Envious Casca Read online

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ Sturry said, with careful courtesy, ‘but I understood Mr Stephen to say that I should be required to swear that the late Mr Herriard signed his will in my presence.’

  ‘Well?’ said Stephen harshly.

  ‘I regret, sir, that I could not reconcile it with my conscience to do that.’

  ‘But, Sturry!’ gasped Joseph.

  ‘What the devil do you mean?’ demanded Stephen. ‘You witnessed the signature, didn’t you?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, sir, yes. But if it comes to taking my oath I feel myself bound to state that neither Ford nor myself was present when the late Mr Herriard signed his will.’

  ‘But, Sturry, that’s absurd!’ Joseph cried, very much flustered. ‘You may not have been actually in the room, but you know very well that I brought the document straight out to you, in the upper hall, and you both knew what it was, and signed it! I mean, it’s the silliest quibble to say Mr Herriard didn’t sign it in your presence! You know how ill he was, and how much he disliked having a lot of people in his room! I told you exactly what you were doing, and you must have known perfectly well that Mr Herriard had signed it, for there was his signature for you to see!’

  ‘I am not aware, sir, that I should be obliged to Go on Oath about it,’ replied Sturry inexorably. ‘I regret to appear Disobliging, sir, but I trust you will Appreciate my Position.’

  He then bowed again, and left the room, softly closing the door behind him.

  ‘That,’ said Stephen, ‘has properly torn it!’

  ‘You fool, Joe!’ Mathilda exclaimed, jumping up from her chair. ‘Don’t you know how important it is that the witnesses should actually see the signing of a will?’

  ‘But Tilda – but Stephen – !’ stammered Joseph. ‘I never thought – it was difficult enough to get Nat to draw the will up at all! If I’d tried to make him agree to having Ford and Sturry in to watch him doing it – well, you know what Nat was! Of course I know that technically one ought to see the actual signing, but in this case – I mean, no one is going to contest the will! I’m sure it will be all right. I shall simply have to explain the circumstances, and –’

  ‘You’ll be clever if you can explain how Ford and Sturry saw through a wall,’ interrupted Stephen.

  ‘Do you really mean that the will is no good, just because the witnesses didn’t watch Uncle signing it?’ Paula asked incredulously.

  ‘Yes, my sweet, that is just what I mean,’ Stephen replied. ‘In plain words, your Uncle Joseph has mucked it.’

  Fifteen

  THIS WAS SO STARTLING THAT EVEN MAUD MOMENTARILY

  forgot the loss of her book. Paula demanded: ‘Then who gets Uncle Nat’s money?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ answered Stephen. ‘His next of kin, presumably.’

  ‘But I’m his next of kin!’ exclaimed Joseph, much agitated. ‘It’s absurd! I don’t want it! I shouldn’t know what to do with it! Really, Stephen, you’re taking a most exaggerated view of things! I feel quite sure that when the matter is explained –’

  ‘No, Stephen’s right,’ Mathilda said. ‘I know what a fuss there was when my Aunt Charlotte died, leaving a will on half a sheet of notepaper. The Law’s extremely sticky about wills. Besides, how can you explain such a piece of lunacy as not admitting the two witnesses into the room?’

  ‘But, Tilda, it was hard enough to bring Nat to the point of making a will at all!’

  ‘Well you’d better keep quiet about that,’ said Mathilda unkindly. ‘We know you persuaded him with the best intentions, but it might not sound so good to anyone who hasn’t the pleasure of knowing the Herriard family.’

  Joseph looked quite stunned, and was for once bereft of the power of speech. Maud’s flat voice made itself heard. ‘Well, I am sure Nathaniel never meant Joseph to inherit all his money,’ she said. ‘It is not at all what he wished, for he did not consider that Joseph had any sense of money.’

  ‘Do you mean to tell me,’ said Paula ominously, ‘that I shan’t get my legacy after all?’

  ‘Not a penny of it,’ replied Stephen. ‘You may, of course, be able to bully Joe into disgorging it.’

  That roused Joseph into exclaiming: ‘How can you, Stephen? As though I should have to be bullied into it! If you are right about this unlucky business – but I feel sure you’re not! – you can’t think that I should let the matter rest at that! I know well what poor Nat’s wishes were!’

  ‘If you are about to offer restitution, don’t!’ said Stephen grimly. ‘I’m not taking any.’

  Paula suddenly surprised everyone by breaking into a peal of jangling laughter. ‘How damned funny!’ she said. ‘Nat’s been murdered, we’ve been torn and rent by fear and suspicion, all for nothing!’

  Mathilda regarded her with disfavour. ‘It may be your idea of humour. It isn’t mine. I don’t for a moment suppose that you want my advice, but before you all rush to extremes, might it not be as well to discover just how the law does stand towards intestacy?’

  ‘He didn’t die intestate!’ Joseph said. ‘Just because there’s a small irregularity –’

  ‘That’s rather a good idea of yours, Mathilda,’ said Stephen, as though Joseph had not spoken. ‘I’ll get on to Blyth, and ask him.’

  He left the room. Paula was still laughing, with more than a suggestion of hysteria in her voice. Joseph tried to put his arm round her, but was fiercely shaken off. ‘Leave me alone!’ she said. ‘I might have guessed you’d muddle everything! Fool! Fool!’

  ‘If you don’t shut up, I’ll empty this flower-vase over your head!’ threatened Mathilda.

  ‘Can’t you see the exquisite irony of it?’ Paula said. ‘He did it all for the best! Oh, my God, what a second act it would make! I must tell Willoughby! He at least will have the perception to appreciate it!’

  Roydon, however, was not immediately to be found, nor, if Paula had found him, would her idea for a second act have been met with any enthusiasm. His thoughts were far from playwriting. He was confronting Inspector Hemingway, rather white about the gills, and with his Adam’s apple working convulsively.

  ‘I think,’ said Hemingway, laying a bloodstained handkerchief on the table between them, ‘that this is yours.’

  ‘No, it’s not!’ replied Roydon, in a frightened voice. ‘I never saw it before in my life!’

  Hemingway stared disconcertingly at him for a moment, and then straightened the handkerchief, and pointed with the butt of his pencil to the embroidered letter in the corner.

  ‘I don’t know anything about it!’ Roydon said obstinately.

  ‘Laundry-marks, too,’ observed Hemingway. ‘Easily identified.’

  There was an awful silence. Nothing in Roydon’s experience had fitted him to cope with such a situation as this. He was badly frightened, and showed it.

  ‘You put it into the incinerator by the potting-sheds, didn’t you?’ said Hemingway.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Come, come, sir, you’re not doing yourself any good by telling lies to me! I know you put it there.’

  Roydon seemed to crumple up. ‘I know what you think, but you’re wrong! I didn’t murder Mr Herriard! I didn’t, I tell you!’

  ‘How did your handkerchief come to be in this state?’

  ‘I had a bad nose-bleed!’ Roydon blurted out.

  The Sergeant, who was a silent witness, turned his slow gaze upon Hemingway, to see how he would receive this explanation.

  ‘Do you burn your handkerchiefs every time you have a nose-bleed?’ asked Hemingway.

  ‘No, of course I don’t, but I knew what you’d think if you found it! I – I lost my head!’

  ‘When did you have this nose-bleed?’

  ‘Last night, after I’d gone up to bed. I put the handkerchief in my suitcase, and then I thought – I thought if you were to find it there it would look suspicious. I heard you were searching the house, and – and I thought I’d better get rid of it!’

  ‘Did you tell anyone about y