Death in the Stocks (17 page)

Antonia sighed. 'Sorry; I'll go now if you want me to. It was only that I suddenly couldn't bear it any longer, and there wasn't anyone but you I could come to. Except Leslie, I suppose; but she's so livid about Roger turning up, and dishing Kenneth, that she's almost as bad as the rest of them. However, if you're bored with our rotten affairs it doesn't matter.'

'Sit down,' said Giles, pulling up another chair. 'You know I'm not bored. What's the matter, chicken?'

She looked up at him, flushing, sudden surprise in her eyes. 'Oh Giles, you haven't called me that for years!' she said.

'Haven't I?' he said, smiling down at her. 'No, perhaps I haven't.'

'You know jolly well you've had a hate against me ever since you were such a vile beast about John Fotheringham!' said Antonia.

'Well, that's one way of putting it,' said Giles.

'It's the only way of putting it,' said Antonia firmly. 'In fact, I practically made up my mind never to speak to you again, after the things you said to me.'

'You didn't speak to me again, Tony, for over a year.'

'Yes, I did,' contradicted Antonia. 'I spoke to you at the Dawsons' dance, and once I had to ring you up about my Insurance shares. All the same, I wouldn't have, if I could have helped it. Only then I got myself into this ghastly mess, and I had to send for you to get me out of it.'

Giles was watching her inscrutably. 'Why, Tony?'

She smiled at him. 'Well - well - whom else could I have sent for?' she asked, puzzled.

'Brother — fiancé — ?' suggested Giles.

It was evident that this had not previously occurred to her. 'Oh!' she said doubtfully. 'Yes, I suppose I could, not that they'd have been much use. Anyway, I didn't think of them. And I'm glad I did send for you, because really and truly I was quite sick of the hate, and - and you have been frightfully decent to me ever since all this happened. So I don't mind admitting that actually I made a mistake about John - though I still think you were utterly rancid about the whole affair.' She paused, and then added: 'I've been rather wanting to bury the hatchet absolutely ever since Arnold was killed, I did mean to have it all out with you at Hanborough, that day, only when you turned up it didn't seem as though we ever had had a hate, and I forgot. Only if you did happen to be still feeling secretly stuffy about me, I thought I'd just mention the matter.'

'Tony,' Giles said abruptly, 'are you still engaged to Mesurier?'

'Yes, and it's the most unutterable bore,' she replied, with her usual shattering honesty. 'To tell you the truth, it was partly because he turned up at the flat to-night that I cleared out.'

'Tony, what in the world did you get engaged to that fellow for?'

'I can't make it out. It's all most odd, and I'm inclined to think I really must have been slightly deranged when I did it. But really, Giles, I thought I liked him awfully. And Kenneth had just picked up Violet, and life seemed fairly moth-eaten anyway, so - so I got engaged to Rudolph. And the funny part of it is I went on thinking he'd do for ages, and never noticed the things Kenneth kept on pointing out, like showing his teeth too much when he smiles, and wearing the sort of smart clothes that one's own men don't wear. And I didn't see that he was on the flashy side, till all of a sudden it dawned on me. I mean, absolutely in a burst. I can tell you the exact date, It was that Sunday - the day after Arnold was murdered - when we were all in the studio. You were there too, and Violet. It came over me like a - like a tidal wave, for no reason at all. And now I feel rather rotten about it, because really he didn't do anything to make me go clean off him like that.'

'It doesn't matter how rotten you feel about it, Tony. You've got to break if off. Understand?'

'Well, of course I understand. But I can't break it off while there's a chance of him being pinched for the murder. It would be a frightfully mean trick.'

'It's a much meaner trick to keep him dangling when you've no intention of marrying him.'

She considered this. 'No, I don't think it is,' she answered presently. 'It's bound to look a bit fishy if I throw him over while he's a suspect.'

'Tony, what if he did it?' Giles asked.

'Oh well, then I shall just have to stick to him!' she said. 'However, I left him proving to everybody how he couldn't possibly have done it, so perhaps he didn't. He's being rather pleased with himself at the moment, and that, coming on top of all the rest, was too much for me, so I bolted.' She turned, as Giles's man came into the room with the coffee-tray, and waited until it had been arranged on a low table beside her chair. 'Thank you. Is that cream? Because if so, lovely!'

