Death in the Stocks ih-1

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “Well, I thought I did,” said Roger. “I must say I could do with it. I was a bit shocked at the news at first, but I see it's not so bad. Mind you, I quite appreciate your point of view.”

  “If you don't clear out of this damned quick there'll be another murder in the family!” Kenneth said through his teeth.

  “Now, don't get worked up,” Roger advised him kindly. “You'll soon get used to me being back. When you've lived as long as I have you'll find it's extraordinary what you can get used to. And talking of clearing out, my idea was that I'd stay with you for a day or two, till I get my bearings.”

  “No!” cried his half-brother and sister in unison.

  “That's all very well,” said Roger, “but if I don't stay here, where am I going?”

  “Anywhere. We don't mind,” replied Antonia.

  “Yes, but to tell you the truth,” confided Roger, “I'm a bit hard-up at the moment.”

  “You've got two hundred and fifty thousand pounds,” said Kenneth bitterly.

  “Is that what Arnold left? You don't mean it! If I'd known that -” He paused, and shook his head.

  “What on earth do you mean - if you'd known it?” asked Antonia.

  He looked at her in his hazy way. “Forgotten what I was going to say. Trouble is, I haven't got any clothes.”

  “You must have got some clothes,” replied Antonia.

  “That's just it: you might think so, and as a matter of fact I did have some, only I had to pawn my suit-case.”

  “Well?” said Antonia unsympathetically.

  “Well, that's the whole thing in a nutshell. It's no use hanging on to a lot of shirts and things if you haven't anything to carry them about in. You see my point?”

  “Oh, God!” groaned Kenneth. “I can't bear it!”

  “I call that very unreasonable,” said Roger. “Ater all, they weren't your clothes. If I started putting your shirts up the spout you'd have a perfect right to complain. It's coming to something if I can't pop my own belongings. Moreover, if I inherit all Arnold's money I shall be able to buy a lot of new clothes, and no harm done. But don't run away with the idea that I particularly want to stay with you, because I don't at all mind putting up at a hotel as long as I've got some money. Supposing you were to lend me a few pounds - say fifty - to tide me over?”

  “Let's pretend!” said Kenneth sarcastically. “You've never paid a debt in your life!”

  “That's perfectly true,” agreed Roger, with unimpaired affability, “but I wouldn't mind paying you back if I had two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.”

  “Well, I won't take the risk,” replied Kenneth. “Go and touch Giles. You won't get anything out of me.”

  At this moment the door opened to admit Murgatroyd, who came in to clear away the tea. Antonia said gloomily: “Look what's happened, Murgatroyd. Isn't it damnable?”

  Murgatroyd started to say: “How many times have I told you I won't have you use such -” Then she caught sight of Roger, and gave a scream.

  “Hullo, Murgatroyd!” said Roger, with his sleepy, apologetic smile. “You still alive?”

  Murgatroyd seemed to find difficulty in speaking. She swallowed once or twice, and in the end said in a hollow voice: “I knew it. You ask Miss Leslie if I didn't see bad news in my teacup yesterday, plain as plain. Mark my words, I said, something awful is on its way to this house.”

  “A lot of people scoff at reading fortunes in teacups,” said Roger, interested. “I've always thought there was something in it myself. It just shows. You haven't changed much. Fatter, of course, but I should have known you anywhere.”

  “I'll thank you not to make personal remarks about me, Mr Roger! What have you come home for, that's what I'd like to know? Not that I need to ask. Trust you to come nosing round after pickings! Talk about hyenas!” Wrath swelled her voice. She said strongly. “Just like you it is to try and take what's Master Kenneth's away from him! Don't tell me! If I had my way, back you'd go to where you came from, double-quick!”

  “Yes,” said Antonia. “But he hasn't got any clothes, and he says he's going to stay with us.”

  “Not in this house, he isn't!” said Murgatroyd.

  “I shan't get in the way,” Roger assured her. “You'll hardly notice me.”

  “No, not once you're the other side of the front door, I won't,” was the grim reply.

