Death in the Stocks (13 page)

'What's the use of talking about trips abroad when you may be in prison?' said Rudolph, with an attempt at a laugh.

'Oh, that!' she said dismissing it. 'Of course we shan't be in prison. Anyway, I'm getting sick of the murder.'

'I wish we knew what the police were doing!'

'They're working like a pack of bloodhounds on our trails,' said Kenneth, leaning over the back of Antonia's chair to look at Baedeker. 'And talking of bloodhounds, why's all my bedroom furniture in the hall?'

'Murgatroyd. She says she's going to turn the whole flat out.'

'What, not this room too?' cried Kenneth, in such tones of dismay as not the gloomiest of Rudolph's forebodings could wring from him.

'Yes, but not till tomorrow. Leslie said she'd come and help, so I daresay she'll take care of your pictures,' said his sister, omitting, however, to add the information that Murgatroyd's bitterly expressed object was to keep the place free from that Violet Williams for one day, even though she had to make the studio floor wringing wet to do it.

It was as well for Murgatroyd's temper that this was not really her main object, for when Violet walked into the flat after luncheon on the following day (a habit which she had lately acquired) and found the studio in a state of glorious disorder, with one dishevelled damsel polishing the handles of a bow-fronted chest, the other turning out the contents of an over-loaded bureau, and Kenneth, sitting on the window seat, reading aloud to them snatches from the Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse, she displayed an unexpectedly domesticated trait to her character, demanded an overall from Murgatroyd, and within ten minutes of entering the studio had taken complete charge of the operations. By the time she had shown Leslie a better way to polish brass, convinced Antonia that what she wanted was a large box to put all the waste paper in, and rehung all the pictures which had been taken down to be washed, one only of the original four in the studio remained unruffled. This was, of course, Kenneth, who paid not the least attention either to requests that he should move, or that he should shut up for a moment, but continued to delve into the pages of the Oxford Book, emerging always with a fresh extract which he read aloud, heedless of the fact that no one was listening to him. The only time he vouchsafed any answer to the various things that were said to him was when Violet in the voice of one at the limit of her patience, said: 'Will you stop reading Milton aloud?' To this he replied: 'No,' in a perfectly calm way, as soon as he got to the end of a line.

Any failure on Kenneth's part to treat her with that adoring respect which she demanded from him always impaired the smoothness of Violet's temper, so neither Antonia nor Leslie was surprised when she seized on the opportunity afforded by the discovery of an automatic pistol in the bureau to say with a sting behind her sweetness: 'Yours, Tony, dear? Perhaps it's as well the police know nothing about that.'

'I don't know why,' replied Antonia. 'It's fully loaded, and hasn't been fired for months.'

'Why so touchy, darling?' said Violet, raising her delicate brow. 'Of course, now I daren't ask why you keep such a very odd weapon.'

'That's a good thing,' said Antonia.

Conversation waned after that, but Violet's capable assistance so soon reduced the studio to order that Antonia repented of her momentary ill-temper, took the Oxford Book away from Kenneth, and told Murgatroyd to go and make tea.

They were in the middle of this repast when the door was opened and a man who might have been any age between thirty-five and forty-five looked in. He had a good-humoured, if somewhat weak countenance, from which a pair of rather bloodshot grey eyes looked out with a certain amiable vagueness.

The party gathered round the table stared at him blankly and unhelpfully.

He smiled deprecatingly. 'Hullo!' he said, in the slightly husky tones of one in the habit of indulging his penchant for spirits too often. 'Door was on the latch, so I thought I'd walk in. How's everybody?'

Antonia glanced inquiringly at her brother, and was startled to see his face suddenly whiten. A look of mingled incredulity, horror, and anger came into his eyes. 'My God in Heaven!' he said chokingly. 'Roger.'

Chapter Thirteen

A slice of bread and butter dropped from Violet's fingers on to the floor. Leslie, seated beside her, heard her say numbly: 'But he's dead. They said he was dead!'

Antonia looked the visitor over frowningly. 'Is it really? Yes, now I come to think of it, that's whom you reminded me of. We thought you were dead.'

'Thought!' Kenneth cried. 'We knew he was dead! He's been dead for years!'

'Well, as a matter of fact, I never was dead,' said Roger Vereker, with the air of one making a confidence. 'Just at the time it seemed a good thing on the whole to be dead, because there was a bit of trouble over some money. I forget the rights of it now, but people were very unpleasant, very.'

'But why on earth did you go on being dead all this time?' demanded Antonia.

'Oh, I don't know,' replied Roger, with the vagueness which characterised him. 'There wasn't much point in coming to life again, really. It would have meant a lot of bother one way and another. I did think of it, but I was getting on quite well as I was. Fancy you being Tony! I shouldn't have known you. Kenneth's altered too. Wants his hair cutting.'

