Death in the Stocks: Merely Murder Read online

  ‘What do you suppose I’m likely to answer?’ retorted Kenneth.

  ‘Quite so,’ said Roger. ‘Silly of me. What I mean is, it’s a nuisance for you if you did, now I’ve come home. Waste of time.’

  ‘Unless I murder you too,’ said Kenneth thoughtfully.

  ‘Now, don’t start talking like that,’ said Roger. ‘Before you know where you are, you’ll be doing it. I never could stand impulsive people, never.’

  Kenneth eyed him speculatively. ‘The best thing, of course, would be to foist Arnold’s murder on to you,’ he said. ‘I don’t quite see how, at the moment, but I may think of something.’

  ‘That’s not a bad idea,’ remarked Antonia. ‘You wouldn’t have to make up a motive, either, because he’s got one.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like it,’ said Roger, a shade of uneasiness in his voice. ‘And it’s no use going on with it, because I’ve already told you I only landed yesterday.’

  ‘Moreover,’ continued Antonia, brightening, ‘the knife was a foreign dagger or stiletto (I forget which), common in Spain and South America. They said so at the Inquest.’

  ‘You never told me that,’ Kenneth reproached her.

  ‘It’s very important. Naturally, that’s just the sort of thing Roger would use.’

  ‘Now there you’re wrong,’ said Roger. ‘If there’s one thing that I wouldn’t use it’s that. I don’t believe in knifing people. You see a lot of it in some of the places I’ve been in, but that isn’t to say you get into the way of doing it yourself. At least, I don’t. Besides, I didn’t know anything about the murder till you told me. As a matter of fact, now I come to think of it, I don’t know much about it now. I don’t even approve of it.’

  However, Kenneth was not easily to be diverted from his chosen train of thought, and he continued to pursue it until dinner was brought in. Murgatroyd waited on them in silence, and only occasionally threw Roger a hostile look. She confided to Antonia, later, that it might be as well to keep in with Roger. ‘For, whatever his faults, Miss Tony – and it would take me till to-morrow to tell you them – he’s not mean. That I will say for him.’

  ‘You needn’t think I’m going to sponge on Roger,’ replied Antonia.

  ‘You never know what you may do till you come to it,’ said Murgatroyd.

  It was not until after nine o’clock that Giles Carrington entered the flat, and when she admitted him, and recognised his companion, Murgatroyd gave a disparaging sniff, and remarked that it never rained but what it poured.

  The small party gathered together in the studio was not being a success, in spite of all Violet’s efforts to make it one. She had managed to stop Kenneth trying to evolve some method by which Roger might have contrived the murder and yet appear to have been on the high seas at the time, but she could not induce him either to take part in the sort of general conversation she was trying to promote, or to be polite to his half-brother. She had taken pains to draw Roger out on the subject of his travels, but Kenneth, who was invariably made irritable when she bestowed her attention on another man, blighted most of Roger’s reminiscences by interpolating now and then the remark that he didn’t believe a word of it. He sat slouched in the largest armchair, with an expression of brooding anger in his eyes; and the only interest he displayed during Roger’s rambling narration was in the story of the beautiful Spaniard who had twice tried to kill him.

  Antonia, frankly bored, had curled herself up on the divan with two of her dogs at her feet, and was reading a novel. She put it down when the door opened to admit her cousin, and greeted him with relief. ‘Oh, good!’ she said. ‘Now you can come and tell us how to get rid of him! Hullo! What have you brought the police for?’

  Kenneth’s scowl vanished. He sprang up, exclaiming: ‘You see how right my theory is, Roger! They’ve come for you already!’

  Roger, too, had risen, and was looking greatly disturbed. ‘If policemen are going to infest the place I shall have to go,’ he said. ‘It isn’t that I’m afraid I shan’t be comfortable, because I’ve tried the camp-bed and it isn’t bad. What I mean is, I’ve slept in many worse. But I don’t like policemen. Some people feel the same about cats. Always know the instant one comes into the room, and begin to get creepy. Not that I’ve any objection to cats, mind you. Far from it. In fact, if I had to be bothered with any sort of animal, I think I should choose a cat.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t,’ said Antonia, who had happened to listen to this. ‘They’re inhuman things – though I suppose there are cats and cats.’

  ‘There you are, then,’ Roger pointed out. ‘But it’s no use telling me there are policemen and policemen, because it wouldn’t be true. It’s always puzzled me what anyone ever wanted policemen for except to stand about at cross-roads, sticking out their hands, and even that seems to me the kind of job anyone else could do as well, if not better.’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t talk such drivel,’ said Antonia. ‘Anybody would think you were going to have one as a pet. And if other people directed traffic instead they’d be police-men, so I don’t see that it would make much difference.’

  Roger followed this argument carefully. ‘There’s a fallacy in that,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure where it is, and I’m not going to work it out, but the thing doesn’t sound right to me, somehow.’

  Any faint hope Hannasyde might have cherished of finding in Roger one normal member of the Vereker family vanished. He sighed, and transferred his attention to Kenneth.

  Giles interposed before Antonia could continue the argument. ‘Shut up, Tony. Well, Roger, how are you? When did you arrive?’

  ‘I’m getting tired of answering that question,’ replied Roger, shaking hands. ‘I keep on telling everyone I landed yesterday – I’m glad you’ve come round, because it’s a very awkward predicament, mine. I’ve run out of cash. They tell me you’re one of Arnold’s executors, so you’ll be able to advance me some of the money. How much have you brought?’

  ‘I haven’t brought any,’ answered Giles. ‘I can’t advance you money in that haphazard fashion.’

  The interest which had gleamed for a few moments in Roger’s eye was effectually banished by this pronouncement. He relapsed into his usual quiescence, merely remarking in a discouraged way that if that was so, he couldn’t see why Giles had troubled to come. ‘Not that I don’t want to see you,’ he added. ‘But there doesn’t seem to me to be much point in it.’

  ‘If he succeeds in ridding us of you there’ll be a great deal of point in it,’ said Kenneth savagely. ‘Sit down, my friend-the-Superintendent, sit down! What can I offer you? Whisky? Lager?’

  The Superintendent declined any refreshment. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt a – a family party,’ he said, ‘but –’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Kenneth. ‘We’re charmed to see you. At least, my half-brother isn’t, but that’s probably because his conscience isn’t clear. But the rest of us are delighted. Aren’t we, Violet? By the way I don’t think you’ve met our friend-the-Superintendent, darling. This is he. Superintendent, my fiancée – Miss Williams.’

  Violet bowed slightly, and bestowed on Hannasyde the small mechanical smile she reserved for her social inferiors. Turning from him, she suggested to Kenneth in a low voice that she should go. He instantly quashed this, so she compromised by withdrawing tactfully to the other end of the room under the pretence of opening a window.

  Meanwhile Giles had introduced the Superintendent to Roger, and Hannasyde, in his good-humoured way, was explaining the ostensible reason for his visit. ‘As I expect you have been told, Mr Vereker, your brother, Mr Arnold Vereker, was stabbed at Ashleigh Green last Saturday,’ he began, ‘so I’m sure you will –’

  ‘Yes, I’ve been told that,’ replied Roger, ‘but it has nothing to do with me. Naturally I was shocked to hear it. In fact, I didn’t at first believe it.’

  ‘It must have been a terrible shock,’ agreed Hannasyde sympathetically.

  ‘Well, it was. If they’d said he’d been shot,