Death in the Stocks: Merely Murder Read online

  The Superintendent was watching him closely. ‘So what did you do, Mr Vereker?’

  ‘I went to Monte Carlo,’ replied Roger.

  ‘You went to Monte Carlo?’ repeated the Superintendent.

  ‘Seemed an obvious thing to do,’ said Roger. ‘I’ve been wanting to try out a System for some time.’

  ‘You threw away a certain two hundred a year for a flimsy chance of making some money gambling?’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Roger, eyeing him blandly.

  The Superintendent glanced rather helplessly at Giles. Giles’s lips quivered.

  ‘Yes, that’s in the part,’ he said.

  Hannasyde turned back to Roger. ‘When did you leave for Monte Carlo?’

  ‘Next morning,’ said Roger.

  ‘On Sunday?’

  ‘I daresay it may have been a Sunday. I didn’t notice.’

  ‘So that on the night of 17th June you were in England?’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Roger. ‘If I’d known that Arnold was going to be murdered, I wouldn’t have been, but it can’t be helped now.’

  ‘Where did you spend that night, Mr Vereker?’

  Roger finished what was left in his glass, and set it down. His sleepy gaze travelled from one intent face to the other. ‘Well, that’s a very awkward question,’ he confessed.

  ‘Why is it an awkward question?’

  ‘Because I don’t know what to say,’ answered Roger.

  The Superintendent’s brows began to draw together. ‘You can say where you were on the night of 17th June, Mr Vereker!’

  ‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong,’ said Roger. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because,’ said Roger simply, ‘I don’t know.’

  Sixteen

  His words produced an astonished silence. He smiled in his apologetic way and took advantage of his audience’s surprise to get up and replenish his glass. ‘We shall be needing some more whisky, Tony,’ he remarked. ‘Thought I’d better mention it.’

  The Superintendent found his voice. ‘You don’t know where you spent the night of 17th June?’ he repeated.

  ‘No,’ said Roger. ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Come, Mr Vereker, that is not quite good enough!’

  There was a note of anger in Hannasyde’s voice, but it left Roger unmoved. ‘Well, I was in London. That I can tell you.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Roger, pull yourself together!’ his cousin besought him. ‘You dined at the Trocadero, didn’t you?’

  Roger thought this over. ‘Wasn’t it the Monico?’ he inquired.

  ‘Did you pay for your dinner with a ten-pound note?’ demanded Hannasyde.

  ‘Now you come to mention it, I believe I did,’ Roger admitted. ‘Wanted change, you see.’

  ‘Very well, then, we can assume that you dined at the Trocadero,’ said Hannasyde. ‘What time was it when you left the restaurant?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Roger.

  There was no trace of his usual kindliness in the Superintendent’s face by this time. His grey eyes were stern, his mouth set rather rigidly. ‘Very well, Mr Vereker. Do you happen to know what you did when you left the Trocadero?’

  Roger performed a vague gesture with one hand. ‘Just drifted about here and there,’ he said.

  ‘Did you spend the night in a hotel or a boarding-house?’

  ‘No,’ said Roger.

  ‘You booked no room anywhere?’

  ‘No,’ repeated Roger, still amiably smiling. ‘Left my bag at the station.’

  ‘Mr Vereker, you cannot have walked about London all night. Will you be good enough to put an end to this farce, and tell me without any more trifling – where you were?’

  ‘The trouble is I don’t know where I was,’ replied Roger, with the air of one making a fresh disclosure. ‘You see, I didn’t give the address to the taxi-driver, which accounts for it.’

  ‘You were with someone, then?’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Roger. ‘I was with a friend.’

  ‘And your friend’s name?’

  ‘Flossie,’ said Roger. ‘At least it may have been Florence, but that’s what I called her.’

  At this point Giles turned away rather hastily, and walked over to the window. The Superintendent was in no mood to share his obvious amusement, and merely rapped out: ‘Flossie who?’

  ‘Well, there you rather have me,’ said Roger. ‘I didn’t ask her. I mean, why should I?’

  ‘I see,’ said the Superintendent. ‘You spent the night at an address you don’t know, with a woman whose name you don’t know. Is that what you expect me to believe?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter to me what you believe,’ said Roger. ‘You can do as you like about it. The point is you can’t prove I didn’t. And don’t go rounding up all the Flossies in London for me to identify, because, though I’m not a shy man, I’ll be damned if I’ll do that.’

  Antonia, joining her cousin by the window, said wistfully: ‘I do wish Kenneth were here.’

  ‘I’m thankful he isn’t,’ said Giles.

  She said more softly: ‘Do you think Roger did it, Giles?’

  ‘God knows!’

  At the other end of the studio Superintendent Hannasyde was speaking. ‘Was it the news of your brother’s death which brought you back from Monte Carlo, Mr Vereker?’

  ‘Oh no!’ said Roger. ‘I didn’t know anything about that. As a matter of fact, that particular System didn’t work out right. Of course, I may have muddled it, but I’m inclined to think it wasn’t a good one. However, it’s made me think of something that I rather fancy may be pretty useful, so it doesn’t much matter. Only it was a pity they would insist on sending me home, because I might have raised some money somehow or other. I told them I wasn’t going to commit suicide – well, do I look the sort of man who’d shoot himself ? Of course I don’t! – but it was no use.’

  ‘Do you never read the papers, Mr Vereker? Your brother’s death was widely reported.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say never,’ replied Roger conscientiously. ‘Occasionally one hasn’t anything better to do, but there’s always something better to do at Monte Carlo. And if you think it over you’ll see that if I read the papers, and knew about Arnold being murdered, I shouldn’t have come home.’

  ‘As far as I can make out you had no choice in the matter,’ said Hannasyde tartly.

  ‘Now, don’t start losing your temper,’ advised Roger. ‘No one forced me to come and look my relations up, so I could quite easily have lain low till it all blew over.’

  ‘You had to look your relations up, as you call it, because you were badly in need of money,’ said Hannasyde.

  ‘That’s perfectly true,’ conceded Roger, ‘but if you’d been broke as many times as I have you’d know that there are always ways of rubbing along somehow. You don’t suppose I should go shoving my head into a noose just because I wanted some money, do you?’

  ‘I think,’ said Hannasyde, getting up, ‘that in common with your half-brother, you suffer from a delusion that you are clever enough to get away with anything. Therefore I judge that you are very likely to have done just that.’

  ‘Have it your own way,’ said Roger equably. ‘And, talking of money, I want to talk business with my cousin when you’re quite finished asking me questions.’

  ‘I have finished,’ said Hannasyde. He turned. ‘Good-bye, Miss Vereker. I’m sorry to have interrupted your tea-party.’ He nodded to Giles Carrington and walked over to the door.

  ‘You don’t understand me at all,’ complained Roger. ‘I don’t pretend to be clever. In fact, most people seem to think I’m a bit of a fool. Not that I agree with that, because I’m not a fool by any means. And while we’re on the subject, it’s my belief Kenneth isn’t half what he’s cracked up to be either. You may think he’s very bright, but all I can say is –’

  The door closed behind the Superintendent. Roger looked slightly pained, but quite resigned. ‘Gone off in a huff,�€