Death in the Stocks (14 page)

'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.'

'Why 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 all 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.'

'Well, I wouldn't,' said Antonia, who had happened to listen to this. 'They're inhuman things - though I suppose there are cats and cats.'

'There you are, then,' Roger pointed out. 'But it's no use telling me there are policemen and policemen, because it wouldn't be true. It's always puzzled me what anyone ever wanted policemen for except to stand about at cross-roads, sticking out their hands, and even that seems to me the kind of job anyone else could do as well, if not better.'

'I wish you wouldn't talk such drivel,' said Antonia. 'Anybody would think you were going to have one as a pet. And if other people directed traffic instead they'd be policemen, so I don't see that it would make much difference.'

Roger followed this argument carefully. 'There's a fallacy in that,' he said. 'I'm not sure where it is, and I'm not going to work it out, but the thing doesn't sound right to me, somehow.'

Any faint hope Hannasyde might have cherished of finding in Roger one normal member of the Vereker family vanished. He sighed, and transferred his attention to Kenneth.

Giles interposed before Antonia could continue the argument. 'Shut up, Tony. Well, Roger, how are you? When did you arrive?'

'I'm getting tired of answering that question,' replied Roger, shaking hands. 'I keep on telling everyone I landed yesterday - I'm glad you've come round, because it's a very awkward predicament, mine. I've run out of cash. They tell me you're one of Arnold's executors, so you'll be able to advance me some of the money. How much have you brought?'

'I haven't brought any,' answered Giles. 'I can't advance you money in that haphazard fashion.'

The interest which had gleamed for a few moments in Roger's eye was effectually banished by this pronouncement. He relapsed into his usual quiescence, merely remarking in a discouraged way that if that was so, he couldn't see why Giles had troubled to come. 'Not that I don't want to see you,' he added. 'But there doesn't seem to me to be much point in it.'

'If he succeeds in ridding us of you there'll be a great deal of point in it,' said Kenneth savagely. 'Sit down, my friend-the-Superintendent, sit down! What can I offer you? Whisky? Lager?'

The Superintendent declined any refreshment. 'I'm sorry to interrupt a - a family party,' he said, 'but -'

'Not at all,' said Kenneth. 'We're charmed to see you. At least, my half-brother isn't, but that's probably because his conscience isn't clear. But the rest of us are delighted. Aren't we, Violet? By the way I don't think you've met our friend-the-Superintendent, darling. This is he. Superintendent, my fiancée - Miss Williams.'

Violet bowed slightly, and bestowed on Hannasyde the small mechanical smile she reserved for her social inferiors. Turning from him, she suggested to Kenneth in a low voice that she should go. He instantly quashed this, so she compromised by withdrawing tactfully to the other end of the room under the pretence of opening a window.

Meanwhile Giles had introduced the Superintendent to Roger, and Hannasyde, in his good-humoured way, was explaining the ostensible reason for his visit. 'As I expect you have been told, Mr Vereker, your brother, Mr Arnold Vereker, was stabbed at Ashleigh Green last Saturday,' he began, 'so I'm sure you will -'

'Yes, I've been told that,' replied Roger, 'but it has nothing to do with me. Naturally I was shocked to hear it. In fact, I didn't at first believe it.'

'It must have been a terrible shock,' agreed Hannasyde sympathetically.

'Well, it was. If they'd said he'd been shot, or been found with his head stuck in a gas-oven, it would have been another matter, because there's nothing surprising about that in these days. But a knife in the back is a very unusual thing in England. Took me back to Colombia in a flash.'

'Really,' said-Hannasyde. 'Have you just come back from Colombia?'

'Oh no,' said Roger vaguely. 'But I was there for a spell once. Didn't care for it, but you'd be surprised at the amount of quiet knifing that goes on. At least, it did in my day, but of course it may have changed by now.'

'I've always understood that those parts were somewhat uncivilised,' said Hannasyde. 'Though they say South America is the country of the future.'

'They'll say anything,' replied Roger dampingly.

Hannasyde persevered. 'Which part have you come from?' he inquired.

'BA,' said Roger. 'But it's no use making a lot of inquiries about me there, because I've been living under another name. More convenient,' he added, in explanation.

'I see,' said Hannasyde. 'And so you're just back. When did you land?'

'Yesterday,' said Roger, eyeing him suspiciously.

Hannasyde smiled. 'That sounds to me like a remarkably good alibi,' he said lightly. 'What was your ship?'

'Well, I've forgotten,' said Roger, 'if I ever knew, which I rather doubt. To tell you the truth, I don't take much interest in ships. There are some people who no sooner get on board than they start making friends with the Chief Engineer, so that they can go down and have a look at the engine-room, which, as a matter of fact, is a nasty, smelly place. I'm not like that at all.'