'All the rest of what, Tony?' Giles asked, as the door closed again.

'I'll tell you. I've put two lumps into yours. Is that enough? Well, to start with, Leslie Rivers drifted in after you left this afternoon, so I sent Roger out to order more whisky - it's completely incredible the amount he puts away, you know - and then she let fly. Usually she's a quiet sort of creature, and definitely sensible, but - this is absolutely private, Giles - she's not sane when it comes to Kenneth, and from the way she talked about Roger, you'd think he'd come home on purpose to do Kenneth an injury. Well, I got rather bored with that, because really and truly it's Violet who wants the Vereker fortune, much more than Kenneth, and I've got a distinct hope that she may throw him over now that he's poor again. Though I'm bound to say that he hadn't any expectations at all when she got engaged to him, so perhaps she won't. Leslie says she doesn't care tuppence for him, but then she's prejudiced. I admit I haven't much time for Violet myself - in fact, I can't stand her but I daresay she feels a lot more than she shows. She's the sort that doesn't give herself away at all, so you can never tell what she's thinking. But that's not the point. The point is I got bored with Leslie being intense about the whole situation. She went away after a bit then Kenneth and Violet came back from that matinee in the middle of a most drivelling row. Apparently some fat old man with a pearl tie-pin came up to speak to her in the theatre, and according to Kenneth, called her Vi, and pawed her shoulder, and was quite obviously one of her past conquests. Well, you know what Kenneth is. He promptly went off the deep end, and came home in one of his moods, and pranced up and down the studio raving at Violet. And Violet made things worse by saying that Tie-pin was a Big Man in the City, and she'd met him quite by accident when she was waiting for a friend in the lounge of some hotel or other. Well, that didn't go with a swing by any means, and Kenneth was extraordinarily rude, and talked about Pick-ups and things. I hoped Violet would break off the engagement there and then, but she didn't. And, of course, I went and said the wrong thing without the least meaning to, so Violet then had a shot at withering me.'

Giles laughed. 'What a hopeless task! What did you say?'

'Well, I meant it really to be on her side, because Kenneth was being such an ass, and I said I couldn't see what he was making such a song and dance about when he knew perfectly well that Violet was always getting off with rich men. I honestly didn't mean it cattily, but I quite see it may have sounded like that. All the same, Kenneth must know that she used to pick up men who could trot her round and give her a good time, because she's never made any secret of the fact. However, he wouldn't look at it in a reasonable light at all, and it went on and on till I got so fed-up I could have screamed. And then Roger came in, and it was quite obvious he'd been at a pub all the time, because he was just nicely.'

'Where did he get the money?' inquired Giles.

'Took it out of my bag. He said so. Anyway, he was in a ghastly state.'

Giles was frowning. 'Really blind?'

'No, not in the least. That wouldn't have mattered, because we could have put him to bed. I don't think he can get decently tight: he's pickled by this time. He was just himself, only much more so, and he said the most outrageous things. He started on poor old Murgatroyd, and kept on asking her if she remembered the milkman which is apparently the skeleton in her cupboard, but before my time. She was fearfully upset, but nothing would stop Roger telling us the whole story, because, though Kenneth might have thrown him out, he was Blooming about Violet, and wouldn't pay any attention. So Violet took a hand, and was excessively sweet and charming to Roger, and' I'm damned if he didn't say it was no use her making up to him, because he was too experienced to be caught, and didn't admire her type anyway. I will say this for Violet: she took it very well; but even she looked pretty peeved when Roger told Kenneth he could cut him out with her if he wanted to, but didn't.'

'What a party!' Giles exclaimed. 'How long did this go on?'

'Oh, till Rudolph turned up after dinner. Roger started on him then. He wanted to know why he had such wavy hair, and said he didn't like it; and when he heard he was engaged to me he asked me what on earth I could possibly see in him. That sort of thing. Rudolph realised he was a trifle screwed, of course, and pretended not to listen. The last I saw of them, Roger was still going on about my being batty to marry Rudolph, and Rudolph was holding forth about not having murdered Arnold, and Kenneth was snapping at everybody in turn. So I cleared out, and came to talk to you. This is very good coffee.'