'Leave my hair alone!' said Kenneth angrily. 'If you -'

'It's all right. I wasn't going to touch it. You know, it seems very funny to me to find you two grown up. Tony had a pigtail when I saw her last - at least, I may be confusing her with someone else, but I think it was she. Long one, with a bow on the end. You were a horrid little beast. You haven't changed as much as Tony, now I come to look at you. I remember you messing about with a lot of smelly paints.'

'Well, he still does that. He's an artist,' said Antonia.

Roger heard this with a faint show of surprise, as fleeting as it was mild. 'No, is he really? Well, I'm sorry I spoke about his hair, then. One gets out of touch, that's how it is. I'm going to settle down at home now. After all, why not? You get sick of roaming about, and the man they mistook me for in that Cuban dust-up was called Harry Fisher. The man who was killed, I mean. I didn't mind at first; one name seemed as good as another. But you've no idea how tired you can get of being called Fisher. I've had seven years of it, and it's very irritating. I thought I'd come home.'

'It seems to me,' said Antonia, who had listened to this rambling speech with a good deal of impatience, 'that you might just as well have called yourself Vereker again without coming home.'

'That's just it. It wouldn't have been safe. Bloodsuckers, and things,' explained Roger. 'Besides, why shouldn't I come home?'

'Because you're not wanted!' Kenneth said tersely.

'God, it makes me sick!' He began to pace up and down, shaking his clenched fists. 'For seven years we've been living in a fool's paradise, believing you dead and buried, and you turn up now - now of all accursed moments! and ruin everything!'

'Good Lord, I hadn't thought of that!' exclaimed Antonia. 'I must say, it is a bit thick!'

'Thick! It's damnable!' Kenneth shot out. 'What's the use of Arnold's being murdered if we're saddled with Roger?'

Violet, who had been sitting in a kind of frozen silence, now said, in a sharpened voice: 'Please! Must you talk like that?'

No one paid any attention to her; Antonia sat glowering at Roger, Kenneth continued to walk up and down, and Roger, glancing from one to the other, said cautiously: 'What was that you said? Sometimes I think I'm getting a bit deaf. I wish you wouldn't tramp about so; it's a fidgeting sort of habit. Makes me giddy.'

'Arnold's dead,' said Antonia briefly.

He blinked at her, apparently incredulous. 'My brother Arnold?'

'Yes, of course. Do you think we know hundreds of Arnolds?'

'But he can't be dead!'

'I tell you he is.'

'Well, that's a very extraordinary thing. Of course, if you say he is, I daresay you may be right, but I don't understand it at all. What did he die of?'

'He died of a knife in the back!' Kenneth flung over his shoulder.

Roger looked startled and tut-tutted several times. 'I can't understand it at all. I call it very shocking, very shocking indeed. Who did that to the poor fellow?'

'We don't know,' replied his sister. 'Kenneth or I, probably.'

'You shouldn't joke about it,' said Roger. 'How would you like to have a knife stuck in your back? When did it all happen?'

'Last Saturday,' said Antonia.

Roger stared at her and then looked round for a chair. He sat down. 'Well, I'm surprised,' he said. 'Extremely surprised.'

Kenneth paused in his pacing. Just how long have you been in England?' he demanded.

'I'll tell you,' answered Roger obligingly. 'I landed yesterday. Extraordinary coincidence. I mean, I come home expecting to see poor old Arnold, and I find he's just been killed.'

'If that was what you expected to do why didn't you go to Eaton Place instead of coming here?'

'Figure of speech,' explained Roger. 'When I said that I expected to see Arnold, what I meant was that I didn't think he'd be dead.' He drew Antonia's attention to Leslie Rivers, who had risen from the table, and was putting on her hat before the mirror. 'Someone's going. Nobody need go on my account, you know.'

'I think I will, though,' Leslie said. 'I expect you've got a lot to say to each other.'

'Nice girl,' observed Roger, when she had departed. 'Who's the other one?'

'Violet Williams. She's engaged to Kenneth,' answered Antonia.

'Oh!' said Roger dubiously. He found that Violet was bowing slightly, and half rose to return this civil greeting. Sinking back again into his chair he became lost in thought, from which he presently emerged to say: 'If Arnold's dead who gets all the money?'

'Oh, give me air!' besought Kenneth, beginning to tramp up and down again.

Antonia replied somewhat scornfully: 'You know jolly well you get it. That's why we're so disgusted you've turned up.'

'Well, I thought I did,' said Roger. 'I must say I could do with it. I was a bit shocked at the news at first, but I see it's not so bad. Mind you, I quite appreciate your point of view.'

'If you don't clear out of this damned quick there'll be another murder in the family!' Kenneth said through his teeth.

