“Moreover,” continued Randall, lighting another cigarette, “you have no better case against me than you have against anyone else. It is true that I have inherited quite a lot of money, but the most cursory investigation into my affairs will convince you (in spite of the belief current amongst my relations that I have run through a fortune) that I stand in no need of my uncle's money.”
“That may also be true,” said Hannasyde. “Nor do I propose to go into the matter with you at this particular moment.”
Randall looked round the room. “No, there is rather a crowd,” he agreed. “Stella, my lamb, let us withdraw, and perhaps that will put it into Aunt Gertrude's head that she is not really wanted here.”
He clasped his fingers round her wrist as he spoke, and drew her towards the door. Sergeant Hemingway looked quickly at the Superintendent, but Hannasyde made no sign. Mrs Lupton began to say that she expected nothing but rudeness from Randall, but before she could finish her severe and well-worded speech he had gone.
In the hall he paused, and looked down at Stella, the smile lingering about the corners of his mouth. “Well, my love?” he said. “Why didn't you tell the police that you found me coming out of uncle's bathroom?”
“I don't know,” said Stella childishly.
“Let us go into the morning-room,” he said. “I have a much worse question coming.”
Stella allowed herself to be led into the morning-room, but said: “Well, only for a minute, then. I—I can't stop long.”
Randall paid no heed to this. He shut the door, and said quite gravely: “Why did you run to me as though I were your one hope of deliverance, Stella?”
She blushed. “Oh, I didn't! I mean—you told me you'd see the thing through, and—and I thought you might help us. I was a bit upset.” She gave a nervous little laugh. “Sorry I clutched your beautiful coat!”
The smile had gone; there was not even a gleam of mockery lurking beneath those long lashes. “My coat did not matter,” said Randall.
“Oh! Well, one wouldn't have said so, considering the way you —”
“My dear, did you think I was going to let you give yourself away with all our relations present?”
“Give myself—!” Stella broke off, choking. “I don't know what you think you're talking about, but —”
“Don't dither, my sweet. Tell me, is my grey hall an insuperable bar to matrimony?”
“Yes!” said Stella hurriedly. “I mean —”
“I suppose I shall have to let you redecorate it as you like then,” replied Randall. “But I do stipulate that Guy shall not be allowed to have a hand in it.”
Stella, whose brain was whirling, said in an uncertain voice: “I don't call this particularly funny. It may be your idea of a joke, but it isn't mine.”
Randall took her hands. “I'm not joking, darling. I'm asking you to marry me. Will you?”
“No, of c-course not!” said Stella, wondering why her knees had begun to shake.
Randall held her hands for a minute longer, and then let them go and moved away towards the door. Stella looked after him with deep misgiving. “Are—are you going?” she faltered.
“As you see.”
“But—but you can't leave me—us—like this!”
“Which do you mean?” asked Randall. “Me, or us?”
“Us! All of us! You can't surely —”
“Oh yes, I can!” said Randall coolly, and laid his hand on the door-knob.
Stella said in some agitation: “I'm not going to be blackmailed into marrying you!”
He turned his head, and surveyed her enigmatically. “What do you want?” he asked. “If you are worrying about your mother's probable arrest, let me assure you that the police are now far more likely to arrest me.”
“I'm not! I mean, it isn't only that! Oh, Randall, don't be such a vile beast!”
“I don't think much of that,” he said critically. “Amiable snake was far better.”
Stella hunted for her handkerchief, and said, sniffing: “Yes, I've no doubt you'll throw that up at me for the rest of my life. I can't imagine what possessed you to propose to me.”
“Well, that will give you something to puzzle over any time you can't sleep,” said Randall.
“You know perfectly well you don't really want to marry me!”
An expression of weary boredom descended on to Randall's face. He leaned his shoulders against the door, and said: “Do I have to make a reply to that utterly fatuous remark?”
“You think I'm fatuous, and stupid, and haven't any taste, and then you expect me to believe you want to marry me! It doesn't make sense! There's no point in discussing it, even!”
