Envious Casca Read online

  ‘He is not an ass, and he doesn’t mean well. You think he likes me, don’t you? Well, I tell you that Joe hates me as much as I hate him!’

  ‘Stephen!’ she exclaimed.

  He laughed. ‘Think I’m brutal to Joe, don’t you, Mathilda? When he tries to paw me about, and mouths his sickening platitudes, and drips affection all over me! You don’t see that Joe’s out to do me down. He nearly managed it, too.’

  ‘But he’s always trying to convince everyone that you couldn’t have killed Nat!’

  ‘Oh no, Mathilda! Oh no, my love! That’s only the façade. Think it over! Think of all that Joseph’s said in my defence, and ask yourself if it was helpful, or if it only served to make the police think that he was desperately trying to shield a man whom he knew to be guilty. Who do you think planted my cigarette-case in Uncle Nat’s room? Have you any doubt? I haven’t.’

  Her fingers tightened on his. ‘Stephen, are you sure you’re not letting your dislike of Joe run away with you?’

  ‘I’m quite sure. Joe was my enemy from the moment he set foot in this house, and discovered that I was Uncle Nat’s blue-eyed boy. I was, you know.’

  ‘But you quarrelled with Nat! Always, Stephen!’

  ‘Sure I did, but without prejudice, until Joe came.’

  She was silent for a moment, not doubting his sincerity, yet unable to believe that he was not regarding Joseph with a distorted vision. ‘He got Nat to make a will in your favour.’

  ‘Do you always believe what Joe tells you?’ asked Stephen. ‘He worried him into making a will. I don’t know what happened: I wasn’t there. Joe saw to that. But I can imagine Uncle Nat giving in to Joe, and then making the will out in my favour. That would have been a joke he’d have appreciated. Only Joe was clever, and he saw to it that the will should be invalid.’

  ‘You’ve never spoken a word of this!’

  His lips curled. ‘No. Only to you, and you think I’m unhinged, don’t you? What do you suppose everyone else would think? I can tell you, if you don’t know.’

  She looked up at him, dawning horror in her eyes. ‘Yes, of course I know. If you’re right, it puts a hideous complexion on so much that has happened! I haven’t stayed here often enough to be able to judge. I always ascribed the trouble that Joe has such a knack of starting to incurable tactlessness. But I see that your explanation might be correct.’

  ‘You can take it from me that it is. If anyone but you had provided Joe with his alibi, I would, moreover, have been ready to swear that it was he who murdered Uncle Nat.’

  ‘It isn’t possible, Stephen. When he wasn’t chatting to me he was humming snatches of song.’

  He lifted her hand to his lips, and fleetingly kissed it. ‘All right, my sweet. Yours is the only word I would take for that.’

  They had come in sight of the house again by this time, and in a few minutes they entered it, through the front door, just as Inspector Hemingway was seeing a finger-print expert and a photographer off the premises.

  The Inspector was looking more bird-like than ever, and there was a satisfied gleam in his eye, for under a dusting of powder the panel above the billiard-room mantelpiece had revealed the imprints of four fingers and a thumb. He cocked an intelligent eyebrow at Stephen and Mathilda, and drew his own conclusions.

  ‘You are quite right, of course,’ said Stephen, correctly interpreting the look in the Inspector’s eye. ‘But we feel – at least, Miss Clare does – that an announcement at present would not be in the best of good taste. Why the camera-man?’

  ‘Just a bit of work I wanted done, sir. If I may say so, you don’t waste your time, do you?’

  Stephen laughed. ‘As a matter of fact, I’ve wasted too much time, Inspector. How are you doing?’

  ‘Not so badly, sir,’ replied Hemingway. He turned to Mathilda. ‘I want to have a talk with you, miss, if you please.’

  ‘Very well,’ she replied, rather surprised. ‘I’ll join you in the morning-room as soon as I’ve changed my shoes.’

  This did not take her long, and she presently walked into the morning-room to find not only the Inspector there, but Stephen also, looking dangerous. She said at once: ‘Take that scowl off your face, Stephen: you’re frightening the Inspector.’

  ‘That’s right, miss,’ said Hemingway. ‘I’m all over goose-flesh.’

  ‘I can see you are. No one is going to convict me of murder, Stephen, so relax! What is it, Inspector?’

  ‘Well, miss, in checking over the details of this case, I find that I omitted to take your evidence. That won’t do at all: in fact, it’s a wonder to me how I came to leave you out. So, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to tell me, please, just what you did when you went upstairs to change for dinner on Christmas Eve.’

  ‘She gave her evidence to Inspector Colwall,’ Stephen said.

  ‘Ah, but that won’t do for the Department, sir!’ said Hemingway mendaciously. ‘Very strict we are, at Scotland Yard.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I did with pleasure,’ Mathilda said. ‘But I’m afraid it isn’t helpful. First I had a bath, then I dressed, and lastly I came down to the drawing-room.’

  ‘And I think Mr Joseph Herriard was able to corroborate that, wasn’t he, miss?’

  ‘Yes. We went upstairs together, and while I had my bath he continued to talk to me from his dressing-room. In fact, I don’t recall that he ever stopped talking, except now and then, when he hummed instead.’

  ‘Even when you had gone back into your bedroom? Did you go on talking to each other?’

  ‘He went on talking to me,’ corrected Mathilda.

  ‘Do you mean that you didn’t answer him?’

  ‘I said Oh! at intervals. Occasionally I said Yes, when he asked me if I was listening.’

  ‘Were you in the habit of talking to Mr Joseph while you were in your room, miss?’

  ‘I didn’t do it the night before, and I haven’t done it since, but three days isn’t really long enough for one to contract a habit, do you think?’

  ‘I see. And you came downstairs together on Christmas Eve?’

  ‘Arm in arm.’

  ‘Thank you, miss; that’s all I wanted to know,’ said Hemingway.

  Stephen, who had been frowningly regarding him, said: ‘Just what are you driving at, Inspector?’

  ‘Checking up on my facts, sir, that’s all,’ Hemingway replied.

  But when he saw Sergeant Ware, a few minutes later, he shook his head, and said: ‘No good. He took care to establish a cast-iron alibi all right.’

  ‘There you are, then!’ said the Sergeant, not altogether disappointed.

  ‘No, I’m not!’ Hemingway replied with some asperity. ‘On that evening, and on that evening only, Joseph made a point of holding forth to Miss Clare, while she was dressing for dinner, and if possible, I’m more than ever convinced that he’s the man I’m after.’

  The Sergeant looked at him almost sadly. ‘I’ve never known you to go against the evidence before, sir.’

  ‘What you don’t see is that I haven’t got all the evidence. I’ve got a lot, but there’s a vital link which I’ve missed. Well, I can’t do any more until those lads ‘phone through the result of developing that plate.’

  ‘Of course, if it does turn out to be a print of Joseph’s hand, it will be strong circumstantial evidence,’ conceded the Sergeant. ‘But not nearly strong enough, to my way of thinking, to convict him without our finding out how he could have got into Nathaniel’s room to murder him. What’s more, there’s still that handkerchief of Roydon’s.’

  But Hemingway was plainly uninterested in Roydon’s handkerchief. While awaiting the telephone-call from the policestation, he was sought out by Valerie, who wanted to know whether she could go home. He assured her that he had not the least objection to her immediate departure, an announcement which greatly cheered her. She went off to persuade her mother to leave Lexham on the following morning, and found that that redoubtable lady had at last succeeded in corner