No Wind of Blame Read online

  ‘You’re impossible,’ said Mary hopelessly. ‘Did it occur to you, when you deliberately played on her feelings, that the one thing she’s been dreading, ever since Sunday, was that you’d be accused of having had something to do with Wally’s death?’

  ‘Oh, then that was why she reacted so superbly! I must say, I didn’t expect her to turn on Alexis quite so fiercely. Now you come to mention it, though, I did think something was weighing on her mind. Did she tell you about it?’

  ‘Just now. Perhaps you’ll soothe her yourself the next time you elect to drive her into hysterics!’

  ‘I don’t suppose I will,’ said Vicky, considering it. ‘You’re so much better at it than I am. Are you going to the Inquest tomorrow?’

  ‘No, and I hope you’re not either!’

  ‘Well, I am, because it seems to me I’m a very interested party, and I want to see what’s likely to happen next.’

  ‘I shouldn’t go, if I were you,’ said Hugh. ‘I’ll let you know if anything startling comes out. Not that it’s likely to. The police are sure to ask for an adjournment.’

  ‘I should like,’ said Vicky, dipping her fingers in the cut-glass bowl before her, ‘to find out why Harold White wanted to see Wally on Sunday, and what they were going to do with that five hundred pounds.’

  ‘Oh, it’s got to that now, has it?’ said Hugh. ‘Any good my reminding you that that idea is nothing more than a suspicion of Mary’s?’

  ‘Well, not much,’ Vicky said, with one of her enchanting smiles.

  ‘In any case, you’re not likely to hear anything about it at the Inquest.’

  ‘I expect I’ll go all the same,’ said Vicky tranquilly.

  ‘Then I suppose I shall have to take you,’ said Hugh.

  ‘Oh, no! Not a bit necessary.’

  ‘You’ll only get into mischief if I don’t keep an eye on you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t wonder,’ Vicky murmured. ‘Oh, I’ve just been smitten with the most awesome reflection! How do you suppose Maurice is managing to entertain Alexis?’

  ‘Vicky, you little beast!’ said Mary. ‘That’s the worst part of it all, that Maurice should be stuck with that awful man!’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Vicky. ‘After all, we’ve had him ever since Friday, so it’s time somebody else had a turn.’

  This was too much for Mary, and she got up from the table, bringing the party to an end. Hugh declined going into the drawing-room with the two girls, but instead took his leave of them, and drove back to the Manor, having promised to meet Vicky outside the Coroner’s Court on the following morning.

  Not long after his departure, Steel arrived, and was ushered into the drawing-room. Ermyntrude, still reclining upon the sofa, greeted him with unaffected pleasure; and Mary could not help feeling, as she watched him take Ermyntrude’s little plump hand in his own strong one, that he must undoubtedly represent a pillar of strength to clinging womanhood. The story was poured into his ears, and his reactions to it were all that Vicky had hoped they might be. Nothing could have formed a greater contrast to the Prince’s excitable display than Steel’s rugged calm. He indulged in no aspersions upon his late rival’s character; he merely said that it was a good thing the fellow had gone, and that he had never taken to him much. He even refused to join Ermyntrude in attributing the Prince’s oblique attack on Vicky to his having murdered Wally himself, remarking that he didn’t think the fellow would have the guts to do it. When he was alone with Ermyntrude, he held her hand in an uncomfortably strong grasp, and told her that whatever happened she could rely on him.

  Ermyntrude wept a little, and confided to him the fear that was gnawing at her nerves. ‘Oh, Bob, they won’t think it was my Vicky, will they?’

  ‘No,’ he replied.

  The simple negative was wonderfully reassuring, but she could not be quite satisfied. ‘Bob, it keeps nagging at me day and night! I ought never to have told her about Wally and that girl, only I was so upset at the time, it just slipped out. And I keep thinking about it, wondering, because she’s not like most girls, my Vicky. You never know what she’ll get up to next! Bob, she – she couldn’t have done a thing like that! She couldn’t!’

  ‘She didn’t do it. You can put that clean out of your head.’

  ‘I know, I know! But I can’t help its coming back to me. For there’s no denying she was there, and it’s in the blood, Bob. You can’t get away from that!’

  ‘That’s a lot of rot,’ said Steel. ‘Your first husband wasn’t a murderer!’

  ‘No, but look at the animals he killed in his time! I mean, he had a regular passion for it, but he took it out on lions and tigers and things; and I can’t help thinking of a book I read once, all about impulses, and what you inherit from your parents, and things that happen to you in the cradle that go and give you fixtures, or some such nonsense, and I ask myself if perhaps there is something in it after all, and I ought to have seen to it my Vicky had a chance to shoot bigger things than just a few rabbits here and there.’

  The suggestion that Vicky, finding rabbits poor sport, had added her stepfather to the bag, did not draw even a smile from Steel. He was rather shocked and extremely scornful of such far-fetched ideas; and he told Ermyntrude that she was not to worry her head over it any more.

  She dabbed cautiously at her eyes. ‘You won’t let that dreadful policeman take her away, Bob, will you? He’s been at her already.’

  ‘Then he’s a fool. But nothing’s going to happen to Vicky, I give you my word.’

  ‘Oh, Bob, you are a comfort to me!’ Ermyntrude said gratefully. ‘I feel better just for having seen you. Only you know what the law is, and if the Inspector was to get it into his head Vicky’s done it, there isn’t one of us could stop him taking her up for it!’

  ‘Listen to me, Ermyntrude!’ Steel said, looking very steadily at her. ‘You’ve got my word for it no harm’s coming to Vicky. I told you you could depend on me, and I’m not a chap who says what he doesn’t mean. Whatever happens, I won’t let your girl get mixed up in this. Now, you trust me, and don’t think another thing about it!’ He gave her hand a final squeeze, and released it, rising to his feet. ‘I’m going home now, and you’re going to get to bed, and have a good night’s rest. That’s what you need, and that’s what I’m going to tell Mary.’

  Mary, when this piece of information was delivered to her, said that she had tried to put Ermyntrude to bed before dinner.

  ‘She’ll go now,’ Steel said. He turned to Vicky, and said abruptly: ‘So the police are on to you, are they?’

  ‘Yes, I’m having a very crowded life all at once,’ replied Vicky. ‘Do you suppose I’ll be arrested?’

  ‘No. I’ve just set your mother’s mind at rest about that. Don’t you worry either! See?’

  Vicky was quite entranced by this masterful speech, and no sooner had Steel left the house than she turned to Mary, and said: ‘Oh, I do think I’ve created a grand situation! Do you suppose he’s going to give himself up in my stead?’

  ‘I hope he wouldn’t be such a fool!’

  ‘So do I, but I can’t help seeing that it would be a very Nordic act. Really, darling, you must admit I was quite right to send for him. He’s even soothed Ermyntrude!’

  ‘You know, Vicky,’ said Mary, ‘I’m absolutely horrified by the way you talk about your mother! It’s positively indecent.’

  ‘Dearest pet, the way I talk truly isn’t as indecent as the way you think,’ Vicky replied. ‘Because you’ve got the most degrading suspicions, and you disapprove of the poor sweet so much that you daren’t put it into words. I don’t disapprove of her at all; in fact, she has my vote.’

  Mary was silenced, and turned away, merely remarking over her shoulder that she hoped Vicky was not really going to the Inquest.

  The hope, however, was without f