“You may have noticed,” drawled Randall, “that I am making no attempt to discuss it.”
Stella threw him a goaded look. “I'm perfectly willing to be friends with you —”
“Yes, I've no doubt,” said Randall, “but I am not in the least willing to be friends with you.”
“Very well, then, go!” said Stella, turning her back on him, and staring blindly out of the window. “I don't c-care!”
The door opened, and then shut again. Stella gave a despairing sob, and wept silently into her handkerchief.
“You'd better have mine, darling: it's larger,” said Randall's soft voice just behind her.
Stella jumped, and quavered: “S-snake! I loathe and detest you!”
“I know you do,” said Randall, taking her in his arms, and quite firmly possessing himself of her handkerchief.
“You'll be sorry if I cry all over your beautiful c—coat!” said Stella from his shoulder.
“Forget my beautiful coat!” said Randall.
Stella groped for his handkerchief. He gave it her, and she carefully dried her eyes with it. “If I do marry you it won't be because I'm in love with you, because of course I'm not!” she said.
“Very well, you can marry me for my money,” replied Randall equably.
Stella, having finished with it, savagely thrust his handkerchief back into his breast-pocket. “You have the foulest tongue of anyone I ever met in all my life!” she said with conviction. “If I didn't want to get away from this place I wouldn't think of marrying you for a moment! And if I do marry you it'll probably be as bad as living here, or even worse,” she added vindictively.
“Nothing could be as bad as living here,” said Randall reasonably. “I may be a vile beast, but at least I'm not a bore. By the way, are you going to marry me, or not?”
Stella looked for guidance at the top button of his waistcoat, and discovered that there was a smear of face powder on the lapel of his coat, and rubbed it away with one finger.
A hand came up and captured hers, and held it. “You are required to answer, you know,” said Randall.
She raised her eyes rather shyly, and blushed. “Randall, do you—truly want me to?” she asked in a very small voice.
“My dear sweet,” said Randall, and kissed her.
During the next ten minutes Stella made only two remarks, both of which were somewhat breathlessly delivered, and neither of which bore any evidence of intellect. Mr Randall Matthews said "Darling!" in answer to one, and "My little idiot!" in answer to the other. Miss Stella Matthews appeared to be perfectly satisfied with both these responses.
“I must have gone suddenly mad,” she said, a little while later. “I don't even admire your type. And how on earth am I to tell Mummy and Guy about it? They'll never believe I mean it!”
“After this morning's exhibition they are probably prepared for the worst,” replied Randall. “But I'll break the news for you, my pet.”
“Oh no, you won't!” said Stella with decision. “I can just picture that scene! You'll absolutely swear to me, darling-serpent-Randall, that you won't say one single thing to annoy either of them.”
“I can't,” said Randall. “I shall have to leave it to you.” He glanced at his wrist-watch. “I shall have to go, darling. If I don't we shall have that Superintendent arrest
ing somebody—me in all probability.”
Stella put her hand in his. “Randall, you didn't have anything to do with it, did you?”
“No, darling, in spite of every appearance to the contrary, I didn't.”
She looked at him. “Do you know who did?”
He did not answer immediately. Then his clasp on her hand tightened, and he said: “Yes. I think so.”
“Is it going to be beastly?”
“Yes, very. Oh, not Aunt Zoë, sweetheart. But I'm afraid it may upset you.”
“Are you going to tell the police, Randall?”
“I must tell them. I did every mortal thing I could think of to stop them from finding out the truth, and I succeeded so well that we are now most of us in danger of instant arrest. All through Aunt Harriet's accidental death! It is, I suppose, rather delightfully ironic, if you happen to be looking at it from the right angle.”
“Can't you tell me, Randall? I'd rather know.”
“Not now, my sweet. I think it's better kept to myself until I've done what I've got to do.”
“Tell me just one thing,” she said. “Is it something to do with that man—the one they can't find?”
“Everything,” he answered, and kissed her, and got up from the sofa. “I'll ring you up tonight, my love. Don't worry!”
