Envious Casca Read online

  ‘Well, that’s a comfort, anyway,’ said Hemingway. ‘If there’s one thing that gets my goat more than another, it’s coming up against a man with a lot of silly, noble ideas in his head which don’t do any good to anyone. Is that all the evidence we’ve got, Inspector?’

  ‘Not quite, it isn’t. One of the housemaids saw Miss Herriard coming away from her uncle’s door in her dressinggown. A bit after, the valet heard a footstep in the front hall, as he was coming up the backstairs. He just saw Mr Roydon’s door shut. But Mr Roydon gave a perfectly reasonable explanation for that; and as for Miss Herriard, she made no bones about admitting she’d tried to get into her uncle’s room, to have her row out with him. She says she found the door locked, and didn’t get any answer to her knock.’

  ‘Didn’t that strike her as funny?’

  ‘It didn’t strike anyone as funny. They all bear one another out that it was just like Mr Herriard not to answer, if he was in a bad temper.’

  ‘It sounds like a nice family,’ remarked Hemingway.

  The Inspector permitted himself to smile. ‘It is that, and no mistake. You’ll see!’

  ‘Seems to me I’d better go up there as soon as I can,’ said Hemingway. ‘I’d like to have a word with the policesurgeon, if you please, sir.’

  ‘Yes, of course. You’ll want to see the finger-prints too, I daresay,’ said the Major, passing him on to Inspector Colwall.

  ‘Half that gang up at the Manor,’ confided Colwall, as he closed the door of the Chief Constable’s room, ‘will just about throw fits when they realise you’re from Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Excitable people, are they?’

  ‘I believe you! Miss Herriard’s a real tragedy-queen, and Miss Dean’s the sort who’d go off into hysterics for two pins.’

  ‘That’s young Herriard’s blonde, isn’t it? I’ve got a fancy to meet her.’

  ‘You won’t get anything out of her, not to rely on,’ Colwall said, staring.

  ‘Ah, but I’ve always had a weakness for blondes!’ Hemingway said.

  Inspector Colwall looked at him suspiciously, but could not bring himself to believe that the good man from Scotland Yard was being flippant. ‘Well, you may be right,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t set any store by what she says myself. But of course I’ve never gone in for your branch of the service. Never had a fancy for it. I daresay it comes easy to you chaps, but if I had to spend many evenings like I did last night I should go potty. You don’t know what you’re up against with that crowd, Inspector.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Hemingway cheerfully. ‘As long as there’s one blonde I’ve no complaints coming.’

  There were, unknown to him, two blondes now awaiting him at Lexham Manor, Mrs Dean having arrived in a hired car at an alarmingly early hour.

  None of the inmates of the house had, from their appearances, enjoyed unbroken rest during the night. Valerie, indeed, declared that she had not once closed her eyes; and even Stephen seemed more than usually morose. The party met at the breakfast-table. Joseph, who came in last of all, greeted the company with a tremulous smile, and said: ‘Alas, that I can’t wish you all a merry Christmas! Yet it seems unfriendly, and sad, doesn’t it, to let this day pass without one word to mark its character?’

  There was no immediate response to this. Finally, Valerie said: ‘It doesn’t seem like Christmas, somehow.’

  ‘Personally,’ said Roydon, ‘I set no store by worn-out customs.’

  ‘If anyone is going to church,’ said Maud, apparently deaf to this remark, ‘Ledbury is bringing the car round at twenty minutes to eleven.’

  ‘I’m afraid none of us feels quite in the mood for our usual Christmas service,’ said Joseph gently. ‘But you must go, of course, if you wish to, my dear.’

  ‘I always go to church on Christmas Day,’ replied Maud. ‘And on Sundays, too.’

  ‘One had not realised that there were still people who did!’ said Roydon, with the air of one interested in the habits of aborigines.

  This was felt to be an observation in such bad taste that Mathilda at once offered to accompany Maud, and Stephen – although not going to these lengths – ranged himself on Maud’s side by telling the dramatist to shut up, and get on with his breakfast.

  ‘Hush, Stephen!’ said Joseph, yet with a sympathetic gleam in his eye.

  ‘You shut up too!’ said Stephen. ‘We’ve listened to enough nauseating twaddle to last us for a fortnight. In case it interests anyone, Uncle Nat’s solicitor is coming down here by the eleven-fifteen from Waterloo. If Ledbury is fetching you from church, Aunt Maud, you’ll have to drive on to pick Blyth up at the station afterwards.’

  Maud showed herself perfectly ready to fall in with this plan, but Mottisfont, who had been making only the barest pretence of eating, said with a good deal of meaning: ‘Very high-handed! Let us hope that someone is not in for a disappointment.’

  Stephen showed his admirable teeth in a singularly disagreeable smile. ‘Is that meant for me?’

  Mottisfont shrugged. ‘Oh, if the cap fits – !’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Edgar!’ interposed Joseph. ‘Surely if anyone has the right to object to Stephen’s taking charge of things it is I!’

  ‘Well, if I were you I wouldn’t put up with it for a moment.’

  Joseph tried to exchange a smile with Stephen. ‘Ah, but I’m not a clever business man like you, Edgar! I’m only a muddleheaded old artist – if I may be so bold as to lay claim to that title – and Stephen knows well that I’m grateful to him for all that he’s doing.’

  Paula, who had been crumbling a roll in glowering abstraction, intercepted the offensive reply which everyone felt to be hovering on Stephen’s tongue by saying suddenly: ‘How long will it be before we get probate?’

  Everyone was rather startled by this, and as no one else seemed inclined to answer her Joseph said: ‘My dear, I’m afraid we aren’t thinking of such things just yet.’

  She cast him one of her scornful, impatient glances. ‘Well, I am. If Uncle Nat’s left me the money he always said he would I shall put Wormwood on.’

  Roydon flushed, and muttered something unintelligible. Valerie said that she would make a point of going to see it. She gave it as her opinion that it would be marvellous. Mathilda hoped, privately, that this appreciation would in some measure compensate Roydon for the marked lack of enthusiasm displayed by everyone else. She rose from the table, and went away to smoke a cigarette in the library.

  Here she was soon joined, rather to her annoyance, by Mottisfont, who, after remarking aimlessly that one missed one’s morning paper, began to wander about the room, fidgeting with blind-cords, matchboxes, cushions, and anything else that came in the way of his unquiet hands.

  After a few minutes, Mathilda laid down her book. ‘You seem worried, Mr Mottisfont.’

  ‘Well, who wouldn’t be?’ he demanded, coming to the fire. ‘I don’t know how you can go on as though nothing had happened! Apart from anything else, Stephen’s manner –’

  ‘Oh, Stephen!’ she said. ‘You ought to know him by now, surely!’

  ‘Ill-mannered cub!’ he muttered. ‘Taking things into his own hands, without so much as a by-your-leave! I call it thoroughly officious, and why on earth he must needs drag Nat’s solicitor down here on Christmas Day, God alone knows! Anxious to get his hands on Nat’s will, I suppose. Indecent, I call it!’

  ‘The solicitor ought to come at once,’ she replied rather shortly. ‘The police are bound to want to go through Nat’s papers, for one thing.’

  It struck her that he winced slightly at this. He said: ‘They aren’t likely to find anything.’

  ‘You never know,’ Mathilda said.

  ‘Everyone knows that Nat was a hot-tempered old – a hot-tempered man who said a lot of things he didn’t mean. Why, I, for instance, have had dozens of quarrels with him! They always blew over. That’s what the police don’t understand. They’ll go picking on things that have no bearing on the murder at