Read Online The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier - Free Book Online

by the door near which I stood there was a third, of Christ falling with the Cross. The room struck chill, as though it were never heated. It even smelt forbidding, a mixture of polish and heavy hangings.
    I switched off the light and went out. As I did so I saw that I had been observed. A woman had come down to the corridor from the floor above, and now stood watching me before descending further.
    ‘Bonsoir
, Monsieur le Comte,’ she said. ‘Are you looking for Mademoiselle Blanche?’
    ‘Yes,’ I lied quickly, ‘she’s not in her room.’
    I felt myself obliged to go towards her. She was small, thin and elderly, and from her dress and the way she spoke I judged her to be a servant.
    ‘Mademoiselle Blanche is with Madame la Comtesse,’ she said, and I wondered if she knew instinctively that there was something wrong, because the expression in her eyes was curious, even amazed, and she glanced over my shoulder towards the room I had just left.
    ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘I can see her later.’
    ‘Is there anything wrong, Monsieur le Comte?’ she asked, and behind her small eyes I could see still greater curiosity. Her voice was intimate, confiding, as though possibly I had a secret that we might share.
    ‘No,’ I said. ‘Why should there be?’
    She looked away from me again, down the corridor to the closed door.
    ‘I beg pardon, Monsieur le Comte,’ she said. ‘I only thought there must be something wrong for you to go to Mademoiselle Blanche’s room.’
    Her eyes flickered away from me. I sensed no affection there, no warmth, none of the trust that I had seen in Gaston; yet there was at the same time a suggestion of long familiarity, bringing some understanding between us of an unpleasant kind.
    ‘I hope Monsieur le Comte’s visit to Paris was successful?’ she said, an inflection in her voice other than courtesy, as though she hinted that something might have gone amiss which would earn criticism.
    ‘Perfectly,’ I replied, and was about to pass her when she said, ‘Madame la Comtesse knows you are home. I was just going down to the salon to tell you. It would be best to come up and see her now, or I shall have no peace.’
    Madame la Comtesse … The words were ominous. If I were Monsieur le Comte, then who was she? Doubt began to return to me, the first faint brush of panic.
    ‘I can go later,’ I said, ‘there’s no great hurry.’
    ‘You know very well she won’t wait, Monsieur le Comte,’ said the woman, her inquisitive black eyes fixed upon me. There was no escape.
    ‘Very well,’ I said.
    The servant turned towards the stairs and I went after her up the long, twisting flight. We came to another corridor like the one we had left below, which branched to a third, running parallel, and I caught a glimpse of a service staircase through an open baize door, whence the smell of food came floatingfrom the depths. We passed through yet another door, and then stood before the last one in the corridor. The servant opened it, giving me first a little nod, like a signal, and as she went through she said to someone within, ‘I met Monsieur le Comte coming up the stairs. He was on his way to see you.’
    There were three persons in the room, which was large but so filled with furniture that there was hardly space to move between the tables and the chairs. Dominating the whole was a great double bed with curtained hangings. A stove, burning brightly with open doors, gave out an intense heat, so that walking into the atmosphere was enough to stifle anyone coming from the cold rooms below. Two small fox-terriers, with bows and bells jangling from their collars, ran towards me barking shrilly.
    I swung my eyes round the room to take in what I could, the dogs leaping at my legs, and I saw the tall, thin woman who had left the salon when I entered it, and close to her an ancient curé, white-haired, his small black cap on the back of his head, his pleasant round face pink and unlined. Beyond