  Violet got up from the table, and came slowly across the room. “Don't you think this is all a little undignified?” she said in her calm way. “Kenneth, dear, please stop prowling, and try to be reasonable. Poor Mr Vereker can't help not being dead, after all!” She smiled at Roger and added prettily: “They're an awful couple, aren't they? You mustn't pay any attention to what they say. And no one's offered you any tea! Would you like some?”

  “No,” said Roger frankly, “but I shouldn't mind a whisky-and-soda if it happened to be handy.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I'll get you one - since these rude people have forgotten their manners!”

  Kenneth gazed at her in blank astonishment. “My good girl, do you realise what this means?” he asked. “Have you by any chance grasped who he is?”

  “Yes, dear, perfectly,” replied Violet, going over to the side-board and opening one of the cupboards. “And if I can put a decent face on it, I think you might too. Will you say when, Mr Vereker?”

  “If he does it'll be a record,” remarked Kenneth. “That'll do, Kenneth,” Violet said, in a tone of authority. “There, is that how you like it, Mr Vereker?”

  “I like it almost anyhow,” replied Roger simply. “I've forgotten your name, but thank you.”

  “Williams,” she said. “Violet Williams. A very ordinary name, I'm afraid.”

  “Yes, they're always the worst to keep in your head,” agreed Roger. “Well, here's luck, everybody! Chinchin!”

  His relatives received this in unresponsive silence. Murgatroyd, whose indignation had been diverted by the sight of Violet doing the honours of the flat, said suddenly: “Well, what's to be done, that's what I want to know?”

  “Don't worry about me,” said Roger. “I'm very adaptable. I don't suppose I shall be here long either. My idea is to take a flat on my own.”

  vWhy bother?” said Kenneth. “Isn't Arnold's house enough for you?”

  “I shouldn't like it,” replied Roger, with more decision than he had yet shown. “Not my style at all. I'll tell you what, though: I'll give it to you and Tony.”

  “Thanks. We don't want it.”

  Murgatroyd, who had been thinking, said in a somewhat mollified voice: “I suppose he'll have to stay. It won't do any good to have him trapesing round town like a regular tramp. He can have the camp-bed in the boxroom.”

  “I shall want a pair of Kenneth's pyjamas as well,” said Roger helpfully.

  “If you stay in this flat I shall clear out of it,” announced Kenneth.

  “No, you won't,” said his sister. “I'm not going to be left to cope with him.”

  “All right, then, let's both go. Let's go to Sweden at once!”

  “I can't. Who'd look after the dogs?”

  “Damn the dogs!”

  “Have you got a lot of dogs?” inquired Roger, looking round for some sign of them. “What sort of dogs?”

  “Bull-terriers,” replied Antonia briefly.

  “I don't know that I like the sound of that. I got bitten by a dog once, and they told me it was a bull-terrier. Not that I wanted to know.”

  “Let's have the dogs in,” said Kenneth, brightening. “You never know your luck.”

  “Don't be childish, Kenneth,” interposed Violet. “It isn't for me to make a suggestion, but don't you think Mr Carrington ought to be told what's happened?”

  “You don't mean to tell me Uncle Charles isn't dead yet?” said Roger. “I don't want to see him. The last time I set eyes on him he said a whole lot of things I'm glad I can't remember.”

  “You won't have to see him,” replied Antonia. “Giles took over a
ll our affairs years ago.”

  “Oh, Giles!” said Roger. “Well, I don't mind him. Do just as you like about it. Now I come to think of it, he wasn't a bad chap at all. I was at school with him.”

  “Yes, till they sacked you,” said Kenneth.

  “You've got that muddled up,” said Roger. “You're thinking of Oxford. Now, there I did get into trouble. I forget the rights of it, but there was a lot of unpleasantness one way or another. As a matter of fact, I've been very unlucky all my life. Not that I'm complaining.”

  Antonia, apparently thinking that Violet's suggestion was a good one, had walked across the studio to the telephone, and was dialling her cousin's number. He answered the call himself, and as soon as Antonia heard his voice, she said without any preamble: “Giles, are you doing anything? Because if not you'd better come round at once.”

  “Had I?” he said. “What's happened now?”

  “Something utterly sickening. Roger's turned up.”

  “What?”

