Envious Casca Read online

  ‘It is very unfortunate,’ stated Maud. ‘I wish I could remember where I laid it down. I always read for twenty minutes in bed before I put the light out. It is very calming to the mind. I had just got to the part about Rudolph. The one who committed suicide.’

  ‘What do you find so calming about that?’ asked Stephen, over his shoulder.

  ‘It takes one’s mind off things,’ she answered vaguely.

  It said much for Joseph’s kindliness, Mathilda thought, that with no more than a sigh, immediately suppressed, he got up from his chair, and offered to help in the search for the book. Mathilda was afraid that he would ask Stephen for it, but although he did glance speculatively at that unresponsive profile he appeared to feel the moment to be unpropitious, and said nothing. It seemed rather unfair that he, upon whom the brunt of the evening’s burden had fallen, should be obliged to undertake a singularly futile search singlehanded, so Mathilda got up, and offered to assist him. Maud thanked her placidly, and went back to her seat by the fire.

  ‘She might have put it down in the billiard-room,’ Mathilda suggested. ‘She came in there just before tea, didn’t she?’

  The billiard-room yielded no clue to the book’s whereabouts, but the sight of the Christmas tree, glittering under the lights, brought home to Mathilda and to Joseph the gruesome nature of the events of the day. Joseph swallowed twice, and made a tragic gesture towards the coloured balls and the twinkling tinsel.

  ‘What are you going to do about it?’ asked Mathilda. ‘It does seem a trifle out of place, doesn’t it?’

  Joseph blew his nose. ‘It must be taken away. Oh, Tilda, is this all my fault? Was I wrong to coax Nat into giving this party? I meant it to be so different!’

  ‘I don’t see that you could have known that Nat would be murdered,’ she replied.

  He shook his head, putting out a hand to finger one of the icicles that depended from a laden branch.

  ‘Joe, did he make a will?’

  He raised his eyes. ‘Yes. I don’t know whether it’s still in existence, though. Perhaps it would be better if he’d destroyed it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It was when he had pleurisy, in the spring,’ Joseph said. ‘I persuaded him to make a will. I thought it right, Tilda! If only one could see into the future!’

  ‘Was it in Stephen’s favour?’

  He nodded. After a moment, she said: ‘Well, Stephen didn’t know it, anyway.’

  He glanced up quickly, and down again.

  ‘Unless you told him,’ she added.

  ‘I? No, I never said so! Not in so many words! But when I saw what sort of a mood he was in, I did rather hint to Valerie that a word from her might be advantageous. She may tell the Inspector so. She’s such a thoughtless child! And you know what an impression Stephen must be giving the police by that silly, boorish manner he puts on! Oh, Tilda, I feel worried to death!’

  She was silent for a moment. ‘Did the police ask you who was the heir?’ she said presently.

  ‘Yes, but I think I shelved the question. I gave them the name of Nat’s solicitor.’

  ‘Do you suppose that the will is in his charge?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said reluctantly. ‘If it isn’t, I shall have to say where I think it might be. I mean, I can’t do Stephen out of his inheritance, can I? Besides, they’d be bound to find it sooner or later. I don’t know what to do for the best.’

  Mathilda felt strongly inclined to advise him not to meddle, but she refrained. He said: ‘I wish you’d exert your influence, Tilda! Don’t let him alienate the police through sheer perversity! He won’t listen to me.’

  ‘I expect he knows his own business best,’ she said shortly. ‘In any event, I have no influence over him.’

  ‘Sometimes I fear that no one has,’ said Joseph, with one of his gusty sighs. ‘It’s as though he was born cussed! Now, what in the world can have possessed him to hide poor Maud’s book? That’s the sort of silly, schoolboy mischief that puts people against him so!’

  Mathilda thought that anyone less schoolboyish or mischievous than Stephen would have been hard to find, but she merely observed that Stephen denied all knowledge of the book’s whereabouts.

  ‘Oh well, perhaps I’m wronging him!’ said Joseph, visibly brightening. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t seem to be in this room.’

  They returned to the library, their arrival synchronising with that of Valerie, who had apparently derived some benefit from a protracted and expensive telephone-call to her mother. She announced that Mummy was coming down to Lexham on the following day.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ said Stephen audibly.

  ‘I’m sure she must want to be with you at such a time,’ said Joseph hastily. ‘We shall be very glad to have her, shan’t we, Maud? One only wishes that her visit were taking place under happier circumstances.’

  ‘Mummy says she’s sure it will all be cleared up satisfactorily, and we just mustn’t worry!’ said Valerie.

  This valuable piece of advice plunged everyone into a state of profound gloom. After thinking it over, Mottisfont said that he didn’t see how it could be cleared up satisfactorily.

  ‘No,’ said Stephen cordially. ‘Not when you consider that one of us is an assassin.’

  ‘I find that remark gratuitously offensive!’ said Mottisfont.

  ‘Why?’ asked Stephen.

  ‘Now, now!’ Joseph intervened. ‘We mustn’t let this thing get on top of our nerves! I myself feel convinced that Nat was murdered by someone from outside.’

  ‘You would,’ said Stephen.

  ‘Damn it all, why not?’ demanded Mathilda.

  He shrugged. ‘Windows all latched on the inside.’

  ‘But the ventilator was open!’ Joseph reminded him. ‘An agile man might have got in that way, I believe. Of course, it wouldn’t have been easy, but although you may not believe it I used to be a bit of an athlete in my younger days, and I’m pretty sure I could have done it.’

  ‘You couldn’t do it now, Joe,’ said Mathilda. ‘Too much enbonpoint.’

  ‘Ah, you love to make fun of your poor old uncle!’ he said, shaking his fist at her. ‘Yet when I was a young man I was as slim as Roydon there. I well remember when I was playing Romeo once – But what am I about, telling stories of my youth when our minds are full of graver matters? Maud, my dear, we will have a thorough search for your book tomorrow, I promise. You have had a wearing day: you should be in bed, you know.’

  ‘I daresay I may have left it upstairs,’ she said, winding up her knitting-wool. ‘I do not want anyone to worry about it. I expect it will turn up.’ She rose, said good night in a general way, and departed.

  ‘I shall follow her example,’ said Mathilda. ‘Are you coming up, Valerie?’

  Valerie replied reluctantly that she supposed she would have to, but that the thought of having a policeman in the house was too ghoulish to permit of her closing her eyes all night.

  ‘I shouldn’t worry. I believe policemen are a very moral set,’ said Mathilda unkindly. ‘Lock your door, if you’re nervous.’

  ‘I do think you’re the limit!’ exclaimed Valerie, giggling.

  ‘I don’t suppose any of us will sleep much,’ remarked Mottisfont, when she had left the room. ‘I know I shan’t. I feel as though I’d had a knock-out. Nat! It still doesn’t seem possible!’

  ‘Personally,’ said Roydon, with ill-assumed indifference, ‘I feel pretty done-in, and I daresay I shall sleep like a log. After all, it’s different for me. I mean, it isn’t as though I knew Mr Herriard.’

  This implication, that he stood aloof from the crime and its consequences, did nothing to advance his popularity with the three other men. Even Joseph shook his head in a foreboding way; and Mottisfont went so far as to say that they were all in it, one just as much as another.

  ‘I’m afraid I can hardly agree with you!’ said Roydon, in a head-voice. ‘I don’t want to cast any aspersions on anyone, but I had no quarrel with Mr Herriard!’