Death in the Stocks: Merely Murder Read online

  ‘I know,’ said Leslie. ‘Only don’t worry, old thing. I’m absolutely sure Kenneth didn’t do it, and they practically never convict the wrong person. If there’s the least doubt –’

  ‘They give them penal servitude,’ said Antonia in a hollow voice. ‘You needn’t tell me. And he’d rather be hanged than that.’

  Leslie patted her shoulder, and said with a gulp: ‘They won’t. I – I’m certain they won’t.’ Then, as Giles came back into the room, she said: ‘If that sickening female has gone I’ll push off too. Mr Carrington, you’ll look after Tony, won’t you, and try and cheer her up? Good-bye, Tony, darling. I’ll come round first thing in the morning. Good-bye, Mr Carrington.’

  The door closed firmly behind her. Antonia was left alone with her cousin. She said forlornly: ‘You needn’t be afraid I’m going to cry, because I’m not.’

  He sat down beside her. ‘There’s nothing to cry about, chicken,’ he said.

  She turned a rather wan face towards him. ‘Oh, Giles, I have such a ghastly fear that he may have done it after all!’

  ‘Have you, Tony? Would you like to bet on it?’ he asked, smiling.

  Her eyes questioned him. ‘You don’t think he did?’

  ‘I’m very nearly certain he didn’t,’ replied Giles Carrington.

  Twenty-two

  This pronouncement did not have quite the desired effect, for after staring at Giles blankly for a moment or two Antonia tried to smile, failed, and felt a choking lump rise in her throat. Giles saw her face begin to pucker, and promptly took her in his arms. ‘Don’t cry, Tony darling!’ he said gently. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

  Antonia hid her face in his shoulder, and gave way to her over-wrought feelings. However, she was not one to indulge in an orgy of tears, and she soon stopped crying, and after one or two damp sniffs, sat up, and said shamefacedly: ‘Sorry. I’m all right now. Thanks for being nice about it.’

  Giles drew his handkerchief out of his pocket, and compelled Antonia to turn her face towards him. He looked down at her lovingly, and said: ‘I won’t kiss a wet face. Keep still, my lamb.’

  Antonia submitted to having her tears wiped away, but stammered, rather red in the face: ‘D – don’t talk rot, Giles!’

  ‘I’m not talking rot,’ he replied, and took her in his arms again, this time not gently at all, and kissed her hard and long.

  Antonia, unable to utter any protest, made one feeble attempt to push him away, and then, finding it impossible, grasped his coat with both hands and clung to him. When she was able to speak she first said, foolishly: ‘Oh, Giles!’ and then: ‘I can’t! I mean, you don’t really – I mean, we couldn’t possibly – I mean –’

  ‘You don’t seem to me to know what you mean,’ said Giles, smiling into her eyes. ‘Luckily, I do know what I mean.’ He possessed himself of her left hand, and drew the ring from her third finger, and put it into her palm, closing her fingers over it. ‘You’ll send that back to Mesurier to-night, Tony. Is that quite clearly understood?’

  ‘I was going to, anyhow,’ said Antonia. ‘But – but if you actually mean you want to m-marry me instead, I can’t see how you can possibly want to.’

  ‘I do actually mean that,’ said Giles. ‘Just as soon as I’ve finished with this affair of Kenneth’s.’

  ‘But I can’t think Uncle Charles would like it if you did,’ objected Antonia.

  ‘You’ll find he’s bearing up quite well,’ replied Giles. ‘Will you marry me, Tony?’

  She looked anxiously at him. ‘Are you utterly serious, Giles?’ He nodded. ‘Because you know what a beast I can be, and it would be so awful if – if you were only proposing to me in a weak moment, and – and I accepted you, and then you regretted it.’

  ‘I’ll tell you a secret,’ he said. ‘I love you.’

  Antonia suddenly dragged one of his hands to her cheek. ‘Oh, darling Giles, I’ve only just realised it, but I’ve been in love with you for years and years and years!’ she blurted out.

