Джорджетт Хейер - Envious Casca

Stephen cast him a smouldering look. "I've no idea," he said shortly.

"Oh yes, you love to hide your light under a bushel!" Joseph chaffed him. "Trying to make us believe you're an ignoramus! But he's no such thing, Mrs. Dean, I assure you! In fact - but don't say I told you so! - he's a very clever fellow!"

This piece of facetiousness made Stephen scowl more threateningly than ever, and inspired Mottisfont to say in a meaning tone: "I'm sure if there is a secret way into Nat's room, Stephen would know of it."

"I don't know of it," Stephen replied.

Joseph's arch smile vanished. "What do you mean by that, Edgar?"

Mottisfont raised his brows. "Merely that it's common knowledge that Stephen shared Nat's love for the house. I naturally thought he must know its secrets, if there are any. You're very touchy, Joe!"

"I don't care for that kind of edged remark," Joseph said. "I know this is a period of great strain, Edgar, but we all feel it, some of us perhaps more than you. The least we can do is to refrain from saying malicious things about each other!"

"I wish you'd rid your mind of the belief that I need your support!" said Stephen.

Mrs. Dean, realising that a woman's soothing influence was called for, raised a finger, and said: "Now, Stevie! I shall have to say what I used to say to my girlies, when they were children: birds in their little nests agree!"

"Actually, I believe they don't," remarked Roydon.

If anything had been needed to set the seal to Mrs. Dean's disapproval of an impecunious playwright, this would have been enough. Perceiving a faintly purple tinge in her cheeks, Mr. Blyth looked at his watch, and said with rare prudence that he must not miss his train.

This had the effect of breaking up the luncheon-party. Joseph bustled off to see whether the car had been brought round to the door; Mrs. Dean said that what the young people wanted was a brisk walk to blow away the cobwebs, adding that Valerie must get Stephen to show her round the estate. Valerie, however, protested that it was a foul day, and filthily cold, and that she thought walking in the snow a lousy form of amusement anyway; and by the time her mother had taken her to task over her choice of adjectives, Stephen had vanished, and Paula had marched Roydon off to discuss the forthcoming production of Wormwood.

Mrs. Dean had contemplated an afternoon spent tete-a-tete with Maud, who, though obviously stupid, must, she thought, be able to enlighten her on various aspects of the Herriard inheritance; but this plan was frustrated at the outset by Maud herself. She said that she expected Mrs. Dean would like to lie down after her tiring morning.

"Oh dear me, no!" declared Mrs. Dean, with her wide smile. "I always say that nothing ever tires me!"

"You are very fortunate," said Maud, gathering up her knitting and a magazine. "I can never do without my afternoon rest."

So that was that. Maud went away, and Mrs. Dean was left to the company of Edgar Mottisfont.

Mathilda, meanwhile, had joined Stephen in the billiard-room, and was playing a hundred up with him, in a not very serious fashion. As she chalked the tip of her cue, she said: "Far be it from me to interfere with your simple pleasures, Stephen, but I wish you'd let up on Joe. He means so well, you know."

"You damn him in four words. Go in off the red."

"Leave me to play my own game in my own way," said Mathilda severely, but following out his instruction. "I find Joe rather pathetic."

"Broken-down actor. I don't."

"Thanks, we can all see that. I wish I knew why he is so fond of you."

"I can honestly say that I have never, at any time, given him cause to be. If you hit the white fairly fine, and with plenty of running side -"

"Be quiet! Why do you dislike him so much?"

"Damned old hypocrite!" said Stephen savagely. "You haven't had to watch him oiling up to Uncle Nat for two years."

"If he'd done you out ofyour inheritance you might have grounds for your dislike," she pointed out.

"Blast him! I wish he had!"

She could not help laughing. "Yes, I can understand that, but really it's very unworthy of you, Stephen! I admit that his manner is against him, and that his habit of calling you an old bear gives you some excuse for feeling homicidal, but to give him his due he's treated you remarkably white. I imagine Nat would never have drawn up that will without his persuasion."

Stephen slammed the red ball into one of the bottom pockets, and straightened his back. "Being, as he would tell you, cross-grained, so much altruism nauseates me!"

She retrieved the red ball from the pocket, and spotted it for him. "That's unreasonable. If he were entirely hypocritical, he'd have tried to induce Nat to leave all his money to him."

He hunched one impatient shoulder. "The fellow's always acting. I can't stand him."

"Well, he can't help that: it's second nature. He sees himself in so many roles. Did you hear him sustaining a spirited dialogue with your prospective mother-in-law?"

"Did I not!" he said, grinning. "Didyou hear him relying on my goodnature to keep him out of the workhouse?"

"No, I missed that. Are he and Maud going to remain on at Lexham?"

"Not if I know it!"

"I have an idea Maud doesn't want to," she remarked. "What do you make of her, Stephen?"

"You can't make anything of a vacuum. Yes, what is it?"

This last sentence was addressed to Sturry, who had entered the room, and was waiting by the door, with a look of patient resignation on his face.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but I thought you would wish to be informed that the Inspector from Scotland Yard is here again."

"Does he want me?"

"As to that, sir, I could not take it upon myself to say."

"Well, all right! you can go," Stephen said irritably.

Sturry bowed. "Very good, sir. And perhaps I should mention that I have reason to believe that the Inspector Abstracted one of the foreign daggers from this room, and took it away with him before lunch."

Having delivered himself of this piece of news, he waited to see what the effect of it would be. On the whole, it was disappointing, for although Stephen glanced quickly up at the wall above the fireplace, he made no remark. Mathilda too said nothing, but she did give a faint shudder. Sturry was obliged to be satisfied with this. He withdrew to his own domain, there to regale the more favoured amongst his colleagues with a highly coloured and wholly fictitious account of Mr. Stephen's reactions to his disclosure.

For a minute or two after he had left the room, neither Stephen nor Mathilda spoke. Stephen seemed to be intent only on the game. He finished his break, rather sooner than Mathilda had expected, for he was a good player, leaving her an easy shot.

"Curious that it should be so beastly to know the actual weapon," she said lightly. "I suppose we ought to have suspected those daggers."

He made no reply. She saw that the lowering look had descended on his brow again, and found herself once more wishing that she could fathom the workings of his queer, secluded mind. She said abruptly: "Who picked up your cigarette-case?"

"I've no idea."

"I know Valerie had it, but no one could suspect her of having gone into Nat's room, much less of having stabbed him. And the more I think of it the more incredible it seems that anyone else should have taken the thing upstairs."

"Uncle Nat himself," he suggested.

"I don't believe it. Why should he?"

"To give it back to me, presumably."

"He wasn't in that kind of a mood when I last saw him," Mathilda replied. "Besides, if Valerie really left it on the table by her chair, it would have been perfectly safe there. I'll tell you what, Stephen: there's some mystery attached to that case, and for the life of me I can't solve it."