Death in the Stocks (18 page)

He startled Kenneth, who looked up quickly and said: 'Giles? Do you mean - Rot! She hasn't been on speaking terms with him for months!'

'I don't know anything about that,' answered Roger. 'All I do know is that if this Rudolph excrescence can be shifted, Tony will marry Giles.'

'Well, I hope you may be right,' said Kenneth. 'Giles is a nice chap. I must keep an eye on them.'

'If you take my advice you'll keep your eye on your own pictures,' said Roger. 'I don't say I wouldn't rather look at almost anything else myself, but probably you don't feel like that about them.'

'I don't,' said Kenneth, on whom such inexpert criticism of his work made no impression at all. 'And don't go putting your foot into it by sacking Mesurier.'

'Well, all right,' agreed Roger. 'Only I won't have him at my party.'

Mention of the party made Kenneth at once point out to him that his home-coming was no occasion for rejoicing for anyone but himself. He said that he had no intention of being present, but in the end he was present, not as a result of any persuasion on Roger's part, but because Violet had coaxed him into it. She was unusually kind to him throughout the evening, and paid so little heed to Roger that he became quite good-humoured after a while, and even enlisted Roger's support in an argument with Violet on the question of whether or not it was indecent to attend a public dance within a fortnight of Arnold's death. As this discussion was started in the restaurant which was attached to the flats, and conducted with a total disregard for whoever might overhear, a good many shocked glances were cast at the Verekers' table, and one stickler for the proprieties spent the rest of the evening composing a letter of complaint to the landlord.

As might be expected, Violet was firm in refusing to countenance the bare notion of appearing at the ball, which was to take place three days later. She said that there was such a thing as respect to the dead, to which Kenneth replied that he had no more respect for Arnold dead than he had had for Arnold alive. 'Besides, I paid thirty bob for the tickets, and I'm going to use them,' he added.

'You could sell them,' Violet pointed out. 'Don't you agree with me that he ought to, Mr Carrington?'

'Yes, on the whole, I think I do,' replied Giles. 'You're not going are you, Tony?'

'No,' said Antonia. 'Because Rudolph can't manage that night.'

'If Violet won't come, I'll take you, Tony,' said Kenneth, glancing provocatively at his betrothed. 'And if you won't, I'll take Leslie!'

'I've already told you, darling, I'm not going with you,' Violet said. 'We should be bound to meet any number of people we know, and what they would think I daren't imagine. Tony can please herself, but I hope she has too much sense, let alone proper feeling, to go near the ball.'

'After this short speech, they all cheered,' said Kenneth instantly. 'Will you come, Tony?'

'She's dining with me, and going to a show,' interposed Giles.

'I see. Thus evincing a proper respect for the dead.'

Giles laughed. 'More or less. Will you come, Tony?'

'Yes, please,' said Antonia. 'Is it a party, or just us?'

'Of course it's not a party,' said Kenneth. 'Where's your sense of decency?'

'I've no doubt these little social convenances seem absurd to you, dear,' remarked Violet, 'but Mr Carrington is perfectly right. Going to a public ball and dining quietly with someone at a restaurant are two entirely different things.'

'What a discerning mind you have got, my pet!' said Kenneth admiringly.

'Now, don't start quarrelling,' besought Roger. 'Personally I've no objection to Kenneth's going to a ball, none at all. If I wanted to go to it, which I don't, I shouldn't bother about whether it was decent or not for an instant.'

'That we believe,' said Giles. 'Oh, I'm your guest! Sorry, Roger, but you asked for it.'

'You needn't trouble about my feelings, because they're not easily hurt,' replied Roger. 'My theory is that everybody should do just what they like. There's a great deal too much interference in this world. If Kenneth wants to go to a dance, why shouldn't he? And if Violet doesn't want to, that's her affair. I'll tell you what; you come and have dinner here with me, Violet.'

This casual invitation produced a noticeable tension in two at least of the party. Antonia, thinking it a trifle crude, scowled at Roger, and Kenneth fixed Violet with a smouldering gaze, awaiting her answer.