  It was at this somewhat inopportune moment that Rudolph Mesurier burst hurriedly into the studio. ‘I came as soon as I possibly could!’ he began, and then checked, and exclaimed in an outraged voice: ‘Well, really! I must say!’

  Antonia, quite unabashed, went, as usual, straight to the point. She got up, and held out the ring. ‘You’re just the person I wanted to see,’ she said naïvely. ‘Giles says I must give this back to you. I’m terribly sorry, Rudolph, but – but Giles wants me to marry him. And he knows me awfully well, and we get on together, so – so I think I’d better, if you don’t mind very much.’

  Mesurier’s expression was more of astonishment than of chagrin, but he said in a dramatic voice: ‘I might have known. I might have known I was living in a fool’s paradise.’

  ‘Well, it’s jolly nice of you to put it like that,’ said Antonia, ‘but did you really think it was paradise? I rather got the idea that most of the time you thought it pretty hellish. I don’t blame you a bit if you did, because as a matter of fact I thought it was fairly hellish myself.’

  This frank admission threw Rudolph momentarily out of his stride, but after a few seconds’ pained discomfiture, he said with a good deal of bitterness: ‘I can’t grasp it yet. I expect I shall presently. Just now I feel merely numb. I don’t seem able to realise that everything is over.’

  ‘You can’t really think that everything’s over merely because we’re not going to be married,’ said Antonia reasonably. ‘I expect you only feel numb because I took you by surprise. You’ll be quite thankful when you do realise it. For one thing you won’t have to have bull-terriers in your house, and you know you never really liked them.’

  ‘Is that all you can say?’ he demanded. ‘Is that the only crumb of comfort you can find?’

  It was apparent to Giles that Mesurier was enjoying himself considerably. He rose, feeling that the jilted lover did at least deserve to hold the stage alone for the last time. ‘I’m sorry about it, Mesurier,’ he said pleasantly. ‘But Tony made a mistake. I expect you’d like to have a little talk with her. I’ll go and get Murgatroyd to help me pack Kenneth’s suit-case, Tony.’

  Mesurier was so much interested in this that he forgot his role for a minute. ‘Why, what’s happened? Is Kenneth going away?’

  ‘He’s gone,’ said Antonia, recalled to present trials with a jolt. ‘He’s being detained, whatever that means.’

  ‘My God!’ said Mesurier deeply.

  Giles went out of the studio, and shut the door behind him.

  Twenty minutes later Antonia joined him in Kenneth’s bedroom, remarking with a sigh of relief that Rudolph had gone at last.

  ‘And a good job too!’ said Murgatroyd, fitting a bulging sponge-bag into the suit-case that lay, half-full, on the end of the bed. ‘If it weren’t for this dreadful thing that’s happened I should be congratulating you from the bottom of my heart, Miss Tony, but when I think of poor Master Kenneth, locked up in a horrid cell with ten to one no proper bed or anything – well, it’s just too much for me! I can’t seem to take much notice of anything else. Not that shirt, if you please, Mr Carrington; it’s only just back from the laundry.’

  ‘Giles says he doesn’t think Kenneth did it,’ said Antonia.

  ‘Thank you for nothing!’ retorted Murgatroyd. ‘He’d better not let me hear him say anything else, that’s all. Him or anyone. There’s a case for those brushes, Mr Giles. You leave them to me.’

  Antonia picked up a folding leather photograph frame from the bed and grimaced at Violet’s classic features. ‘What on earth do you want to put this in for, Giles?’ she inquired. ‘Just when he seems to be going off her, too. He won’t want it.’

  ‘You never know,’ Giles answered. ‘Put it in.’

  The rest of the packing was soon done, and in a few minutes Giles had locked the suit-case, and set it on the ground. ‘I shall have to go, Tony,’ he said. ‘Promise me you won’t worry!’

  ‘I’ll try not to,’ said An