Джорджетт Хейер - Death in the Stocks

“Yes, I am,” replied Hannasyde. “He fits, and yet he doesn't fit. See what you can find out, Hemingway.”

The Sergeant nodded. “I will that, sir. But he can't have done it. Not to my way of thinking. Here, Gladys - Maud - Gwendolyn, whatever your name is - tell me this: Are you standing us this tea?”

“I never did! You haven't half got a nerve!” said the waitress, giggling.

“I only asked because you seemed kind of shy of bringing the bill,” said the Sergeant.

“You are a one!” said the waitress, greatly diverted.

Murgatroyd, opening the door to Superintendent Hannasyde, stood squarely in the aperture and asked him aggressively what he wanted. He asked if Miss Vereker was in and she said: “That's as may be. Your name, please, and business.”

His eyes twinkled. “My name is Hannasyde, and my business is with Miss Vereker.”

“I know very well what you are,” said Murgatroyd. “I've had another of you here today, and I've had enough. If the police would let well alone it would be a good thing for everyone.” She stood aside to allow him to enter, and led him across the tiny hall to the studio. “It's the police again, Miss Tony,” she announced. “I suppose you'd better see him.”

Antonia was sitting by the window with two of her dogs at her feet. One of them, Bill, recognised an acquaintance in the Superintendent, and wildly thumped his tail; his daughter, Juno, however, got up growling.

“Ah, who says dogs have no sense?” said Murgatroyd darkly.

“Shut up, Juno!” commanded Antonia. “Oh, it's the Superintendent! That means I'm going to be interrogated all over again. Have some tea?”

“Thank you, Miss Vereker, but I've had tea,” said Hannasyde, his eyes on a big canvas on the easel.

Antonia said kindly: “Dawn Wind, but it isn't finished yet. My brother's new picture.”

Hannasyde went up to look more closely at it. “Your brother told me today that his hands are worth more than all your half-brother's money,” he remarked.

“Yes, he does think a lot of himself,” agreed Antonia. “You'll have to get used to that sort of swank if you mean to see much of him.”

“Well, I was thinking that he's probably right,” said Hannasyde. “I don't pretend to know much about art, but -”

“Don't say that!” besought Antonia. “Every well meaning idiot says it. What on earth are you standing there for, Murgatroyd?”

“You may be glad of me staying,” said Murgatroyd grimly.

“Well, I shan't. Not after the way you shoved your finger into Kenneth's pie with all that rot about him being in bed at midnight.”

“What I've said I stand by,” replied Murgatroyd.

“What's the use of standing by it when nobody believes you?” said Antonia reasonably. “Anyway, don't stand there, because it puts me off.”

“Well, you know where I am if you want me,” Murgatroyd replied, and withdrew.

“Sit down,” invited Antonia. “What do you want to know?”

“What was in that letter,” replied the Superintendent promptly.

“Which letter? - Oh, Arnold's! Nothing much.”

“If there was nothing much in it why did you destroy it?” asked Hannasyde.

“It was that sort of a letter.”

“What sort of a letter?”

“The sort you destroy - Look here, we're beginning to sound like a pair of cross-talk comedians!” Antonia pointed out.

“Very like,” agreed the Superintendent evenly. “Did you destroy the letter because it contained a rather serious accusation against Mr Rudolph Mesurier?”

Antonia looked defensive. “It didn't.”

“Quite sure, Miss Vereker?”

Antonia propped her chin in her hands and frowned. “I wish I could remember what I said in the ghoulish Police Station,” she said. “I almost wish I hadn't burned the letter, too. Because you seem to think it was frightfully important, and as a matter of fact it wasn't. It was just a general hate against Rudolph.”

“No specific charge?”

“No. He just ran through Roget's Thesaurus for synonyms of Scoundrel, and put them all into the letter.”

“You say that there was no specific charge, Miss Vereker, but does a business man like your half-brother threaten to take legal proceedings against another man without any definite reason?”

“The whole point is, did he mean it, or was he merely waffling?” Antonia said, off her guard. “That's what I want to find out.” She broke off and flushed angrily. “Damm, you don't play fair!”

“I'm not playing, Miss Vereker.”

She looked up quickly, for there was a hint of sternness in his voice. Before she had time to speak, he went on: “Arnold Vereker wrote to you forbidding your engagement to Mesurier. According to you, he gave no definite reason for this. But you have admitted that he threatened to prosecute Mesurier for some offence or other, and you have also admitted that his letter made you exceedingly angry.

“Of course it did!” she said impatiently. “It would make anybody angry!”

“I expect so. Perhaps it may also have alarmed you?”

“No, why should it? I wasn't afraid of Arnold.”

“Not on your own account, but were you not alarmed for Mesurier?”

“No, because I didn't take the letter seriously.”

“You took it seriously enough to drive all the way to Ashleigh Green that day.”

“Only because I wanted to know just what Arnold had against Rudolph, and to stop him spreading any filthy story about him.”

“How did you propose to do that, Miss Vereker?”

She considered this. “I don't know. I mean, I don't think I'd worked it out.”

“In fact, you were so angry with him that you got straight into your car and drove to Ashleigh Green without having the least idea what you would do when you got there?”

“Oh no!” said Antonia sarcastically. “I took a knife and stuck it into Arnold, and then went and spent the night in his house just to make sure that you'd know I was the murderess; and finally told your silly policeman that there were blood-stains on my skirt.” She broke off, her ill humour suddenly vanishing. “Which isn't as idiotic as it sounds,” she said. “Now I come to think of it, that wouldn't have been at all a bad plan if I'd murdered Arnold. In fact, definitely brilliant, because no jury would ever believe I could have been fool enough to loiter around the scene of the crime and brandish bloodstained garments about. I must put that to Giles.” At this moment Kenneth strolled into the studio. Antonia immediately propounded her notions to him.

Superintendent Hannasyde had seen enough of the Verekers by this time to feel very little surprise at the enthusiasm with which Kenneth at once entered into a discussion.

“That's all very well,” Kenneth said, “but what about the dog-fight?”

“I could easily have staged that,” his sister said napoleonically.

“Not at that hour of night,” objected Kenneth. “If you murdered Arnold and got blood on your clothes, meeting the retriever, or whatever it was, was sheer luck. Also you haven't piled up enough evidence against yourself. Obviously if you were clever enough to commit a murder and plant yourself down in the murdered man's house afterwards you ought to have told as many people as you could that you were going down to have it out with Arnold. No one would believe you killed him after that. What do you think, Superintendent?”

“I think,” replied Hannasyde, exasperated, “that your tongues are likely to lead you into serious trouble.”

“Ah!” said Kenneth, a wicked gleam in his eye. “That means you don't know what to make of us.”

“Quite possibly,” said Hannasyde, unsmiling, and took his leave. But he admitted later to his subordinate that the young devil had gauged the situation correctly.