“As long as they don't arrest Mummy or Guy while you're gone,” she said doubtfully.
“They won't do that. They'll merely interrogate them in the light of the new discovery, and I don't suppose that even your little brother Guy can compromise himself sufficiently to make Hannasyde apply for a warrant for his arrest. Moreover, Hannasyde is hot on my trail now, and will in all probability put in some hours of research into my immediate past.”
It seemed as though he was right. When Superintendent Hannasyde saw Stella twenty minutes later he asked her if Randall were still in the house. When she shook her head he looked at her (or so she thought) rather intently, and inquired whether she knew where he had gone. She was glad to be able to say that she had no idea, but felt herself blushing. However, the Superintendent either did not notice this, or else he set no store by it, for he merely said that he expected he should find Randall at his flat, and went away with the Sergeant.
The Sergeant was in a thoughtful mood; and while they walked down the drive he did not speak. But at the gate he said: “Chief, I don't set myself up to know better than you, but when you let him go you could have knocked me down with a feather.”
“You know perfectly well I've no warrant for his arrest,” said Hannasyde.
“You didn't think to put a few questions to him?” ventured the Sergeant.
“Not then, or in that house. I'll see him in his own flat, where I trust we shall not be interrupted either by hysterical young men, or importunate matrons,” said Hannasyde a trifle grimly.
“Do you think he did it, Super?” inquired the Sergeant.
“No, I don't.”
The Sergeant stopped short. “You don't?” he repeated. “What about that line of talk he put over about giving away all his uncle's money?”
“He didn't say anything about that to me,” said Hannasyde, with what his subordinate could only feel to be wooden placidity.
“He seems to have said it to the girl all right,” the Sergeant pointed out, once more falling into step beside him.
“That's a very different matter.”
“It is, is it?” said the Sergeant. “I'm bound to say I don't see it myself, not immediately.”
“Ah, Skipper, that's where psychology comes in!” said Hannasyde maliciously. “Randall Matthews wasn't pleased with Miss Stella for blurting that out.”
The Sergeant eyed him sideways, and with a good deal of expression, but all he said was: “Well, bearing his antics in mind, and assuming that he didn't put that murder over, what is his little game, Super?”
“I suspect,” said Hannasyde, “to prevent us from ever finding out the truth.”
“Chief,” said the Sergeant severely, “you've got something up your sleeve!”
“I think I've got an inkling of the truth,” admitted Hannasyde. “Which is why I'd rather interview Randall Matthews where I can be sure of getting him quite alone. That young man has got to be made to talk.”
But when they arrived at Randall's flat they found only Benson, who informed them, not without satisfaction, that his master was out, and not expected back until the evening.
The Sergeant, bristling with suspicion, said: “You don't say! Taken the Merc with him, by any chance?”
“If,” said Benson, with awful dignity, “you refer to the Mercedes-Benz, no, Sergeant! The car is in the garage.”
“Mr Matthews has been here, then, within the past hour?” interposed Hannasyde.
“Certainly he has,” replied Benson. He added grudgingly: “What's more, Mr Matthews left a message in case you should call.”
“Well?”
“He will not be at home all day, but if you care to come round at nine o'clock this evening he will be happy to see you,” said Benson.
“Tell him when he comes in that I shall call at that time, then,” said Hannasyde, and moved away towards the stairs.
“And what,” demanded the Sergeant, “is my lord up to now, if I may ask?”
“You may ask,” said Hannasyde, “but I'm damned if I can tell you. Unless, for some reason or other, he wants to ward me off for a few hours.”
“We'll look clever if the next we hear of him is on the Continent somewhere,” remarked the Sergeant.
“What's gone wrong with your psychology?” asked Hannasyde solicitously.
“There's nothing gone wrong with it,” said the Sergeant. “But if you weren't my superior, Chief—I say, if you weren't—I should be asking you what had happened to make you lose your grip all of a sudden. The way things are, of course, I can't ask you.”
