Джорджетт Хейер - Death in the Stocks

“Thank you, dear,” said a smooth voice from the doorway. “How sweet of you! And what am I supposed to have done?”

Kenneth sat up and swung his legs off the sofa. “Darling!” he said. “Come right in and join the party. A good time is being had by all.”

Violet Williams still held the door-knob in one gloved hand. She was charmingly dressed in a flowered frock and a becoming picture hat, and carried a sunshade. She raised her plucked eyebrows and said: “Are you sure I shan't be de trop?”

“You couldn't be. Tony was only retaliating in kind. You know Giles, don't you? Come and sit down, ducky, and listen to the new revelations.”

Mesurier made a movement as of protest, but Antonia very sensibly pointed out to him that Kenneth was bound to tell Violet all about it anyway, so he might as well get it over. As Kenneth's attention seemed for the moment to be engaged by Violet, who had gone over to the sofa, and was speaking to him in a low voice, Mesurier seized the opportunity to ask Giles why his car should be supposed to constitute an alibi.

“Well,” Giles answered, “if you murdered Arnold and drove back to Town in your own car, who disposed of Arnold's car?”

This unfortunately caught Kenneth's ear, and he instantly said: “Accomplice.”

“I hadn't got an accom - I mean - Oh, for God's sake, stop shoving your oar in!”

“An accomplice, if you like,” said Giles. “But who?”

“Tony, of course.”

“Kenneth, dear, you really oughtn't to say things like that, even in fun,” Violet reproved him gently.

Antonia, however, was inclined to regard her brother's suggestion with interest. “You mean we hatched the plot between us, and I lured Arnold to the stocks while Rudolph followed in his own car and did him in? That's no use, because I spent the night at the cottage, and I shouldn't think I'd have had time to burst up to town again with Arnold's car and have motored back. Anyway, I didn't, so that's out. I knew Giles would think of something.”

Mesurier drew a long breath. “What a fool I was not to think of that myself! Thanks a lot. Of course it absolutely lets me out!”

“Oh no, it doesn't!” said Kenneth. “You might have had another accomplice, or tacked your own number plate on to Arnold's car.”

“Too clever,” objected Antonia. “Rudolph would never have thought of anything as wily as that, would you, Rudolph?”

“That's the worst of these people who set out to commit a murder and leave everything to chance,” said Kenneth.

Mesurier decided to ignore this, and, turning to Giles, asked him if he was sure the alibi was good enough. Giles rather damped his optimism by replying that he was not sure of anything.

Violet, who had been playing idly with the clasp of her hand-bag, raised her large, unfathomable eyes to Mesurier's face, and asked in her well-modulated voice why he had been at Hanborough that night. “Please don't think I'm being impertinent!” she said. “But I couldn't help wondering. It seems so funny of you, somehow.”

It was plain that her question took him aback, quite plain enough for Kenneth, who mounted on to the back of the sofa and said: “Now, infidel, I have you on the hip!”

Mesurier cast him a look of goaded hatred and answered: “I can't see what that has to do with it.”

This somewhat weak rejoinder had the effect of setting his betrothed against him. Antonia said severely: “Giles can't possibly help you if you're going to behave like an idiot. You must have had some reason for going to Hanborough that night, and it merely makes you look very fishy if you won't say what it was.”

“Very well, then!” said Mesurier. “If you will have it, I went down with a mad idea of throwing myself on Vereker's generosity, but I thought better of it, and came back again.”

“The only thing I have to say is that I must have another drink,” said Kenneth, getting up off the sofa and strolling over to the sideboard. “The more I hear of Rudolph's story the more convinced I am that we can push all the blood-guilt on to him with very little trouble.” He measured out a whisky-and-soda. “Anyone else have a drink?” As no one answered, he raised his own glass to his lips, drank half the whisky, and came back to the sofa. “The theory I'm working on at the moment is that Arnold's car never left London,” he said.

Antonia frowned. “Yes, but that means he must have motored down with Rudolph, and he wouldn't have.”

“Of course he wouldn't, and, considering all things, who shall blame him? The point is that Rudolph murdered him first.”

“Oh, how ghastly!” shuddered Violet. “Please don't!”

Mesurier was looking rather pale and very angry.

“Very clever!” he said. “And pray, how do you account for the fact that there are no bloodstains in my car?”

Kenneth took another drink. “You wrapped the body in an old mackintosh,” he replied.

“Which he afterwards burned in his bedroom grate,” interpolated Giles dryly.

“Oh, no, he didn't! He cut the maker's name out of it, tied it round a boulder and dropped it into the Hammerpond at Huxley Heath,” said Kenneth.

“That's good,” approved Antonia. “But you haven't told us how he managed to murder Arnold without being seen, and get his body into the car.”

“When you have quite finished amusing yourselves at my expense,” said Rudolph furiously, “perhaps you will allow me to tell you that I very much resent your attitude!”

Antonia opened her eyes at him. “I can't see what on earth there is to get annoyed about. After all, Arnold was our relative, and if we don't mind discussing the murder, why should you? We weren't even going to be sure about it if you did it.”

“It seems to me,” said Rudolph, his voice trembling a little, “that I am to be cast for the role of scapegoat!”

“I'm afraid,” said tiles in his calm way, “that you don't understand my cousins' - er - purely intellectual interest in the crime. If you'd prefer not to talk about it there's no sort of reason why you should.”

“Except, of course,” put in Kenneth, “that when I'm put in the witness box, I shall be bound to say that I thought your manner hellish secretive when we talked it over.”

“You're more likely to be in the dock,” said his sister unkindly.

“In that case,” replied Kenneth, finishing his whisky-and-soda, “I shall bring in the embezzlement-motif. Sauve qui peut.”

Mesurier thrust his hands into his pockets and forced his lips to smile. “I rather fancy a jury would see that occurrence in a more reasonable light,” he remarked. “I don't pretend that I was justified in doing what I did, but there's no question of - of theft. I've already paid back a great deal of what I borrowed.”

“The point is, Arnold didn't look at it in a reasonable light at all,” said Antonia.

“There I take issue with you,” said Kenneth immediately. “I don't hold any brief for Arnold, but I can't see why he should be expected to be pleasant about it. You can't pinch a man's money, and then say, "Thank you for the loan" and pay it back in driblets. I don't in the least blame Arnold for cutting up rough, and, what's more, no jury would either. They'll see that Rudolph's got a motive for murder that makes mine look childish.”

“I'm perfectly well aware I'm in an awkward hole,” Mesurier said. “But it's no use you or anyone else trying to fasten the murder on to me. I never owned a knife like that in my life, for one thing, and for another -”

“Just a moment,” interrupted Giles. “A knife like what?”

A wave of colour mounted to Mesurier's face. “A - a knife capable of killing a man. I naturally assume it must have been some sort of dagger. I mean, an ordinary knife could hardly -”