'I'm glad. When is Roger going to leave the studio?'

'As soon as he can. I must say, I'm thankful to you and Gordon Truelove for letting him have some cash. I don't mind him as much as Kenneth does, but I couldn't stand much more of him. He's going to take a service-flat.'

'A service-flat! Why the devil can't he go and stay in Eaton Place?'

'He says it isn't his style. Kenneth had a friendly spasm when he heard that, but it turned out he meant he couldn't stand having a lot of servants about. He said it would fidget him. So Violet - who badly wants Eaton Place - backed him up, and said she knew of a very good block. I gather she means to take him by the hand and lead him to a flat.'

'Is Violet behaving with real nobility of character, or is she actually trying to catch Roger?'

'I don't know. I shouldn't think she can be trying to catch him, because she needn't have got engaged to Kenneth in the first place if she was set on marrying a rich man.'

'Rich men aren't always so keen on marriage, Tony.'

'No, I daresay they aren't. But I think myself that she's making up to Roger in the hope of getting him to give Kenneth a large allowance. Not that Kenneth would accept it, because he wouldn't.'

'Kenneth seems to be taking this pretty badly,' Giles said. 'Yet I shouldn't have said that he cared much about money.

'He doesn't, but of course he is rather hard-up at the moment, and after thinking you're next door to being a millionaire, it must be fairly sickening to find you're just as poor as you always were.' She got up, and fastened his leash to Bill's collar. 'I'd better go, I suppose. Do you know, Giles, I'm almost beginning to wish Arnold hadn't been murdered?'

'Tony, you're atrocious!'

'Well, it did look good at first, you must admit. Only now we all seem to be in a mess over it, and everything's rather wearing. I'm glad we've got you. You're about the only dependable thing we have got.'

'Thank you, Tony,' he said, smiling a little.

'And I'm glad we've definitely buried the hatchet. I like you, Giles.'

'Think again,' he said.

She frowned. 'Why? Don't you believe me?'

'Oh yes, I believe you,' he replied. 'But I've never thought half a loaf better than no bread, my dear.'

Chapter Seventeen

Upon the following morning, his inebriety having worn off, Roger cheerfully explained his condition as having been due to enforced abstinence for so long. This roused Kenneth to tell him exactly how many bottles of whisky he had consumed since his arrival at the studio, but Roger merely said: 'Well, you don't call that anything, do you?' and the conversation dropped.

Violet came in soon after breakfast, a circumstance which induced Kenneth, still in a bitter mood, to ask her savagely whether she ever did any work at all. He himself was in his overall, scowling at the half-finished canvas on the easel. Violet refused to take offence at his tone, and replied that she had already sent off a couple of fashion drawings by post, and thought that she was entitled to a holiday.

'I see,' said Kenneth. 'Devoting it to me, of course.'

'No, dear, I'm not,' replied Violet calmly. 'You are far too disagreeable, let me tell you. I'm going to try and fix your half-brother up in a place of his own.'

'Sweet of you, my pet. I hope he'll appreciate all this pure altruism.'

Violet stood for a moment, her lips slightly compressed. The she walked across the room to Kenneth's side, and laid her hand on his arm. 'Kenneth dear, will you try and be reasonable?' she begged. 'We must get Roger away from here. He's making you impossible to live with. You know quite well he'll never move unless he's made to, and if neither you nor Tony will do anything about it, it's up to me. I think you might be a little grateful, I must say.'

'You're doing it for what you can get out of him,' said Kenneth.

She was silent for a moment. Then she said: 'Well, what if I am? Why shouldn't he do something for us? I don't want to be poor, if you do.'

He looked at her with narrowed eyes. 'Gold-digging, eh? Do you care for anything else, my girl? Do you?'

She stiffened. 'I'm not going to be spoken to like that, Kenneth. I'll go.'

There was a pause. Kenneth had turned back to his work, for the first time indifferent to her anger. She moved towards the door, but looked back before she opened it. Her voice changed. She said gently: 'If you want to break off our engagement, please tell me! Do you, Kenneth?'