She excused herself gracefully, but failed to satisfy Kenneth, who harked back to the invitation on the way home, and informed her that in case she had any idea of spending the evening with Roger she could get rid of it immediately.

'Darling, how silly you are!' she sighed. 'Of course, I'm not going to do any such thing! Didn't you hear me refuse?'

'I heard,' Kenneth said rather grimly. 'But it also transpired, my love, in the course of Roger's artless chatter, that you dined with him two nights ago  — a circumstance hitherto unknown to me.'

She coloured slightly. 'Oh, you mean the night you were out!' she said. 'Well, what if I did? Tony apparently went off with Rudolph, and poor Roger was left alone in the flat. I merely took pity on him.'

'You have a lovely nature, my sweet. I suppose it slipped your memory, which was why you forgot to tell me about it.'

'I knew you would make a ridiculous fuss if I did tell you,' replied Violet, in her calm way. 'You're so taken up with your own grievance, Kenneth, that you don't see that Roger's really rather a pathetic figure.'

'No, I can't say that I do.'

'Well, I find him so. If he did commit the murder, of course it's dreadful, but I can't help feeling sorry for him. The whole thing is very much on his mind. I know he pretends it isn't, but he has the idea that the police are watching him all the time.'

'Form of DT,' said Kenneth callously. 'The police haven't any more reason to suspect Roger than they have to suspect me. It's time we gave up thinking about it. No one will ever be arrested; and, what's more, the police know it. Are you coming to the Albert Hall Ball, or are you not?'

'But, darling, I've told you already—'

'Look here, Violet!' he said forcibly. 'Let's get things straight! I've no use for any of your conventions, and I never shall have. If you mean to marry me you'll have to accept that.'

He sounded a little dangerous, and she at once stopped trying to argue with him, and set herself to coax him out of his bitter mood. When they parted he had softened towards her, and she had said that perhaps she would go to the ball with him if he was so set on it. A quarrel was thus happily averted, but when at half-past six on the day of the ball she arrived at the studio, and said gently that really she didn't think she could go after all, because she had a bad headache, Kenneth looked her up and down for one minute, and then strode over to the telephone and called Leslie Rivers' number.

Violet said nothing, but stood looking out of the window while Kenneth arranged to call for Leslie to take her out to dinner at a quarter to eight. Apparently Leslie had no scruples about attending the ball in his company, and it was with a glint of triumph in his eyes that Kenneth glanced towards his fiancée as he put down the receiver. 'Go home and nurse your headache, darling,' he said sweetly. 'Or have you other plans? I'm sorry I can't spare the time to discuss them with you, but I'm going to have a bath and change.'

Antonia, who had entered the room at the beginning of this scene, and had been a silent but critical audience of the whole, watched him go out, and then looked at Violet with a certain amount of contempt. 'Well, you've mucked that pretty successfully,' she observed. 'I should have thought anyone with a grain of sense would have known better than to have tried to pull that trick on Kenneth.'

'Would you?' said Violet smoothly.

'I should. If you'd stuck to your original No he probably wouldn't have gone - not that I can see that it matters whether he goes or doesn't. But if you wanted to make him utterly pig-headed about the whole thing, you've gone the right way to work. I never thought you were such an ass. Help me to do up this frock for the lord's sake! Giles will be here by seven, and I've got a couple of letters I must write before I go.'

Giles arrived at seven o'clock to find her standing in the middle of the room with Violet kneeling on the floor at her feet, mending a tear in the hem of her chiffon frock.

Antonia said penitently: 'Oh, Giles, I'm so sorry to be late, but I had to dash off two letters, and then I went and stuck my heel through this accursed skirt. I shan't be a minute.'

'If only you'd stand still!' begged Violet. 'You've got some ink on your finger, too.'

'I'll wash it off. Thanks awfully, Violet. Could you also find a couple of stamps, and stick them on my letters? Top drawer of my bureau, I think.'