'Now, don't get worked up,' Roger advised him kindly. 'You'll soon get used to me being back. When you've lived as long as I have you'll find it's extraordinary what you can get used to. And talking of clearing out, my idea was that I'd stay with you for a day or two, till I get my bearings.'

'No!' cried his half-brother and sister in unison.

That's all very well,' said Roger, 'but if I don't stay here, where am I going?'

'Anywhere. We don't mind,' replied Antonia.

'Yes, but to tell you the truth,' confided Roger, 'I'm a bit hard-up at the moment.'

'You've got two hundred and fifty thousand pounds,' said Kenneth bitterly.

'Is that what Arnold left? You don't mean it! If I'd known that -' He paused, and shook his head.

'What on earth do you mean - if you'd known it?' asked Antonia.

He looked at her in his hazy way. 'Forgotten what I was going to say. Trouble is, I haven't got any clothes.'

'You must have got some clothes,' replied Antonia.

'That's just it: you might think so, and as a matter of fact I did have some, only I had to pawn my suit-case.'

'Well?' said Antonia unsympathetically.

'Well, that's the whole thing in a nutshell. It's no use hanging on to a lot of shirts and things if you haven't anything to carry them about in. You see my point?'

'Oh, God!' groaned Kenneth. 'I can't bear it!'

'I call that very unreasonable,' said Roger. 'Ater all, they weren't your clothes. If I started putting your shirts up the spout you'd have a perfect right to complain. It's coming to something if I can't pop my own belongings. Moreover, if I inherit all Arnold's money I shall be able to buy a lot of new clothes, and no harm done. But don't run away with the idea that I particularly want to stay with you, because I don't at all mind putting up at a hotel as long as I've got some money. Supposing you were to lend me a few pounds - say fifty - to tide me over?'

'Let's pretend!' said Kenneth sarcastically. 'You've never paid a debt in your life!'

'That's perfectly true,' agreed Roger, with unimpaired affability, 'but I wouldn't mind paying you back if I had two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.'

'Well, I won't take the risk,' replied Kenneth. 'Go and touch Giles. You won't get anything out of me.'

At this moment the door opened to admit Murgatroyd, who came in to clear away the tea. Antonia said gloomily: 'Look what's happened, Murgatroyd. Isn't it damnable?'

Murgatroyd started to say: 'How many times have I told you I won't have you use such -' Then she caught sight of Roger, and gave a scream.

'Hullo, Murgatroyd!' said Roger, with his sleepy, apologetic smile. 'You still alive?'

Murgatroyd seemed to find difficulty in speaking. She swallowed once or twice, and in the end said in a hollow voice: 'I knew it. You ask Miss Leslie if I didn't see bad news in my teacup yesterday, plain as plain. Mark my words, I said, something awful is on its way to this house.'

'A lot of people scoff at reading fortunes in teacups,' said Roger, interested. 'I've always thought there was something in it myself. It just shows. You haven't changed much. Fatter, of course, but I should have known you anywhere.'

'I'll thank you not to make personal remarks about me, Mr Roger! What have you come home for, that's what I'd like to know? Not that I need to ask. Trust you to come nosing round after pickings! Talk about hyenas!' Wrath swelled her voice. She said strongly. 'Just like you it is to try and take what's Master Kenneth's away from him! Don't tell me! If I had my way, back you'd go to where you came from, double-quick!'

'Yes,' said Antonia. 'But he hasn't got any clothes, and he says he's going to stay with us.'

'Not in this house, he isn't!' said Murgatroyd.

'I shan't get in the way,' Roger assured her. 'You'll hardly notice me.'

'No, not once you're the other side of the front door, I won't,' was the grim reply.

Violet got up from the table, and came slowly across the room. 'Don't you think this is all a little undignified?' she said in her calm way. 'Kenneth, dear, please stop prowling, and try to be reasonable. Poor Mr Vereker can't help not being dead, after all!' She smiled at Roger and added prettily: 'They're an awful couple, aren't they? You mustn't pay any attention to what they say. And no one's offered you any tea! Would you like some?'

'No,' said Roger frankly, 'but I shouldn't mind a whisky-and-soda if it happened to be handy.'

'Of course,' she said. 'I'll get you one - since these rude people have forgotten their manners!'

Kenneth gazed at her in blank astonishment. 'My good girl, do you realise what this means?' he asked. 'Have you by any chance grasped who he is?'

'Yes, dear, perfectly,' replied Violet, going over to the side-board and opening one of the cupboards. 'And if I can put a decent face on it, I think you might too. Will you say when, Mr Vereker?'

'If he does it'll be a record,' remarked Kenneth. 'That'll do, Kenneth,' Violet said, in a tone of authority. 'There, is that how you like it, Mr Vereker?'