Джорджетт Хейер - Death in the Stocks

“Oh, well, in that case we can talk!” said Antonia briskly. “Giles, do you know about Rudolph cooking the firm's accounts, or not?”

“What?” ejaculated Kenneth, pausing in his search for the cigarettes, and turning to stare at Mesurier. “Actually embezzling funds? Did you really?”

His manner was partly interested, partly critical, and it goaded Rudolph, deeply flushed, to defend himself . His explanation was met with so derisive a laugh that Antonia at once took up the cudgels, and told her brother he needn't be offensive, because for one reason she wouldn't put it above him to cook accounts, and for another it had nothing to do with him.

“Oh yes, it has!” objected Kenneth. “You seem to forget I'm the heir. I daresay I could prosecute, if I wanted to. Not that I do, of course, though I do rather draw the line at embezzling. It's one thing to bump a man off, but quite another to monkey with his accounts. However, don't think I'm being captious. I expect it seemed good to you at the time, Rudolph.”

Mesurier said angrily: “I don't care for your tone! I'm willing to admit I shouldn't have borrowed the money, but when you accuse me of -”

“My bonny lad, I haven't accused you of anything,” said Kenneth, beginning to fill a pipe. “Tony said you'd been cooking the firm's accounts; I merely displayed the proper amount of surprise, interest and disapproval.”

Antonia had drawn her cousin over to the window, and stood there facing him, with one hand lightly grasping his sleeve. She looked gravely up at him and asked quietly: “He's in a mess, isn't he?”

“I don't know, Tony.”

“Well, I think he is. You will help him, won't you, Giles?” He did not answer immediately, and she added after a moment: “You see, I'm engaged to be married to him.”

“That isn't an inducement to me, Tony.”

Her candid eyes were a trifle puzzled; they searched his unavailingly. “Isn't it?” she asked, seeking enlightenment.

“No.”

“Oh! Well - well - will you do it for me, Giles?”

He looked down at her, and at her hand, still clasping his sleeve. “I suppose so, Tony,” he said in his level way, and glanced across the big room to where Mesurier and Kenneth were arguing. “Shut up, Kenneth,” he said pleasantly. “Yes, I know about the letter my cousin wrote before his death, Mesurier. It doesn't prove, you know, that you had anything to do with his murder.”

“No,” agreed Antonia, “but the bit about the car is not so good. Tell my cousin, Rudolph; he really is quite helpful.”

Mesurier gave a shrug of his shoulders. “Oh, that's nothing but a ridiculous mistake on the part of the police. Some local bobby imagines he saw my car near Hanborough on the night of the murder, Carrington.”

“Policemen haven't got imaginations,” said Kenneth, who had stretched himself along the sofa, his pipe between his teeth.

Giles was frowning slightly. “Where was your car?” he asked.

“In the garage, I suppose. I mean, I spent the evening at home.”

“I see. Can you produce anyone to corroborate that statement?”

“No, as a matter of fact, I can't,” said Mesurier, with a slight uncomfortable laugh. “Seems silly, but the truth is I had a bad headache and I went to bed early.”

“You are a rotten liar,” observed Kenneth lazily. “Why bother? We won't give you away. I might even bestow a suitable reward on you. Or would that be indelicate?”

Giles said rather sternly: “Your own story is just as thin, Kenneth.”

“Admittedly, but I tell it with a much better grace.”

Kenneth pointed out. “What do you think, Tony? Did he do it? I don't believe he had the nerve.”

“Of course he had the nerve!” said Antonia indignantly. “The trouble with you is that you're so taken up with admiring your own cleverness in baffling the police that you don't think anyone else is capable of doing anything.”

Giles, who had ignored this interchange, was looking steadily at Mesurier. “When you say that a bobby saw your car on the night of the murder, do you mean that he saw a car of the same make as yours, or that he actually read your number on its plate?”

“My number,” Mesurier answered, “or so he thinks. But he could easily have muddled it up with another, which is, of course, what he did do.”

“I can so readily picture our friend the Superintendent lapping that story up,” remarked Kenneth. “Tony, your young man promised well at one time, but he begins to bore me now.”

Giles took out his cigarette-case and opened it. “It isn't for me to question your story, Mesurier. I can only say that if it's true I'm sorry.”

“Sorry?” Rudolph ejaculated. “I don't understand you!”

Giles lit a cigarette and pitched the dead match into the grate. “For your sake, very. You had an excellent alibi there, Mesurier.”

“Alibi? Where?”

“In the car,” replied Giles. “For if you had been driving your car back to London from Hanborough that night I don't think you could very well have been the murderer.”

The effect of this calm pronouncement was slightly ludicrous. Rudolph Mesurier blinked at him in a bewildered manner and said: “Then - then I might just as well have admitted I was out? But I don't understand what you're driving at!”

“It is always better to speak the truth,” said Kenneth smugly. “Witness my own masterly conduct of this highly intricate case.”

“I daresay,” responded his sister. “But did you speak the truth?”

“That, my love,” said Kenneth, “is for the police to find out.”

“Oh, I wish you'd shut up!” Mesurier said, exasperated. “It's all very well for you to lie there and sneer, but I'm in a damned awkward position.”

“So are we all,” replied Kenneth, quite unmoved. “Moreover, this new development gives Tony a nice, pure motive for murdering Arnold. Tell me, Tony, would you really murder Arnold to protect Rudolph's fair name?”

“Yes, of course I would!” said Antonia bristling. 'I don't mean that I approve of him embezzling funds, because, as a matter of fact, I think it's a poor show, but I wouldn't let Arnold prosecute him if I could stop it. If it comes to that, wouldn't you have murdered him for Violet's sake?”

“Don't confuse the motives. I murdered him for the sake of his money. You've got the noble motives: and Rudolph's is the sordid one.”

“No more sordid than yours!”

“Oh yes, darling! Comes under the same heading as card-sharping and shop-lifting.”

Giles interposed. “Shut up, Kenneth. None of this leads anywhere, and it isn't particularly pleasant for Mesurier. Were you out in your car on the night of the murder, Mesurier?”

Rudolph looked uncertainly from one to the other. “Don't be coy,” recommended Kenneth. “We all know you were by this time.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I was,” Rudolph said, taking the plunge. “That's what makes it so frightful.” He began to walk jerkily up and down the studio. “When that detective asked me, I denied it. I mean, what else could I do? They can't prove I was out. It would be absolutely circumstantial evidence, and it seemed to me my best plan was to stick to it that I was at home. Only now you -” he looked at Giles - “say if I was out in my car, I couldn't have done the murder, so…” He stopped and gave a nervous little laugh. “So now I don't know what to do.”

“With any luck,” remarked Kenneth, “we'll foist this murder on to Rudolph.”

“I don't call that funny,” said Mesurier stiffly.

“Depends on the point of view. It would be much funnier than having you as a brother-in-law.”

Antonia bounced up out of her chair. “Damn, you, shut up!” she said fiercely. “If if comes to that I'd a lot sooner foist the murder on to Violet than have her as a sister-in-law! I don't see that Rudolph's any worse than she is.”