'Yes, I'll see to them,' said Violet soothingly. 'Hurry up and wash and get your cloak.' She found the stamps, after a little search, fixed them to the letters, and said with her slow smile: 'Rather a miracle to find a stamp in this house. Tell Tony I've taken the letters and will post them on my way home, will you, Mr Carrington?'

'You are not going to the ball?' Giles asked. 'I thought-'

'No, I am not going,' she replied. 'I shall spend a quiet evening at home instead. I hope you enjoy your theatre. Good-night!'

He escorted her to the front door, and opened it for her. As he shut it again behind her Antonia came out of her bedroom, her evening-coat tumbled over her arm. He took it from her, and helped her to put it on. 'Violet has gone,' he remarked. 'I thought you told me she was going to the Albert Hall show after all?'

'Yes, but she changed her mind, and came to tell Kenneth so just now. So the balloon went up good and proper. Have you got my letters?'

'Violet took them.'

'Oh, that's all right then. I've been writing a pretty thank-you letter to Roger.'

'A what?' demanded Giles.

She grinned. 'Yes, I thought you'd be surprised. But it had to be done. According to Rudolph, he drifted into the Shan Hills office this morning, and sent for Rudolph, and told him it was all right about cooking the accounts, and said he wasn't going to do anything about it. Rudolph rang me up at lunch-time, and I must say I think it's extremely decent of Roger - particularly as he doesn't like Rudolph. And if only we can clear Rudolph of suspicion of having done Arnold in, I can break off the engagement with a clear conscience,' she added happily.

Chapter Eighteen

Giles Carrington had just finished his breakfast next morning when the telephone rang, and his man came in after a short pause to say that Superintendent Hannasyde would like to speak to him.

Giles laid down his napkin, rose in a leisurely way to his feet and strolled out into the hall of his flat, and picked up the telephone receiver. 'Hullo!' he said. 'Carrington speaking. What can I do for you? Very bright and early, aren't you?'

The Superintendent's voice sounded unwontedly sharp. 'I'm speaking from Scotland Yard. Roger Vereker is dead.'

The lazy smile was wiped from Giles Carrington's face. He said incredulously: 'What? Say that again!'

'Roger — Vereker — is — dead,' enunciated the Superintendent with great clarity.

'Good God! But how — where?'

'In his flat. I've only just had the news.'

'But - you don't mean murdered, do you?'

'I don't know. The Divisional Inspector seems to think it's suicide. I'm going round immediately.'

'I'll join you there,' Giles said.

'Good; I hoped you would. We may want you,' replied Hannasyde.

Roger Vereker's flat was in a new block erected between Queen's Gate and Exhibition Road. Giles Carrington arrived there shortly behind the Superintendent, and was admitted to Roger's flat on the second floor by the plain-clothes man stationed at the door. In the hall of the flat Sergeant Hemingway was interrogating a frightened housemaid, who explained, between sobs, that she had come up to 'do' the flat at seven o'clock that morning, and had found the poor gentleman dead in his chair. She did not suppose she would ever recover from the shock.

The Sergeant nodded to Giles. 'Good-morning, sir. You'll find the Superintendent in there,' he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the sitting-room.

Nothing had been touched there as yet, and the first thing that met Giles's eyes as he entered the room was the figure of Roger Vereker, seated in a chair turned a little away from his desk. He had fallen forward; his head rested on the edge of the desk, and his right arm hung loosely down to the ground. An automatic pistol lay on the floor just under his hand, and there was an ugly wound in his right temple, from which the blood had run down his face and arm, to form a congealing pool on the carpet.

The Superintendent was listening to what a dapper Inspector had to say, but he looked round as Giles entered, and smiled. 'Good man. I hope you don't mind; we'll have it taken away in a minute.'

'I can put up with it,' Giles said rather shortly, his frowning eyes on Roger's body.

