Death in the Stocks: Merely Murder Read online

  ‘I suppose you only know what it feels like to be sacked,’ remarked Kenneth waspishly.

  ‘Exactly,’ nodded Roger, utterly impervious to this or any other insult. ‘And, funnily enough, the last time I got the boot it was for almost the same thing. Only, as it happens, I wasn’t thinking of paying the money back. I don’t say I mightn’t have thought of it, if I’d had any means of doing it, but I hadn’t. However, if you think sacking Mesurier will make Tony marry him, I won’t do it. Because if she marries him she’ll expect me to call him Rudolph, and I don’t mind telling you that I don’t like the name. In fact, I think it’s a damn silly name. What’s more, if I had to call him by it I should feel very self-conscious. Not that I really like Giles either, but that’s merely a matter of taste. There’s nothing against the name as a name, nothing at all.’

  He startled Kenneth, who looked up quickly and said: ‘Giles? Do you mean – Rot! She hasn’t been on speaking terms with him for months!’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ answered Roger. ‘All I do know is that if this Rudolph excrescence can be shifted, Tony will marry Giles.’

  ‘Well, I hope you may be right,’ said Kenneth. ‘Giles is a nice chap. I must keep an eye on them.’

  ‘If you take my advice you’ll keep your eye on your own pictures,’ said Roger. ‘I don’t say I wouldn’t rather look at almost anything else myself, but probably you don’t feel like that about them.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Kenneth, on whom such inexpert criticism of his work made no impression at all. ‘And don’t go putting your foot into it by sacking Mesurier.’

  ‘Well, all right,’ agreed Roger. ‘Only I won’t have him at my party.’

  Mention of the party made Kenneth at once point out to him that his home-coming was no occasion for rejoicing for anyone but himself. He said that he had no intention of being present, but in the end he was present, not as a result of any persuasion on Roger’s part, but because Violet had coaxed him into it. She was unusually kind to him throughout the evening, and paid so little heed to Roger that he became quite good-humoured after a while, and even enlisted Roger’s support in an argument with Violet on the question of whether or not it was indecent to attend a public dance within a fortnight of Arnold’s death. As this discussion was started in the restaurant which was attached to the flats, and conducted with a total disregard for whoever might overhear, a good many shocked glances were cast at the Verekers’ table, and one stickler for the proprieties spent the rest of the evening composing a letter of complaint to the landlord.

  As might be expected, Violet was firm in refusing to countenance the bare notion of appearing at the ball, which was to take place three days later. She said that there was such a thing as respect to the dead, to which Kenneth replied that he had no more respect for Arnold dead than he had had for Arnold alive. ‘Besides, I paid thirty bob for the tickets, and I’m going to use them,’ he added.

  ‘You could sell them,’ Violet pointed out. ‘Don’t you agree with me that he ought to, Mr Carrington?’

  ‘Yes, on the whole, I think I do,’ replied Giles. ‘You’re not going are you, Tony?’

  ‘No,’ said Antonia. ‘Because Rudolph can’t manage that night.’

  ‘If Violet won’t come, I’ll take you, Tony,’ said Kenneth, glancing provocatively at his betrothed. ‘And if you won’t, I’ll take Leslie!’

  ‘I’ve already told you, darling, I’m not going with you,’ Violet said. ‘We should be bound to meet any number of people we know, and what they would think I daren’t imagine. Tony can please herself, but I hope she has too much sense, let alone proper feeling, to go near the ball.’

  ‘“After this short speech, they all cheered,”’ said Kenneth instantly. ‘Will you come, Tony?’

  ‘She’s dining with me, and going to a show,’ interposed Giles.

  ‘I see. Thus evincing a proper respect for the dead.’

  Giles laughed. ‘More or less. Will you come, Tony?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Antonia. ‘Is it a party, or just us?’

  ‘Of course it’s not a party,’ said Kenneth. ‘Where’s your sense of decency?’

  ‘I’ve no doubt these little social convenances seem absurd to you, dear,’ remarked Violet, ‘but Mr Carrington is perfectly right. Going to a public ball and dining quietly with someone at a restaurant are two entirely different things.’

  ‘What a discerning mind you have got, my pet!’ said Kenneth admiringly.

  ‘Now, don’t start quarrelling,’ besought Roger. ‘Personally I’ve no objection to Kenneth’s going to a ball, none at all. If I wanted to go to it, which I don’t, I shouldn’t bother about whether it was decent or not for an instant.’

  ‘That we believe,’ said Giles. ‘Oh, I’m your guest! Sorry, Roger, but you asked for it.’

  ‘You needn’t trouble about my feelings, because they’re not easily hurt,’ replied Roger. ‘My theory is that everybody should do just what they like. There’s a great deal too much interference in this world. If Kenneth wants to go to a dance, why shouldn’t he? And if Violet doesn’t want to, that’s her affair. I’ll tell you what; you come and have dinner here with me, Violet.’

  This casual invitation produced a noticeable tension in two at least of the party. Antonia, thinking it a trifle crude, scowled at Roger, and Kenneth fixed Violet with a smouldering gaze, awaiting her answer.

  She excused herself gracefully, but failed to satisfy Kenneth, who harked back to the invitation on the way home, and informed her that in case she had any idea of spending the evening with Roger she could get rid of it immediately.

  ‘Darling, how silly you are!’ she sighed. ‘Of course, I’m not going to do any such thing! Didn’t you hear me refuse?’

  ‘I heard,’ Kenneth said rather grimly. ‘But it also transpired, my love, in the course of Roger’s artless chatter, that you dined with him two nights ago – a circumstance hitherto unknown to me.’

  She coloured slightly. ‘Oh, you mean the night you were out!’ she said. ‘Well, what if I did? Tony apparently went off with Rudolph, and poor Roger was left alone in the flat. I merely took pity on him.’

  ‘You have a lovely nature, my sweet. I suppose it slipped your memory, which was why you forgot to tell me about it.’

  ‘I knew you would make a ridiculous fuss if I did tell you,’ replied Violet, in her calm way. ‘You’re so taken up with your own grievance, Kenneth, that you don’t see that Roger’s really rather a pathetic figure.’

  ‘No, I can’t say that I do.’

  ‘Well, I find him so. If he did commit the murder, of course it’s dreadful, but I can’t help feeling sorry for him. The whole thing is very much on his mind. I know he pretends it isn’t, but he has the idea that the police are watching him all the time.’

  ‘Form of DT,’ said Kenneth callously. ‘The police haven’t any more reason to suspect Roger than they have to suspect me. It’s time we gave up thinking about it. No one will ever be arrested; and, what’s more, the police know it. Are you coming to the Albert Hall Ball, or are you not?’

  ‘But, darling, I’ve told you already –’

  ‘Look here, Violet!’ he said forcibly. ‘Let’s get things straight! I’ve no use for any of your conventions, and I never shall have. If you mean to marry me you’ll have to accept that.’

  He sounded a little dangerous, and she at once stopped trying to argue with him, and set herself to coax him out of his bitter mood. When they parted he had softened towards her, and she had said that perhaps she would go to the ball with him if he was so set on it. A quarrel was thus happily averted, but when at half-past six on the day of the ball she arrived at the studio, and said gently that really she didn’t think she could go after all, because she had a bad headache, Kenneth looked her up and down for one minute, and then strode over to the telephone and called Leslie Rivers’ number.

  Violet said nothing, but stood looking out of the window while Kenneth arranged to cal