He did not answer for a moment, but swung round and stood looking at her under scowling brows. 'I don't know,' he said at last.

She remained quite still, fixing her great eyes on his. He put down his palette suddenly, and strode across the floor to her side, and pulled her roughly into his arms. 'No. No, I don't. Damn you, you've no heart, but I'm just going to paint you like that, against the door, with the light falling just so.'

She returned his embrace, and took his face between her slender hands. 'Try not to mistrust me, darling. It hurts.'

'Leave Roger alone, then,' he replied.

'Yes, dear, as soon as I've got him out of this place I will,' she promised. 'You can't really suppose that he's of any interest to me!'

He let the subject drop, but might well have pursued it more rigorously had he but heard what his half-brother was saying to Antonia at that very moment.

Roger, who said that the sight of Kenneth dabbing at a picture was very unrestful, had sought refuge in the kitchen, where he found Antonia busily engaged in ironing handkerchiefs. This was a hardly less disturbing sight than that of an artist at work, but it had the advantage of being unaccompanied by the smell of turpentine. Having ascertained that Murgatroyd had gone out to do the marketing, Roger sank into the basket-chair by the fire, and lit a cigarette.

'You'll catch it if Murgatroyd comes in,' Antonia warned him.

'I daresay she won't for a bit,' said Roger hopefully. 'That girl's here again.'

'Who? Violet?'

'She's going to find me a service-flat.'

'Good,' said Antonia. 'The sooner the better.'

'Now, don't you get spiteful!' said Roger. 'Because for one thing I quite like you, and for another I've got a good idea.'

'Why on earth do you like me?' demanded Antonia, curious but ungrateful.

'I don't know. You can't account for these things. Mind you, I don't like that pimple you've got yourself engaged to, but that's neither here nor there, and as far as I can see you won't marry him. However, that wasn't what I wanted to say. This Violet-girl.'

'What about her?'

'Well, I think it would be a good idea to get rid of her. I mean, do you want her joining the family?'

'Not particularly.'

'Of course not. Who would? I know her type. Give her three months, and she'll be managing the lot of us, and talking me into giving Kenneth more money than I've got. You may think I don't bother my head over these things, but that's where you're wrong. When I haven't got anything else to do I think a lot, and, of course, it's quite obvious that she's not at all the sort of girl Kenneth ought to marry.'

'How do you propose to stop him?'

'Well,' said Roger, tipping the ash of his cigarette vaguely in the direction of the stove. 'Kenneth seems to be a jealous young cub. Flies off the handle at nothing. My idea was that if I took Violet about a bit it might lead to the engagement's being broken off.'

'Yes,' said Antonia. 'But it might lead to a new one's being formed.'

A gleam crept into Roger's eyes. 'If she's clever enough to catch me, she can keep me,' he said. 'She won't be the first to try, not by a long chalk.'

'It's not a bad idea,' Antonia said slowly. 'Only I doubt if you'll succeed in taking Violet in. She's no fool.'

'Anyway,' said Roger, 'she might just as well be useful as not, and there's bound to be a lot to do settling me into a flat.'

'Are you trying to lure Violet just to move you into a flat?' Antonia inquired scornfully.

'Well, someone's got to do it,' he pointed out. 'Not that that's my only reason, because it isn't. Far from it. Now I've come into all this money I shall go about a bit here and there, and she's a very good sort of girl to take around. What I mean is, she's smart, and she won't want me to think out what she'd like to eat. If there's one thing that wears me out quicker than anything it's having to choose a lot of food for someone else to eat. Besides, if she's supposed to be going to be my sister-in-law I shan't have to be polite. Not that I want to be rude, but I find ceremony very exhausting. And, talking of things being exhausting, they tell me I own the mine now.'

'I thought it was a limited company.'

'Yes, but I've got all Arnold's shares, which apparently gives me control. Of course I've nothing against holding the shares, but I'm not going to control the mine. It's absurd. I suppose Kenneth wouldn't like to be chairman?'