The Superintendent said: 'You're quick. I've only just arrived myself. I'm afraid he's been dead some hours.' He turned back to the Inspector, and nodded to him to continue.

The Inspector had not much to tell. A maidservant, whose duty it was to sweep and dust the flat before breakfast, had entered at seven o'clock, using a pass-key, and had been surprised to find the hall light still on. She had switched it off, concluding that it had been forgotten overnight, and had then noticed a streak of light under the sitting-room door. She had opened the door and had found the room lit by electricity, all the curtains drawn, the ashes of a dead fire in the grate, and Roger Vereker dead in his chair. She had let fall her dustpan and brushes, and rushed screaming from the flat, downstairs, to sob out her discovery to the hall-porter.

The porter's first action had been to go upstairs and see for himself, but one glance had been enough to satisfy him that this was a case for the police, and before notifying the manager of the flats, who occupied a suite on the ground floor, he had rung up the police-station.

A Sergeant had come round at once, with the police surgeon, and, upon discovering the name of the deceased, had instantly connected it with the Vereker case, which he had been following in the newspapers with a good deal of interest. He had taken care not to touch anything in the flat, but had notified the Station Sergeant, who, in his turn, had rung up the Divisional Inspector.

'And though it looks like an ordinary suicide, Superintendent, I thought it proper to advise you before going any further,' ended the Inspector.

'Quite right,' Hannasyde answered. He glanced down at the pistol, and then at the dead man, his lips slightly pursed. 'We'll have a photograph, I think,' he decided, and opened the door to give a brief order.

Sergeant Hemingway came in with the photographer, and went to stand beside Giles Carrington while the flashlight-photograph was taken, and the dead man's body removed. 'Looks like we know who murdered Arnold Vereker, sir,' he said cheerfully.

'It does, doesn't it?' agreed Giles.

The Sergeant looked sharply up at him. 'You don't think so, sir? Now, why?'

'I didn't say so,' replied Giles, his gaze resting for a moment on a meerschaum pipe lying on the mantelpiece.

'It fits together all right,' argued the Sergeant. 'He knew we were on his track; guessed, maybe, we should break that alibi of his; lost his nerve; and put a bullet through his head. It fits; you can't say it doesn't, sir.'

'No, it fits beautifully,' said Giles.

'And still you don't like it. Would it be family feeling, sir, if I may make so bold as to ask?'

Giles shook his head. By this time the body had been taken out on a stretcher, and Superintendent Hannasyde, having got rid of the Inspector, was looking thoughtfully at the desk. He turned after a moment and said briskly: 'Well, what about it - Mr Holmes? I'm not going to waste any time commiserating with you on the death of your cousin, because I know enough of your family by now to be sure not one of you will feel the slightest regret. What do you make of this?'

'Obviously suicide,' drawled Giles.

'Hmm! I don't think much of you as a detective. Nothing strike you as being a little unusual?' He lifted an eyebrow. 'Or does it, and are you hoping it doesn't strike me?'

Giles smiled. 'Three things - at first glance.'

'Three?' Hannasyde looked round the room. 'Now, I only spotted two. This is interesting. There is first the glass of whisky-and-soda on the desk. I can readily imagine Roger Vereker drinking that prior to shooting himself. What I can't imagine is him pouring it out and leaving it untouched. Secondly — though I don't know that it signifies much - is his position. It struck me so forcibly that I had that photograph taken. He was turned away from his desk. Take a look at the angle of the chair. Why had he shifted it? If he sat at his desk, presumably he had been writing. But he could not have written at it seated almost sideways.'

'That's right,' agreed the Sergeant. 'You mean he pulled the chair round a bit to talk to someone else in the room?'

'I think he might have done so.' Hannasyde took out his handkerchief, and with it opened the leather blotter on the desk. A sheet of notepaper lay in it. He picked it up, read it, and handed it to Giles. 'Well?' he said.

The letter, written in Roger's untidy scrawl, was dated the day before, and was unfinished.

