Envious Casca Read online

  The doctor rose from his knees. ‘I suppose you realise that this is a case of murder?’ he said.

  Joseph bowed his head.

  ‘The police must be notified at once.’

  ‘It has already been done. They should be here any minute now.’

  ‘I will wait for them.’

  ‘It has been such a ghastly shock!’ Joseph said, after an uncomfortable pause.

  The doctor assented. He looked as though he too had suffered a shock.

  ‘I suppose you don’t know who – ?’ he asked, leaving the sentence unfinished.

  Joseph shook his head. ‘I almost feel I’d rather not know. If one could be sure he didn’t suffer!’

  ‘Oh, probably hardly at all!’ Stoke said reassuringly.

  ‘Thank you. It’s a relief to know that. I suppose he must have died immediately.’

  ‘Well, within a very short time, anyway,’ conceded Stoke.

  Joseph sighed, and relapsed into silence. This lasted until the arrival of a police inspector, with various satellites. Stephen brought them upstairs, and Joseph roused himself from his abstraction, greeting the Inspector, whom he knew, with a forced smile, and saying: ‘You know Dr Stoke, don’t you?’

  The room seemed suddenly to be overfull of people. Joseph confided to Stephen that it seemed a desecration. The police-surgeon and Dr Stoke conferred together over Nathaniel’s body, and the Inspector, who looked as though he did not like being brought to a murder-case on Christmas Eve, began to ask questions.

  ‘I can’t tell you anything,’ Stephen said. ‘The last time I saw him alive was downstairs in the drawing-room, at about seven-thirty.’

  ‘I understand it was you who broke into the room, sir, and discovered the body?’

  ‘His valet and I. Our finger-prints will be found all over the place.’

  ‘Mine too,’ Joseph said unhappily. ‘One doesn’t think, when a thing like this happens.’

  The Inspector’s eyes dwelled on the brandy decanter, and the glass beside it. Stephen said: ‘No. False scent. The brandy was brought to revive my uncle before we realised he was dead. I drank it.’

  ‘Very understandable, sir, I’m sure. When you came in, was the deceased lying as at present?’

  ‘Not quite,’ Stephen said, after a moment’s reflection. ‘He was rather more on his face, I think.’

  ‘I wonder if you would be so good, sir, as to replace the body as you found it?’

  Stephen hesitated, distaste in his face. Joseph said pleadingly: ‘Inspector, this is terribly painful for my nephew! Surely –’

  ‘Shut up!’ Stephen said roughly, and went to Nathaniel’s body, and arranged it. ‘More or less like that.’

  ‘Do you agree with that, sir?’ the Inspector asked Joseph.

  ‘Yes, yes!’ Joseph said. ‘His head was on his arm. We never dreamed – we thought he had fainted!’

  The Inspector nodded, and asked who slept in the next bedroom, which lay beyond Nathaniel’s bathroom. He was told that it was a single spare-room which Roydon had been put into, and took a note of this. Having scrutinised the windows, both in the bedroom and in the bathroom, and looked meditatively at the half-open ventilator, he ascertained that these had not been tampered with since the finding of Nathaniel’s body, and at last suggested that further questions might best be answered in some other room.

  Both Joseph and Stephen were glad to get away from the scene of the crime, and they led the Inspector downstairs to the morning-room, leaving the photographer, the fingerprint experts, and the ambulance-men in possession.

  The morning-room fire had been allowed to go out, and the room felt chilly. The Inspector said that it was of no consequence, and he would be obliged to question everyone in the house. Joseph gave a groan, and ejaculated: ‘Those poor young people! If they could have been spared this horror!’

  The Inspector did not waste his breath answering this; he knew his duty, and he had no time to spare for irrelevancies. He should have been filling his children’s stockings by right, not taking depositions at Lexham Manor. It wasn’t as though the case was likely to do him much good, he reflected. He wasn’t the Detective-Inspector, but merely deputising for that gentleman, who was in bed with influenza. The Chief Constable, a nervous man, would be bound to call in Scotland Yard, he thought, and some smart London man would get all the credit for the case. He waited for Joseph to lower the hand with which he had covered his eyes before saying: ‘Now, sir, if you please! I understand you have a number of guests staying in the house? If I might have their names?’

  ‘Our Christmas party!’ Joseph said tragically.

  ‘We shall at least be spared your rollicking festivities,’ Stephen said.

  The Inspector glanced at him rather narrowly. That was a queer way to speak of his uncle’s murder, he thought. It didn’t do to set too much store by what people said in moments of shock, but if he were asked he would be bound to admit that he hadn’t taken a fancy to young Herriard, not by a long chalk.

  Joseph caught his glance, and rushed to Stephen’s support. ‘My nephew’s very much upset,’ he said. ‘It’s been a dreadful blow – and I’m afraid the modern youth makes a point of hiding its feelings under a mask of flippancy.’

  Stephen grimaced, but allowed this explanation to pass without comment. He dived a hand into his pocket for his pipe and his tobacco-pouch, and began to fill the pipe, while Joseph told the Inspector about the other guests.

  Joseph had a kind word for everybody. Roydon was a most promising playwright, a great friend of his niece. The niece? Ah yes! this young man’s sister: an actress, and quite her poor dead uncle’s favourite. Then there was Miss Dean – a smile towards Stephen – his nephew’s fiancée. He might say that this party had really been arranged on her account. She had never stayed with them before, and they had so much wanted to get to know her. Miss Clare, too! a cousin, quite a persona grata in the house. Remained only Edgar Mottisfont, Nathaniel’s partner, and close friend for many years. There were, of course, the servants, but he was quite sure none of them could have had anything to do with the murder.

  This was unpromising stuff, but the Inspector did not allow himself to be unduly cast-down. He wanted to know whether there had been any quarrel between the deceased and any of his guests.

  ‘Oh no, no! Not what I should call a quarrel!’ Joseph said quickly. ‘I’m afraid all we Herriards are inclined to be testy, but there has been nothing of a serious nature. Nothing – nothing to warrant this dreadful thing!’

  ‘But there has been quarrelling, sir?’

  ‘Just a few family tiffs! What I call the give and take of family life. My brother was a sufferer from lumbago, and you know what that does to a man’s temper, Inspector. There may have been a little crossness here and there, but we knew that Uncle Nat’s bark was worse than his bite, didn’t we, Stephen?’

  Not even his own predicament, which he must have known to be dangerous, could induce Stephen to join forces with Joseph. He said ‘Did we?’ in a non-committal tone which did much to destroy the good impression Joseph was making.

  The Inspector turned towards him. ‘Would you say that there had been a quarrel, sir?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t. I’d say my uncle had quarrelled with every one of us, with the exception of Miss Clare.’

  ‘Did you have words with him, sir?’

  ‘Many,’ said Stephen coolly.

  ‘Stephen, don’t be silly, old man!’ Joseph interposed. ‘Whatever may have passed between you and Nat earlier in the day, I for one can bear witness to the fact that you and he were on the friendliest terms by teatime! Inspector, this stupid fellow loves to make himself out to be a regular old bear, but I saw him with my own eyes link arms with my brother as they came in to tea, and no one could have been nicer to him thereafter than he was! Indeed, I noticed it particularly, and was so happy to see it!’

  The Inspector’s appraising gaze travelled from his face to Stephen’s. ‘But there had been a quarrel