'I shouldn't think so,' said Antonia indifferently. 'But why worry? You may be arrested for murdering Arnold before you have to think about appointing chairmen.'

Roger blinked at her, and said uneasily: 'I don't see why you need to bring that up, just when I'd forgotten about it. The fact of the matter is I don't like it. Not that I did murder Arnold, because such an idea never entered my head, but it's no good saying people don't get convicted of crimes they didn't commit. Very often they do. Let alone that it's very disturbing to have a lot of detectives with their eyes glued on you. That's one reason why I shall be glad to get out of this place. I can't stand having that Superintendent bobbing in and out like a dog at a fair. It's not my idea of comfort, by any means. If he thinks he's going to treat my flat like his own house he's mistaken, and that's all there is to it.'

Antonia put the iron back on the stove. 'tiles wants to know why you can't live in Eaton Place,' she observed.

'Because I don't want to be bothered with a great house like that, and a lot of servants worrying me to know whether I'll be in to lunch, and what I'd like to wear. Besides, if you run a pack of servants you have to look after them. I've already told Kenneth he can have Eaton Place, which, of course, is why Violet's so keen on fixing me up in a flat.'

'One thing I will say for you, Roger,' remarked Antonia, preparing to depart, 'you may be an ass in some ways, but there aren't many flies on you. All the same, there aren't many on Violet either, so don't be too optimistic about cutting Kenneth out.' She paused, as a thought occurred to her, and added: 'I suppose you couldn't see your way to marrying her? Then Kenneth could marry Leslie, and everything would be splendid. Violet would make you rather a good wife, too.'

'No one would make me a good wife,' replied Roger simply. 'Moreover, if by Leslie you mean that girl who was here yesterday, I don't think it would be splendid at all. We shouldn't get on. Every time I meet her, she looks at me as though she'd like to murder me. It's very unnerving, I can tell you.'

At this moment the door opened, and Violet looked into the kitchen. 'Oh, you are here!' she said. 'I heard someone talking, so I thought it must be you two.'

Antonia could not help wondering how much she had heard, and had the grace to blush. However, Violet was not paying any attention to her. She suggested to Roger that they should go out together to look at flats, and added, with a thoughtful glance at his suit, that she knew of a very good tailor if he had not already got one of his own.

Antonia, seeing Roger go off meekly in Violet's wake, was more than ever convinced that she would be the very person for him to marry.

The events of the next few days did nothing to weaken this conviction. Not only was Roger installed in a furnished flat, but an entire wardrobe was purchased for him, so that Kenneth regained possession of his shirts and pyjamas, and Murgatroyd was induced to look upon Violet for the first time with approval.

Roger was so well pleased with his flat that he roused himself sufficiently to give a dinner-party as a sort of house-warming, and invited not only his half-brother and sister, but Violet and tiles as well. He did not invite Mesurier, for various comprehensive reasons which he was quite ready to expound to any and everybody. It had naturally been impossible to keep Mesurier's financial antics a secret from him, and he was only deterred from dismissing him from the firm by Kenneth's warning that to do so would be tantamount to fixing the date of his wedding to Antonia. 'If you want that tailor's-dummy for a brother-in-law, let me tell you that I don't!' said Kenneth.

'Certainly not,' said Roger. 'In fact, that was why I thought I'd sack him. Though, mind you, I should like to sack him on my own account, because for one thing I don't care for him, and for another I'm all for sacking someone just to see what it feels like.'

'I suppose you only know what it feels like to be sacked,' remarked Kenneth waspishly.

'Exactly,' nodded Roger, utterly impervious to this or any other insult. 'And, funnily enough, the last time I got the boot it was for almost the same thing. Only, as it happens, I wasn't thinking of paying the money back. I don't say I mightn't have thought of it, if I'd had any means of doing it, but I hadn't. However, if you think sacking Mesurier will make Tony marry him, I won't do it. Because if she marries him she'll expect me to call him Rudolph, and I don't mind telling you that I don't like the name. In fact, I think it's a damn silly name. What's more, if I had to call him by it I should feel very selfconscious. Not that I really like tiles either, but that's merely a matter of taste. There's nothing against the name as a name, nothing at all.'