'Dear Sirs,' it began. 'Enclosed please find cheque for £15 6s 3d in payment of your account herewith. I should be glad if you would send me -'

There the brief note ended.

'Does that seem odd to you, or not?' inquired Hannasyde.

'It does,' said Giles. 'Roger in the act of paying a bill seems more than odd to me.'

'In some ways you are very like your cousins,' said Hannasyde tartly.

'Interrupted,' said the Sergeant, in his turn reading the note. 'Stands to reason he wouldn't want anything sent him if he meant to commit suicide. Something might have happened to make him do it after the interruption, of course. You can't tell. But certainly he was interrupted. Say there's a ring at the door-bell, Super. He slips the letter into his blotter - or no! he has the blotter open, writing in it. All he does is to close it while he goes to see who's at the door. Sort of instinctive movement, if you follow me.'

'Yes, something like that,' Hannasyde said. 'But we haven't heard Mr Carrington's third point yet.'

Giles, whose good-humoured countenance had grown rather grim, said:

'Are you a pistol-shot, Hannasyde?'

'No, I can't say I am.'

'So I should suppose. Your expert won't like that.' He pointed to the ground at his feet, where, half-hidden in the shaggy hearth-rug, a cartridge-case gleamed.

Both men looked down. 'Yes, I'd already seen it,' Hannasyde said. 'It's in the wrong place? Is that it?'

'That's it,' nodded Giles. 'If Roger Vereker, seated in that chair, put the pistol to his right temple and pulled the trigger, the empty cartridge-case ought to be somewhere between the desk and the window, not here by the fire.' He lit a cigarette, and flicked the dead match behind him, into the grate. His eyes measured the distance between himself and the chair by the desk. 'I think, when the autopsy takes place, you will find that the pistol was not held quite so close to the head,' he remarked.

'Thanks,' Hannasyde said, glancing curiously at him. 'I seem to have been doing you a certain amount of injustice. I suspected you of being more anxious to impede than to assist - on this particular case.'

'One murder I can stomach,' replied Giles shortly. 'I find my gorge turns a bit at two of them. Moreover - bad lot though he was - Roger was utterly inoffensive. There might be several pardonable reasons for killing Arnold: only one reason for killing Roger, and that one not pardonable. No, definitely not pardonable.'

'Quite,' said Hannasyde. His eyes narrowed suddenly, looking at something beyond Giles. 'Was your cousin a pipe-smoker?'

'I don't think so.'

Hannasyde stepped forward and looked more closely at the pipe on the mantelpiece. 'A meerschaum, coloured more on one side than the other,' he said. 'I fancy I have seen it before.'

'Possibly,' said Giles. 'It belongs to Kenneth. But I shouldn't build on it as a clue. Kenneth was one of a party held at this flat three - four evenings ago.'

'Wouldn't he miss his pipe?' inquired the Sergeant. 'I'd miss a pipe of mine quick enough. The dottle's in it still, what's more. You'd expect Roger Vereker to have seen it and knocked it out, and sent the pipe back to his brother.'

'On the contrary,' said Giles, 'I shouldn't expect Roger to do anything so energetic.'

'You are possibly right,' said Hannasyde, 'but a little of the ash has fallen out of the pipe, as you see. Would you not expect the housemaid who cleans this flat to have dusted that away?'

'It depends on the housemaid,' answered Giles.

Hannasyde picked up the pipe, and slipped it into his pocket. 'I'll see the hall-porter, Hemingway,' he said. 'Ask him to come up, will you?'

Giles smiled. 'I take it you'd like me to stay? - to be sure that I don't get to Chelsea ahead of you?'

'Quite right, I would,' answered Hannasyde. 'Not that I think you'd do that, but at this stage I'm taking no risks. Would you have said that Roger Vereker was likely to commit suicide?'

'No, I shouldn't,' said Giles. 'He certainly complained that it got on his nerves to have detectives cropping up at every turn, but he didn't appear to me to be particularly alarmed. However, I didn't see very much of him, so I may be wrong.'