Джорджетт Хейер - Death in the Stocks

“I never definitely said I'd go with him,” she answered. “I always disapproved of it, and hoped he'd give it up.”

“Quite. But you did allow him to think that you might go with him after all, didn't you?”

“Oh, to avert a scene - ! But I didn't promise.”

“At any rate, your last-minute refusal made him angry,” said Giles. “Now, I know what Kenneth is like when he's roused. I think that he lashed himself into suspecting that you had cried off the dance so that you could spend the evening with Roger. That may be why he called on Roger -just to assure himself you were not at the flat.”

“I never heard of anything so insulting!” she said, stiffening. “I in Roger's flat at that hour? It may interest him to know that so far from being with Roger I was at home the entire evening! And if he doesn't believe me, you may tell him to apply to Miss Summertown, who came to dinner with me and stayed till eleven, when I went to bed!”

“I don't suppose that in his cooler moments Kenneth would dream of suspecting you,” said Giles in his calm way. “And if he went to Roger's flat he must know you weren't there, mustn't he?”

“Perhaps he suspects I hid behind a screen,” she said icily. “I think it is just as well that I can produce a witness to prove that I was in my own home the whole evening!”

“Well, please don't condemn him on the strength of what may prove to be my idle imagination,” he said, smiling. “He may have had another reason for going to see Roger.”

She was silent, her lovely mouth compressed into a thin red line. She sat very straight in her chair, one hand clenched on the arm. There was an air of implacability about her, and the unconscious hardening of her face made her beauty seem a brittle thing, surface-deep.

She turned her head presently, and looked directly at Giles. “You're thinking that I'm stupidly annoyed?” she said. “Well, I am rather annoyed, but that doesn't matter. I mean, it's so much more important to get Kenneth out of this dreadful mess. Personally, I have an absolute conviction that it was suicide. I don't know what your reasons are for thinking it wasn't, but I keep remembering things Roger said. I didn't set any store by them at the time - at least not enough to foresee this - but now that I look back I can't help feeling that I ought to have guessed. Only I don't know what I could have done, quite, if I had. I did speak to Kenneth about it, but he paid no heed.”

“It wasn't suicide, Miss Williams.”

She frowned. “I don't see how you can say that so positively. Why wasn't it?”

“I don't think you'd be much the wiser if I explained,” he answered. “It is a question of where the empty cartridge-case should have been found. More-over, I can't for the life of me see what could have induced Roger to shoot himself when he must have known that there was no evidence against him. He was no fool.”

“Technicalities about pistols are beyond me, I'm afraid. Where ought the empty case to have been found?”

“In quite a different place,” he replied. “There were other points too - minor ones, but significant.”

“I see. But they can't prove Kenneth did it. He might have left his pipe there any time, and if Leslie sticks to her story -”

“If Arnold Vereker had not been murdered things might not look so black,” he said. “But Arnold Vereker was murdered, and Kenneth had no alibi that he could prove. Everything he said was calculated to make the police look askance at him. He said he came here to see you. But he didn't see you. According to him you were out. He then said he went to a cinema. But he didn't know which one, and he slept through the greater part of the programme.”

“Oh, I know, I know!” she said. “He was utterly impossible.”

“Well,” Giles said, getting up, “he's being just as impossible now, Miss Williams. It amused him to see how far he could fool Hannasyde over the first murder, and he was so successful that it has gone to his head. But he's in a more precarious position now.”

She, too, rose. “Yes, I quite see. I'll go round to the studio at once, and talk to him. Of course, he must take you into his confidence. I shall tell him so, and I expect he will call on you at your office.”

“Thank you,” said Giles. “I hope he will.”

From Violet's maisonette Giles drove to Adam Street, where he found his father upon the point of going out to lunch. Mr Charles Carrington looked him over, grunted at him, and said that he had better come to lunch too. “Heaven knows I don't want to hear anything about this disgusting affair,” he said irascibly, “but of course I shall have to. What's more, your mother's anxious. Says Kenneth isn't capable of murder. Bunkum! Did he do it?”

“Good God, I hope not!”

“Oh! Feel like that about it, do you? Quite agree with you. Don't like scandals. What was that red-headed little minx, Tony, up to last night?”

“She was with me,” replied Giles.

“The devil she was! So your mother was - What were you doing, the pair of you?”

“Dinner and the theatre,” said Giles. “And mother was quite right. She usually is.”

Charles Carrington coughed, and changed the subject rather hastily.

Giles did not spend much of the afternoon in Adam street. At four o'clock he put through a call to Scotland Yard, and having ascertained that Superintendent Hannasyde was in the building, left his office and drove to Whitehall. The news of Roger Vereker's death was in the evening papers, and several glaring posters announced a startling sequel to the Stocks Mystery.

At Scotland Yard Giles was conducted almost immediately to Hannasyde's office, where he found not only the Superintendent, but Sergeant Hemingway as well.

“I rather expected you to look in,” Hannasyde said. “Sit down, won't you? I've just had the report on the PM. You were quite right, Mr Carrington: Dr Stone considers that the pistol must have been fired from a distance of about two feet.”

“When, in his opinion, did death occur?” Giles asked.

The Superintendent glanced down at the typewritten report. “Always a rather difficult question,” he said. “Approximately between 10.0 p.m. and 2.0 a.m.”

“Thanks. Was anything found in the flat?”

“Nothing useful. A slight trace of oil on the handle of the sitting-room door, and a fingerprint - Miss Vereker's on the cartridge-case.”

“It was her gun, then?”

“Yes. She was here only half an hour ago” - he smiled faintly- “displaying the greatest interest in the business of taking an impression of her own hand.”

“That I can imagine. And the position of the cartridge case?”

“You win over that too.” He paused, and looked squarely at Giles. “You may as well know it now as later, Mr Carrington: the evidence of the other members of that party at the Albert Hall does not bear out the story told me by Miss Rivers and Mr Vereker. As a matter of fact, I was on the point of going to the studio when you rang.”

Giles nodded. “I see. I'll come along, if you don't mind.”

“No, I don't mind,” said Hannasyde. “I've no power to stop you if I did. It'll probably save time if you come, as I imagine Mr Vereker would be quite likely to refuse to talk until he'd consulted you - if only to annoy.”

Kenneth, however, when they found him a little while later at his studio, seemed to be in one of his more cheerful moods, and showed no desire to be obstructive.

His sister was present, and also Violet Williams and Leslie Rivers. It was evident that they had foregathered to discuss the situation, and equally evident that Kenneth himself was paying very little heed to what they were saying. Giles and Hannasyde entered the studio to discover him sketching idly on his knee. He looked up as the door opened, and said: “I thought as much. A la lanterne!”