  “Roger. He isn't dead, at all. He's here.”

  There was a moment's startled silence; then Giles said in a voice quivering with amusement: “But what a disaster!”

  “Yes, it's awful. We don't in the least know what to do about it.”

  “My poor Tony, I'm afraid there's nothing you can do.”

  “It's all very well for you to laugh, but he says he's going to stay with us until you advance him some money. So do you think you could bring round some at once? He wants fifty pounds, but I should think twenty would do. He hasn't got any clothes.”

  “What, none at all?”

  “No - that is, yes, you idiot, of course he has! But no pyjamas, or things.”

  “How very like him!” said Giles.

  “I daresay, but the point is we don't want him here, and he won't go unless he has some cash.”

  “My dear girl, I can't possibly do anything about it at a moment's notice!”

  “I suppose you wouldn't like to lend him some money?” Antonia said, without much hope.

  “I shouldn't,” replied Giles.

  “No, I didn't think you would. But it's pretty grim if we've got to have him here, you know.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I keep on telling you! Here!”

  Giles's voice was brimful of laughter. “Not in the room?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Antonia impatiently.

  “How he must be enjoying this conversation!”

  At this point Roger, who had been listening with his usual placidity, interrupted to say: “Give old Giles my love.”

  “He wants me to give you his love. He's just like that.”

  “He always was. I can't rise to those affectionate heights, but tell him I congratulate him on not being dead. Where did he spring from?”

  “South America, I suppose. I didn't ask. Anyway, he landed yesterday. Do come round!”

  “I can't do any good if I do, Tony; but I'll look in after dinner, if you like.”

  With this she had to be content. At the other end of the telephone Giles Carrington sat for a moment after he had laid down the receiver, thinking. Then, with a faint smile hovering about his mouth, he picked up the receiver again, and rang up Scotland Yard.

  Superintendent Hannasyde was still in the building, and after a few minutes Giles was put through to him.

  “Is that you, Hannasyde?”

  “It is,” replied the Superintendent.

  “Do you remember, I wonder, that I prophesied something unexpected would turn up?”

  “I do.” The Superintendent's voice quickened with interest.

  “Well, I thought perhaps you'd like to know that it has,” said Giles. “Roger Vereker has come home.”

  “Roger—Who's he?”

  “Roger Vereker,” said Giles, “is the brother who ought to have died seven years ago!”

  “Good lord!” The Superintendent sounded startled. “When?”

  “I'm informed that he landed yesterday - I believe from South America, but I'm not certain on that point. At the moment he's staying at the studio. I'm going round there to see him this evening.”

  “Do you mind if I come with you?” asked Hannasyde.

  “Not in the least,” replied Giles cheerfully.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Violet, who made a show of leaving the studio shortly before dinner, was easily persuaded to remain. Kenneth said that since she seemed to like Roger so much she had better stay and entertain him, as neither he nor Tony felt at all capable of doing it. She took this in good part, merely smiling at him in a rather aloof way, and continuing to ask Roger civil questions about his journey. Presently, when Murgatroyd, with an ill grace, came to show Roger the way to the box-room which was to be his temporary abode, she took the Verekers to task, and told them that she felt so sorry for Roger at meeting with such a reception that she felt she had to do something about it. Antonia pointed out to her that as far as Roger was concerned it was all water off a duck's back; an observation so patently true that even Violet could not gainsay it. Antonia saw more point in her second argument, which was that by showing his disgust so plainly, Kenneth was placing himself in a very suspicious light. Antonia was inclined to agree with this, but Kenneth at once started to argue that his attitude was entirely consistent, and would be more likely to puzzle the police than to convince them that he was Arnold's murderer. In the middle of the inevitable discussion that followed Roger came back into the room, and Kenneth, to whom, once he was embarked on an argument, all persons were alike, immediately put the case to him.

  Roger listened attentively, and without embarrassment, and said in a painstaking way: “You mean, if you go about saying what a damnable thing it is I've come home, the police will think you stuck that knife into Arnold?”

  “No, that's what Violet thinks. I say that if I pretend not to mind they'd be far more likely to be suspicious.”

