People were starting to reassemble downstairs for the next phase of the Murder game. They were coming cautiously out of various hiding places and laughing and swapping experiences, and asking what happened next. The interrogation, wasn’t it? And then supper? Oh yes, look, Mariana was just going across to the kitchen. This was all being rather fun. There was an atmosphere of slightly tipsy friendliness and one or two people might well have been a bit more than merely friendly while hiding in the dark from the murderer, but no one was roaring drunk or making embarrassing accusations of unwanted groping.
There was a bit of a delay about switching the lights on – Bruce Trent was supposed to be doing that, wasn’t he, although he was nowhere to be seen – Oh, one of the victims, was he? Well, wouldn’t you know he would get himself bumped off, silly sod, good old Brucie.
One of the men found the under-stairs cupboard with the mains switch, and there were cries of ‘Ah’ as light flooded the house once again. People started arguing about how many victims there were, and somebody began to talk bossily about habeas corpus and was told to hush because that meant something different.
‘No, it doesn’t, it’s in Magna Carta.’
‘Oh, bugger Magna Carta, let’s habeas some more gin before we start searching for the corpus.’
‘Well, Bruce is one of the corpuses, we already know that.’
‘Not very good manners to murder your host, though.’
‘No, but in the dark you wouldn’t necessarily know who you were murdering.’
‘That has to rank as one of the most bizarre remarks in the history of—Hold on a minute—’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I think – in fact I’m sure – I can smell smoke.’
‘It’ll be from the kitchen – Mariana’s going to serve chicken curry and rice at half past ten—’
‘No, it is smoke,’ said another voice. ‘And it’s coming from upstairs—’
It was at this point that Lucy came tumbling down into the hall and gasped out what had happened, and that they were all to fill buckets of water and pass them up to the attics – and please to do it fast, because even though Edmund had said it was only a tiny fire, it was burning up quite dreadfully…
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Only a tiny fire.
To begin with everyone accepted Edmund Fane’s message that there was no particular need for urgency over this tiny fire, and several of the guests ran outside to find the garden hose and connect it up to the bathroom tap. Somebody asked if they ought to phone the fire brigade, and if so, had anyone done it? Oh, somebody had, oh, well done.
And even though it was just a tiny fire it had to be dealt with quickly, and it was a good thing Edmund Fane was here because Bruce Trent, when he was finally found, was three-quarters sloshed, and Mariana had never been any use in a crisis, in fact she was running around flapping her hands distractedly, and saying, Somebody do something; and, Oh, Bruce, why must you drink too much tonight of all nights?
It seemed to be falling to Edmund to organize people into filling buckets and plastic washbowls, and Lucy was taken firmly into one of the downstairs rooms where she could be out of the way of the panic. People formed a chain up the stairs, passing the buckets and bowls of water, but it was a big old house and the stairs were very steep, so that passing the full buckets up took a surprisingly long time.