Free Tied Up in Tinsel by Ngaio Marsh Page B

there now came sounds of commotion. Somebody was stumbling rapidly downstairs and making ambiguous noises as he came. A slither was followed by an oath and an irregular progress across the hall. The doors burst wide open and in plunged Mr. Smith: an appalling sight.
    He was dressed in pyjamas and a florid dressing gown. One foot was bare, the other slippered. His sparse hair was disordered. His eyes protruded. And from his open mouth issued dollops of foam.
    He retched, gesticulated, and contrived to speak.
    “Poisoned!” he mouthed. “I been poisoned.”
    An iridescent bubble was released from his lips. It floated towards the tree, seemed to hang for a moment like an ornament from one of the boughs.
    “Soap,” Hilary said. “It’s soap, Uncle Bert. Calm yourself for Heaven’s sake and wash your mouth out. Go to a downstairs cloakroom, I implore you.”
    Mr. Smith incontinently bolted.
    “Hadn’t you better see to him?” Troy asked.
    “What next, what next! How inexpressibly distasteful. However.”
    Hilary went. There followed a considerable interval, after which Troy heard them pass through the hall on their way upstairs. Soon afterwards Hilary returned looking deeply put out.
    “In his barley water,” he said. “The strongest possible solution of soap. Carnation. He’s been hideously sick. This settles it.”
    “Settles —?”
    “It’s some revolting practical joker. No, but it’s too bad! And in the pocket of his pyjama jacket another of these filthy notes. ‘What price Arsnic.’ He might have died of fright.”
    “How is he, in fact?”
    “Wan but recovering. In a mounting rage.”
    “Small blame to him.”
    “Somebody shall smart for this,” Hilary threatened.
    “I suppose it couldn’t be the new boy in the kitchen?”
    “I don’t see it. He doesn’t know their backgrounds. This is somebody who knows about Nigel’s sinful lady and Blore’s being a cuckold and Vincent’s slip over the arsenical weedkiller.”
    “And Mervyn’s booby-trap,” Troy said before she could stop herself. Hilary stared at her.
    “You’re not going to tell me —?
You are
!”
    “I promised I wouldn’t. I suppose these other jobs sort of let me out but — all right, there was an incident. I’m sure he had nothing to do with it. Don’t corner me.”
    Hilary was silent for some time after this. Then he began taking boxes of Christmas tree baubles out of the packing case.
    “I’m going to ignore the whole thing,” he said. “I’m going to maintain a masterly inactivity. Somebody wants me to make a big scene and I won’t. I won’t upset my stall. I won’t have my Christmas ruined. Sucks-boo to whoever it may be. It’s only ten to eleven, believe it or not. Come on, let’s do the tree.”
    They did the tree. Hilary had planned a golden colour scheme. They hung golden glass baubles, big in the lower branches and tapering to miniscule ones at the top, where they mounted a golden angel. There were festoons of glittering gold tinsel and masses of gilded candles. Golden stars shone in and out of the foliage. It was a most fabulous tree.
    “And I’ve even gilded the people in the crib,” he said. “I hope Aunt Bed won’t object. And just you wait till the candles are lit.”
    “What about the presents? I suppose there are presents?”
    “The children’s will be in golden boxes brought in by Uncle Flea, one for each family. And ours, suitably wrapped, on a side table. Everybody finds their own because Uncle Flea can’t read the labels without his specs. He merely tows in the boxes in a little golden car on runners.”
    “From outside? Suppose it’s a rough night?”
    “If it’s too bad we’ll have to bring the presents in from the hall.”
    “But the Colonel will still come out of the storm?”
    “He wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.” With some hesitation Troy suggested that Colonel Forrester didn’t seem very robust and was ill-suited to a passage, however brief, through the