Envious Casca Read online

  This was so well received, with such delighted shudders from the tweeny, accompanied by exclamations of Go on, you never! from the two housemaids, that the gardener at once recalled that he had thought Roydon’s manner queerlike at the time, and said to himself that that bloke wasn’t up to no good, messing about where he had no call to be.

  In due course, an echo of these highly-coloured recollections reached Inspector Hemingway’s ears, by way of his Sergeant, who, by means of a little flattery, had managed to put himself on excellent terms with the female part of the staff. The Inspector, with the simple intention of unnerving the household, was spending the morning pervading the house with a notebook, a foot-rule, and an abstracted frown. His mysterious investigations were in themselves entirely valueless, but succeeded in making everyone but Maud and Mrs Dean profoundly uneasy. Mottisfont, for instance, took instant and querulous objection to his presence in his room, and fidgeted about the house, complaining to anyone who could be got to listen to him of the unwarrantable licence taken by the police. Breaking in upon the two ladies in the morning-room, he tried to enlist their support, but Mrs Dean said that she was sure she had no secrets to hide; and Maud merely expressed the hope that in the course of his investigations the Inspector might find her missing book.

  The Inspector had not found the book, and, if the truth were told, he had begun to share the opinions of the rest of the household with regard to it. Since he had first encountered Maud, he had met her five times, and had on each occasion not only to sustain an account of when and where she last remembered to have had the book in her hand, but anecdotes culled from it as well. He darkly suspected that it had been hidden by the other members of the house-party, and told his Sergeant that he didn’t blame them.

  When the kitchen-gossip about Roydon was reported to him, he was not inclined to set much store by it, but he told the Sergeant that he had better keep a sharp eye on Roydon.

  The Sergeant did more than this: he went down the garden to the potting-sheds, and took a look at the incinerator.

  This was a large galvanised-iron cylinder, mounted on short legs, and with a chimney running up the centre, through the lid. In theory, by setting light to a little paper, stuffed into the gap left between the sides of the cylinder and its base, any amount of refuse, thrown in the top, would be slowly consumed into the finest ash. In practice, the fire thus kindled usually died out before half the contents of the cylinder had been burnt, so that what came out at the bottom was not ash, but charred and very often revolting scraps of refuse.

  From the languid wisp of smoke arising from the chimney, the Sergeant correctly assumed that the fire was burning but sluggishly this morning. He lifted the lid, and found that the incinerator had been stuffed full of kitchen-waste. Somewhere below the unappetising surface the fire, judging by the smell, was smouldering. The Sergeant looked round for a handy stick, and, finding one, began to poke about amongst the rubbish. After turning over some grape-fruit rinds, a collection of grocers’ bags, cartons, and egg-boxes, the outer leaves of about six cabbages, and the contents of several wastepaper-baskets, his stick dug up a blood-stained handkerchief, obviously thrust down beneath the litter, but as yet untouched by the fire.

  The Sergeant, who had really not expected to find anything of interest in the incinerator, could scarcely believe his eyes. If he had not been a very methodical young man, he would have hurried back to the house immediately, to lay his find before his superior, so excited did he feel. For the handkerchief was not only generously splashed with blood: it also bore an embroidered R in one corner. It was dirty, from its contact with the kitchen-refuse, but the Sergeant felt no repulsion at handling it. He shook some used tealeaves out of it, folded it carefully, and put it in his pocket. Then he went on poking amongst the rubbish until he had satisfied himself that no other gruesome relics were hidden in the noisome depths of the incinerator. To make quite sure, he raked the bottom out, not, judging by the smother of ash, before it was time. The fire was not burning evenly, and from one side of the cylinder some charred remnants fell out amongst the ash, including a scorched and blackened book. The boards of this had been consumed, and the outer pages crumbled away when touched, but when the Sergeant, idly curious, stirred what remained with his stick, he saw that although the edges had been burnt the inner pages were still perfectly legible. Coronation in Hungary, he read, across the top of one right-hand page. Opposite, heading the left page, he saw in the same capital italics: Empress Elizabeth.

  A grin dispelled the natural solemnity of his countenance. He picked up the sad remnant of Maud’s book, and took it back to the house with him, to show to the Inspector.

  Confronted with the handkerchief, Hemingway showed a disappointing absence of enthusiasm.

  ‘It’s Roydon’s all right,’ the Sergeant pointed out. ‘It’s got his initial in the corner, and he’s the only R in the house, sir. The blood’s dry, too, you see.’

  ‘There’s enough of it, at all events,’ remarked Hemingway, dispassionately surveying the handkerchief.

  ‘I figure he must have wiped that knife with it, sir.’

  ‘You may be right.’

  ‘And there’s no doubt he put it in the incinerator this morning, just as the gardener said.’

  ‘Took his time about getting rid of it, didn’t he?’

  The Sergeant frowned. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘But maybe he didn’t think it was vital to destroy it while Stephen Herriard was still under suspicion. After all, if he murdered old Herriard, and planted that cigarette-case in the room, he’d be pretty sure he’d diverted suspicion from himself, wouldn’t he? It was you letting it be known that Stephen was more or less in the clear that sort of stampeded him, like you thought it might.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Hemingway, stirring the handkerchief with his pencil.

  A little crestfallen, the Sergeant said: ‘You don’t think it’s important, Chief ?’

  ‘I don’t say that. It may be. Of course, I’m not an expert, but I’d have liked these highly lavish bloodstains to have gone a bit browner. However, I’ll see Roydon as soon as he comes in, and if I don’t get anything out of him we’ll get this tested. Anything else?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Sergeant, his slow grin spreading once more over his face. ‘This!’

  Hemingway saw the mutilated book in his hand, and ejaculated: ‘You aren’t going to tell me – Well, I’ll be damned!’ He took the book from the Sergeant, and flicked over the scorched pages. ‘I told you so!’ he said. ‘Someone in this house couldn’t take it. I’m bound to say I couldn’t either. Well, it’s your find, my lad. You can give it back to the old lady, and get the credit for a piece of smart detection.’

  ‘Thank you, Chief, but considering the state it’s in it doesn’t seem to me there’s going to be much credit attached to it!’ Ware retorted. ‘I’d just as soon you gave it back to her.’

  ‘The mistake you made was in rescuing the thing at all,’ said Hemingway. ‘It just serves you right. You go and give it back to Mrs Herriard, and don’t let me have any backchat about it either!’

  The Sergeant sighed, and went off to find Maud. She had by this time escaped from Mrs Dean’s toils, and was knitting in the library, exchanging desultory remarks with Mathilda. Joseph was seated on the broad window-seat with Paula, trying to amuse her with anecdotes of his career on the stage. Paula, who was far too profound an egotist to see anything pathetic in his reminiscences, did not even pretend to be interested. Beyond saying Oh! once or twice in an abstracted voice, she paid no heed to him. Her face wore its most brooding look, and it was obvious that her mind was solely occupied with her own stage-career.

  The Sergeant coughed to draw attention to himself, and trod over to Maud’s chair. ‘Beg pardon, madam, but I think you said you’d lost a book?’

  ‘Yes, indeed I have,’ said Maud. ‘I told the Inspector about it, and he promised to keep a look-out for it.’

  Feeling absurdly guilty, the Sergeant proffered the wreck