Джорджетт Хейер - Death in the Stocks

“Yes, certainly. You'd better have my card, by the way. I should be very grateful if you would let me know what happens.”

He held out his hand, the Superintendent grasped it for a moment, and opened the door for him to pass out.

Antonia was engaged in powdering her face when Giles rejoined her.

“Hullo,” she said. “I thought you'd deserted me. What did he want?”

“One or two particulars. I'm Arnold's executor, you know. Come along and I'll give you some lunch.” Miss Vereker was hungry, and not even the intelligence that she might have to be present at the inquest interfered with her appetite. She ate a hearty meal, and by three o'clock was once more at Riverside Cottage, backing her car out of the garage. “Are you coming back to Town, too?” she inquired.

“Yes, as soon as I've found out the date of the inquest. I'll look in to-night to have a word with Kenneth. Mind the rose-bush!”

“I've been driving this car for over a year,” said Antonia, affronted.

“It looks like it,” he agreed, his eyes on a battered mudguard.

Antonia slammed the gear-lever into first, and started with a jerk. Her cousin watched her drive off, narrowly escaping a collision with the gate-post, and then got into his own car again, and drove back to Hanborough.

Rather more than an hour later Antonia let herself into the studio that she shared with her brother, and found him in an overall, a cup of tea in one hand and a novel in the other. He was a handsome young man, with untidy dark hair and his sister's brilliant eyes. He raised them from his book as she came in, said, “Hullo!” in a disinterested voice and went on reading.

Antonia pulled off her hat and threw it vaguely in the direction of a chair. It fell on the floor, but beyond saying damn she did no more about it. “Stop reading: I've got some news,” she announced.

“Shut up,” replied her brother. “I'm all thrilled with this murder story. Shan't be long. Have some tea or something.”

Antonia, respecting this mood of absorption, sat down and poured herself out some tea in the slop-basin. Kenneth Vereker finished reading the last chapter of his novel, and threw it aside. “Lousy,” he remarked. “By the way, Murgatroyd has been yapping at me all day to know where you've been. Did you happen to tell me? Damned if I could remember. Where have you been?”

“Down at Ashleigh Green. Arnold's been murdered.”

“Arnold's been what?”

“Murdered.”

Kenneth looked at her with lifted brows. “Joke?”

“No, actually murdered. Popped off.”

“Great jumping Jehoshaphat!” he exclaimed. “Who did it?”

“They don't know. I believe they rather think I did. Someone shoved a knife into him, and stuck him in the stocks at Ashleigh Green. I went down to see him, and spent the night there.”

“What the devil for?”

“Oh, he wrote me a stinker about Rudolph, so I thought I might as well go and have it out with him. But that's not the point. The point is, he's dead.”

Kenneth looked at her in silence for a moment. Then he carefully set down his cup, and poured himself out some more tea. “Too breath-taking. Don't know that I altogether believe it. Oh, Murgatroyd, Tony says Arnold's been done-in.”

A stout woman in a black frock and a voluminous apron had come into the studio with a clean cup and saucer. She said severely: “That's as maybe, and if it's true you couldn't say but what it's a judgement But there's no call for anyone to drink their tea out of the slop-bowl that I know of. For shame, Miss Tony! And where was you last night, I should like to know? Answer me that!”

“Down at Arnold's cottage. I forgot to tell you. What a mind you've got, Murgatroyd! Where did you think I was?”

“That's neither here nor there. What's all this nonsense about Mr Arnold?”

“Murdered,” said Antonia, selecting a sandwich from the dish. “What's in this?”

“Stinking fish,” replied her brother. “Go on about Arnold. Was he murdered in the cottage?”

“There's anchovy in them sandwiches, and I'll thank you, Master Kenneth, not to use such language!”

“Shut up, we want to hear about Arnold. Do get on, Tony!”

“I've told you already he was in the village stocks. I don't know any more.”

“And quite enough, too!” said Murgatroyd austerely. “I never heard of such a thing, putting corpses into stocks! Whatever next!”

“Not in the best of good taste,” conceded Kenneth. “Did you discover him, Tony?”

“No, the police did. And they they came to the cottage and took me off to the Police Station to make a statement. So I sent for Giles, because I thought it safest.”

“And I hope,” said Murgatroyd, picking up Antonia's hat, “that Mr Giles gave you a piece of his mind, which I'll be bound he did. Getting yourself mixed up in nasty murder cases! Fancy anyone up and murdering Mr Arnold! I don't know what the world's coming to, I'm sure. Not but what there's many as could be spared less. If you've finished with that tray I'll take it into the kitchen, Miss Tony.”

Antonia finished what was left in the slop-bowl and put it down.

“All right. There'll be an inquest, Ken. tiles says I shall probably have to show up. He's coming here tonight to see you.”

Her brother stared at her, “See me? What for?”

“I didn't ask.”

“Well, I don't mind him coming if he wants to, but why on earth -”

He broke off, and suddenly swung his legs down from the arm of the chair in which he was lounging. “Ha! I have it.”

“Have what?”

“I'm the heir.”

“So you are,” said Antonia slowly. “I never thought of that.”

“No, nor did I, but under Father's Will I must be. Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds! I must get on to Violet and tell her!”

He jumped up, but was checked by his sister. “Rot! How do you know?”

“Because I made it my business to find out when Arnold wouldn't advance me a mere five hundred. Murgatroyd, Murgatroyd! I'm rich! Do you hear? I'm rich!”

Murgatroyd, who had come back into the room to fold up the tea-cloth, replied: “Yes, I hear, and if you take my advice, Master Kenneth, you'll keep a still tongue in your head. The idea of shouting out "I'm rich!" when your half-brother met his end like he has!”

“Who cares how he met his end as long as he did meet it? What's Violet's number?”

“Don't you talk like that, Master Kenneth! How would you like to have a knife stuck in you? Nasty, underhand way of killing anyone, that's what I call it.”

“I don't see it at all,” objected Kenneth. “It's no worse than shooting a person, and far more sensible. Shooting's noisy, for one thing, and, for another, you leave a bullet in your man, and it gets traced to you. Whereas a knife doesn't leave anything behind, and is easy to get rid of.”

“I don't know how you can stand there and say such things!” exclaimed Murgatroyd indignantly. “Downright indecent, that's what it is! Nor no amount of fine talking will make me say other than what I do say, and stand by! It's a dirty, mean trick to knife people!”

Kenneth waved his hands at her in one of his excitable gestures. “It isn't any dirtier or meaner than any other way! You make me sick with that kind of mawkish twaddle! What is Violet's number?”

“You needn't get so cross about it,” said Antonia. “Personally I rather agree with Murgatroyd.”

“People who start a sentence with personally (and they're always women) ought to be thrown to the lions. It's a repulsive habit.”

“I probably must have caught it from Violet,” said Antonia musingly.

“Shut up about Violet! Does she really say it?”

“Often.”

“I'll tell her about it. What - for the fiftieth time - is her number?”