions to his staff. He waved gaily to Troy and invited her to stay and listen.

“Now! Blore! To go over it once more,” Hilary was saying. “You will make sure the drawing-room door is locked. Otherwise we shall have children screaming in before they should. When everybody is here (you’ve got your guest list) check to make sure Vincent is ready with the sledge. You wait until half-past seven when the first recorded bells will be played and Colonel Forrester will come downstairs and go into the cloakroom near the drawing-room, where Miss Tottenham will put on his beard.”

“Choose your words, sweetie,” Cressida remarked. “I’d look a proper Charlie, wouldn’t I?”

Kittiwee sniggered.

“Miss Tottenham,” Hilary said, raising his voice, “will help the Colonel with his beard. You now check that Nigel is at hand to play his part and at a quarter to eight you tap on the door of the cloakroom near the drawing-room to let Colonel Forrester and Miss Tottenham know we are ready. Yes?”

“Yes, sir. Very good, sir.”

“You and Nigel then light the candles on the tree and the kissing bough. That’s going to take a little time. Be sure you get rid of the stepladder and turn off all the lights. Most important. Very well. That done, you tell Nigel to return to the record player in the hall here. Nigel: at five to eight precisely, you increase the indoor recording of the bells. Plenty of volume, remember. We want the house to be full of bells. Now! Mervyn! When you hear the bells, unlock the drawing-room doors and, I implore you, be sure you have the key to hand.”

“I’ve got it on me, sir.”

“Good. Very well. You, Blore, come to the library and announce the tree. Full voice, you know, Blore. Give it everything, won’t you?”

“Sir.”

“You and Mervyn, having thrown open the drawing-room doors, go right through the room to the french windows. Check that the Colonel is ready outside. Vincent will by this time be with him and will flash his torch. Wait by the windows. Now, then. The crucial moment,” Hilary excitedly continued, “has arrived. When everybody has come in and settled in their places — I shall see to that and I daresay Mrs. Alleyn will be very kind and help me — you, Blore, stand in the window where Vincent can see you and give him his signal. Vincent, be ready for this. You must keep out of sight with the sleigh, until the last moment. When the inside bells stop, bring the sleigh into the courtyard, where you will join the Colonel. And when you get your signal, the sound effects for the entrance will be turned on. The loudspeakers,” Hilary explained to Troy, “are outside for greater verisimilitude. And now, now Blore! Keep your heads, you and Mervyn, I implore you. Coolness is all. Coolness and coordination. Wait for your own voice shouting ‘Whoa’ on the loudspeakers, wait for the final cascade of sleigh bells and then — and only then — fling wide the french windows and admit the Colonel with his sledge. Vincent, you must watch the Colonel like a lynx for fear that in his zeal he tries to effect an entrance before we are ready for him. Make certain he removes his gloves. Take them off him at the last moment. He has to wear them because of chilblains. See he’s well en train beforehand with the tow-ropes of his sledge over his shoulders. He may show a hideous tendency to tie himself up in them like a parcel. Calm him.”

“Do my best, sir,” said Vincent, “but he does show the whites of his eyes, like, when he gets up to the starting cage.”

“I know. I depend on your tact, Vincent. Miss Tottenham will see him out of the cloakroom and you take over in the courtyard. After that he’s all yours.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Vincent dubiously.

“Those,” said Hilary, surveying his troops, “are my final words to you. That is all. Thank you.” He turned to Troy. “Come and have tea,” he said. “It’s in the boudoir. We help ourselves. Rather like the Passover with all our loins, such as they are, girded up. I do hope you’re excited. Are you?”