Free The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay Page B

mustn’t have a scene and get all the children screaming. But he looked so awful in the Santa Klaus dress and make-up and his staring eyes that I wanted to laugh, even when I felt frightened and trembling and almost crying at the same time. I managed to tell him that I thought Mr. George Melbury was in the drawing-room; I’d noticed him go in there a little earlier. Mrs. Wynford stood, looking about her, very pale, but she seemed able to look after herself. Then I caught sight of Nurse Poole and was going to ask her to see to the children, when it occurred to me that there might be some feeling if I gave orders to her. But I saw Mrs. Stickland, and thankful that it was her, who is always so quiet, and not the Hon. Mrs. George Melbury, I went and told her what Mr. Witcombe had said.
    I don’t know exactly what happened after that, but everything was awfully quiet. Even the children were quiet, for a wonder, and Mrs. Stickland and the nurses got them all away without much fuss. I was still thinking that I ought to telephone, so I went into the library, remembering that the study door was locked, and as I went in I saw Mrs. Wynford at the study door, which was closed. Mr. Witcombe, still dressed up, which seemed so dreadful, but I think he had forgotten about it, came hurrying up just as Mrs. Wynford opened the door and he followed her into the study, and I went in behind him.
    We were surprised—at least, I was—to see Lady Evershot standing in the study with her back to the window that looks out at the side of the house. She was standing a little to one side and behind the chair in which Sir Osmond usually sat at his table in the corner, when he was writing, and I could just see that Sir Osmond was in the chair, not sitting up but dropped over one arm of the chair, with his head below the table. Lady Evershot looked very white and I could see her hands were trembling.
    Mrs. Wynford ran forward, round Sir Osmond’s table, taking no notice of her sister; she stood there, looking down at her father, drawing in her breath and seeming to go all stiff, with her hands spread out.
    Mr. George Melbury came in quickly and said, “Wait, Hilda!” He went up to her and put his hand on her arm, as if to hold her back, while Mr. Witcombe said: “You can’t do anything.” She pulled herself away and took a step nearer to her father. Mr. Witcombe said again, “It’s no good, Mrs. Wynford. We ought not to touch anything.” Then he turned to me and asked me to ring up the doctor.
    I went across to the little table in the other corner, where the telephone stood, and sat down and everything seemed to swim and my hands trembled so that I could hardly dial the number, though I knew it well enough. As I was waiting for the number I heard Mrs. Wynford say in a queer, high voice, “Where are Jenny and Carol?”
    I think Mr. Witcombe took her and Lady Evershot out of the room, and Mr. George came over to me and when he heard by what I said that Doctor Tarrant was coming at once, he asked me if I knew the number of Colonel Halstock, who was a neighbour of Sir Osmond’s and the Chief Constable of the county. I gave him the number and he sat down and began to dial it. I didn’t know whether to go away, so I waited. I walked a little back from the telephone table to where I could see Sir Osmond better. He lay all sort of collapsed sideways in his chair, leaning over towards the wall, and I could see a dark hole in the side of his forehead and a trickle of blood, and a long pistol lay on the table in front of him. It made me feel quite awful. I was afraid to touch him; he looked so dead; but it seemed dreadful to leave him like that.
    Then I heard voices in the library and in came Miss Jennifer, and went straight up to Sir Osmond’s table and stood there and said in a low voice: “Oh!” Very long drawn out it was. And then she just said: “How frightful!”
    She stood