“Don't worry!” said Hannasyde. “I haven't lost it yet. You can put a man on to watch that flat, if it will make you feel happier. Tell him to report to the Yard anything that happens—particularly Randall's return.”
“Well, that's better than doing nothing,” said the Sergeant. “Do you expect to get any good out of it?”
“No, but it's as well to be on the safe side,” answered Hannasyde.
It was not until eight o'clock in the evening that the detective watching the flat got into touch with Sergeant Hemingway at Scotland Yard. He rang up then with the news that Randall had come home five minutes before.
The Sergeant relayed this information, and waited for instructions.
Just on eight o'clock,” said Hannasyde, glancing at his wrist-watch. “He's come home to dinner, I should say. Tell Jepson to keep a sharp look-out, and if Matthews goes out again to tail him.”
But Randall did not go out again, and when Hannasyde arrived at his flat at nine o'clock he was ushered immediately into the library, and found Randall there, lounging in the depths of a large armchair, with a coffee-tray on a low table beside him.
He was looking tired, and not in the least amiable. There was a crease between his black brows, and a grimness about his mouth which Hannasyde had never seen before. He dragged himself out of the chair when the Superintendent came in, and greeted him for once without the faint, sardonic smile which Hannasyde found so irritating.
“Come in, Superintendent,” he said. “Where is your satellite?”
“I'm alone,” replied Hannasyde.
Randall looked him over. “How fortunate! I wanted you alone,” he said.
“I thought perhaps you might,” said Hannasyde.
Randall continued to regard him for a moment, and then bent over the table and picked up the coffee-pot. “Did you?” he said. “Do you know, I begin to think rather well of your intelligence, Superintendent.”
“I have always thought well of yours, Mr Matthews, though I may not have approved the uses it has been put to,” retorted Hannasyde.
At that the smile did flicker for an instant in Rand
all's eyes. “Tut, tut, Superintendent.” He handed a fragile cup and saucer to Hannasyde. “Brandy, or Benedictine?”
“Thank you; brandy, please.”
“A red-letter day,” remarked Randall, pouring the brandy gently into two big glasses. “Superintendent Hannasyde for the first time accepts refreshment under my roof.”
Hannasyde took the glass, and said: “Yes. But I believe it is also a red-letter day in that you are going—at last—to tell me what, up till now, you have been so busily concealing.”
“Cigars at your elbow,” murmured Randall. “It is a thoroughly nauseating affair, Superintendent, and I may mention in passing that my thoughts of my deceased Aunt Harriet are not loving ones.” He sipped his brandy. “Do you want me to remember that you are a member of the C.I.D., or would you like me to tell you the unvarnished truth?”
“The unvarnished truth, please.”
“Yes, I daresay,” Randall drawled. “But it will have to be without prejudice, Superintendent.”
Hannasyde hesitated. “I can't promise anything, but I'm out to solve a murder-case, not to bring a charge against you for getting hold of Hyde's papers by using a false name and a pair of sun-glasses.”
“It would be rather paltry, wouldn't it?” agreed Randall.
“Worse than that. I rather think you may have been within your rights when you took possession of those papers.”
Randall looked pensively down at him. “Now, when did you tumble to that, Superintendent?” he asked.
“When your cousin told me that you were going to give away all your uncle's money, Mr Matthews.”
“Ah!” said Randall. “That was certainly a mistake on my part.” He walked across the room to his desk, and picked up the evening paper that lay there, and came slowly back with it. “I think that's the most important part of my story—as far as you are concerned,” he said, and handed the paper to Hannasyde. “The second paragraph,” he said.
Hannasyde shot one quick look at him, and then lowered his gaze to the column just below the fold in the newspaper.
Accident on the Piccadilly Tube was the heading. Underneath was a brief statement that shortly after three o'clock in the afternoon a middle-aged man threw himself in front of an express train at Hyde Park Corner Station. It was understood that the man was a Mr Edward Rumbold, of Holly Lodge, Grinley Heath, well-known in City circles as the head of a firm of wool-exporters.
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