  “Well, I don't know,” said Roger. “They might, of course, but you can't be too careful with policemen. I've had a lot of trouble with them in my time, all sorts of policemen. Sometimes I think the English ones are the worst, but at others I'm not so sure. By the way, did you murder Arnold? I don't want to be inquisitive, but I wondered.”

  “What do you suppose I'm likely to answer?” retorted Kenneth.

  “Quite so,” said Roger. “Silly of me. What I mean is, it's a nuisance for you if you did, now I've come home. Waste of time.”

  “Unless I murder you too,” said Kenneth thoughtfully.

  “Now, don't start talking like that,” said Roger. “Before you know where you are, you'll be doing it. I never could stand impulsive people, never.”

  Kenneth eyed him speculatively. “The best thing, of course, would be to foist Arnold's murder on to you,” he said. “I don't quite see how, at the moment, but I may think of something.”

  “That's not a bad idea,” remarked Antonia. “You wouldn't have to make up a motive, either, because he's got one.”

  “Well, I don't like it,” said Roger, a shade of uneasiness in his voice. “And it's no use going on with it, because I've already told you I only landed yesterday.”

  “Moreover,” continued Antonia, brightening, “the knife was a foreign dagger or stiletto (I forget which), common in Spain and South America. They said so at the Inquest.”

  “You never told me that,” Kenneth reproached her.

  “It's very important. Naturally, that's just the sort of thing Roger would use.”

  “Now there you're wrong,” said Roger. “If there's one thing that I wouldn't use it's that. I don't believe in knifing people. You see a lot of it in some of the places I've been in, but that isn't to say you get into the way of doing it yourself. At least, I don't. Besides, I didn't know anything about the murder till you told me. As a matter of fact, now I come to think of it, I don't know much about it now. I don't even approve of it.”

  However, Kenneth was not easily to be diverted from his chosen train of thought, and he
continued to pursue it until dinner was brought in. Murgatroyd waited on them in silence, and only occasionally threw Roger a hostile look. She confided to Antonia, later, that it might be as well to keep in with Roger. “For, whatever his faults, Miss Tony - and it would take me till tomorrow to tell you them - he's not mean. That I will say for him.”

  “You needn't think I'm going to sponge on Roger,” replied Antonia.

  “You never know what you may do till you come to it,” said Murgatroyd.

  It was not until after nine o'clock that Giles Carrington entered the flat, and when she admitted him, and recognised his companion, Murgatroyd gave a disparaging sniff, and remarked that it never rained but what it poured.

  The small party gathered together in the studio was not being a success, in spite of all Violet's efforts to make it one. She had managed to stop Kenneth trying to evolve some method by which Roger might have contrived the murder and yet appear to have been on the high seas at the time, but she could not induce him either to take part in the sort of general conversation she was trying to promote, or to be polite to his half-brother. She had taken pains to draw Roger out on the subject of his travels, but Kenneth, who was invariably made irritable when she bestowed her attention on another man, blighted most of Roger's reminiscences by interpolating now and then the remark that he didn't believe a word of it. He sat slouched in the largest armchair, with an expression of brooding anger in his eyes; and the only interest he displayed during Roger's rambling narration was in the story of the beautiful Spaniard who had twice tried to kill him.

  Antonia, frankly bored, had curled herself up on the divan with two of her dogs at her feet, and was reading a novel. She put it down when the door opened to admit her cousin, and greeted him with relief. “Oh, good!” she said. “Now you can come and tell us how to get rid of him! Hullo! What have you brought the police for?”

  Kenneth's scowl vanished. He sprang up, exclaiming:

  “You see how right my theory is, Roger! They've come for you already!”

  Roger, too, had risen, and was looking greatly disturbed. “If policemen are going to infest the place I shall have to go,” he said. “It isn't that I'm afraid I shan't be comfortable, because I've tried the camp-bed and it isn't bad. What I mean is, I've slept in many worse. But I don't like policemen. Some people feel the same about cats. Always know the instant one comes into the room, and begin to get creepy. Not that I've any objection to cats, mind you. Far from it. In fact, if I had to be bothered with any sort of animal, I think I should choose a cat.”