‘No, thanks. What were you looking for?’
He raised his brows. ‘Did I say I was looking for something?’
‘I know you were.’
‘Well, whatever it was I was disappointed,’ said Randall. ‘Someone has been busy.’
‘Aunt Harriet turned everything out the day uncle died,’ Stella said shortly.
Randall lit a cigarette, and said in a meditative tone: ‘I often wonder whether Aunt Harriet is the fool she appears to be, or not.’
‘Good heavens, you don’t think she did it to destroy evidence, do you?’ exclaimed Stella, unable to believe in such forethought.
‘I am quite unable to make up my mind on that point,’ Randall replied. ‘Cast your little feather-weight of a brain backward, my sweet. What did our dear Aunt Harriet take out of uncle’s medicine-chest?’
‘Oh, I don’t know! All sorts of things. Corn-plaster, and iodine, and Eno’s Fruit Salts.’
‘And uncle’s tonic, of course,’ said Randall, watching the blue smoke rise up from the end of his cigarette.
‘No, that was broken. New bottle, too.’
He raised his eyes rather quickly. ‘Broken,’ he repeated. ‘Was it indeed? Well, well! and who broke it, my little one?’
‘No one. Uncle must have left it on the shelf over the washbasin, and the wind blew it over.’
‘Any questions asked about it?’ inquired Randall.
‘Do you mean by the police? Yes, I think so. Not to me.’
Randall sighed. ‘I wonder who regrets Aunt Gertrude’s officiousness most,’ he said. ‘The Matthews family, or Superintendent Hannasyde?’
‘I don’t know, but talking of Aunt Gertrude, what on earth have you been saying to her? She says she’s never been so insulted in her life.’
‘I shouldn’t think she has,’ said Randall.
‘What did you say?’ persisted Stella.
‘Merely that if I were married to her I should keep several mistresses,’ Randall replied.
She could not help giving a gurgle of laughter, but she said: ‘Well, really, I do think that’s about the limit! It’s about the rudest thing you could say.’
‘I couldn’t think of anything ruder at the time,’ acknowledged Randall. ‘It got rid of her most successfully.’
‘You can’t go about being filthily rude to people just to get rid of them!’
‘I can and do,’ he replied imperturbably.
‘You do, yes,’ Stella said hotly. ‘You’re the most poisonous-tongued person I know!’
‘So you have often informed me,’ bowed Randall. He regarded her with a curious smile. ‘You can’t bear me, can you, little Stella? What have I done?’
‘Nothing. You don’t,’ Stella said contemptuously. ‘You just say spiteful things, and drift about like a lounge-lizard. I used to hate you when we first came to live with uncle.’
‘My darling, you still do.’
‘I don’t think twice about you,’ said Stella. ‘You were horrid to me when I was a kid –’
‘A gawky, clumsy flapper,’ murmured Randall, closing his eyes. ‘I remember.’
‘I wasn’t!’
‘Also callow, ignorant, and without grace.’
She reddened. ‘All girls are at that age!’
‘Possibly, but I see no reason why I should be kind to them.’
‘You’re not kind to anyone. You were beastly to Guy, and you still are.’
‘I am but human, my love. If he will rise to my bait, bait he shall have.’
‘I wouldn’t mind betting you used to pull flies’ wings off when you were a boy,’ said Stella with deep loathing.
‘One of my favourite pastimes.’
‘And – if it interests you – I very much object to your habit of sneering at my mother!’
His eyelids drooped. ‘At my clever Aunt Zoë? How you misjudge me! I am quite her most appreciative admirer.’
‘That’ll do, thanks!’
He raised his brows. ‘There’s no pleasing you, sweetheart. What can I find to say about the boy-friend?’
‘You can leave Deryk alone! He and I are engaged to be married.’
A malicious glint came into his eyes. ‘Oh, is that still on?’
She reddened, hesitated for a moment, and then said bluntly: ‘Now look here, Randall! If you think you’re getting a rise out of me you’re mistaken. I suppose you’ve got hold of some silly, exaggerated story about Deryk and the Fosters. You would! It’s perfectly true that he partnered Maisie Foster to the Hopes’ dance, but considering I couldn’t go, and he’s known Maisie quite as long as he’s known me, I’m not – strangely enough – jealous about it.’
Randall’s smile broadened. ‘I seem to have got a better rise out of you than I had hoped for, darling. This is all news to me.’
She bit her lip. ‘Then what were you hinting at?’
‘Oh, nothing, nothing!’ said Randall airily. ‘Tell me more of this rival. Where does she live?’
‘She lives on Park Terrace, and she is not a rival.’
He opened his eyes. ‘It sounds very promising. An extremely well-to-do locality. I hope she’s an only child?’
She was spared the necessity of answering by the arrival of her brother, who at this moment came along the landing from his own room. Randall promptly transferred his attention to him, and said with an assumption of artless surprise: ‘Well, well! Can it really be my little cousin? Are you now a gentleman of leisure, Guy, or has the firm of Brooke and Matthews gone into liquidation?’
Guy, who was looking worn, and rather pale, scowled at him. ‘No, it hasn’t. You’re not the only one who has a right to be here!’
‘A little out of spirits?’ murmured Randall. ‘Not quite our bright self today?’
‘I don’t see how anyone can be bright with a thing like this hanging over us all,’ said Guy jerkily.
‘I contrive to maintain my usual equanimity,’ said Randall. ‘Have a cigarette: very soothing to the nerves.’
Guy took one mechanically, but stood with it between his fingers until Randall, his brows lifting, produced his lighter, and snapped it open. Guy gave a start. ‘Oh, thanks!’ he said awkwardly, and bent to light the cigarette. As he straightened his back again, he said: ‘Have they finished downstairs?’
‘Do you mean the police?’ inquired Randall. ‘Should I otherwise be here?’
Guy glanced at him and away again. ‘They didn’t find anything, did they? There wasn’t anything to find.’ He paused interrogatively, but as Randall made no remark said angrily: ‘You can answer, can’t you?’
‘I thought you had spared me the trouble,’ said Randall blandly. ‘You said there was nothing to find. I expect you know.’
‘Damn you, I haven’t been tampering with uncle’s papers!’
‘Guy!’ said his sister sharply. ‘Don’t be such a fool! Can’t you see he’s only trying to get a rise out of you?’
Guy gave a short laugh, and said: ‘It’s what he thinks, all the same.’ He hesitated, and looked at Randall again. ‘What line are they taking? What does that Superintendent-fellow make of it?’
‘My poor child, do you imagine that I am in his confidence?’ said Randall.
‘I thought you might have gathered something. They’re baffled, aren’t they? I don’t see how they can be anything else. There’s nothing to show who did it. Anybody might have, but how are they going to prove which it was?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ replied Randall. ‘I imagine it might be helpful if they discover how the nicotine was administered, but I gather they haven’t yet arrived at that. There may, of course, be some startling disclosures at the inquest tomorrow. I hope you’ve learned your piece, by the way?’
‘Oh, you’re thinking of that blasted whiskey-and-soda, are you?’ said Guy. ‘So easy for me to doctor it with the whole family sitting round!’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Randall pensively. ‘I think I could have done it.’
&nb
sp; ‘You! I daresay you could. Probably would have if you’d had half a chance.’
Randall gave his soft laugh. ‘But I hadn’t half a chance, little cousin. I wasn’t here. I’m afraid you’ll have to rule me out. A pity, of course, but there it is.’
‘Oh, do shut up!’ begged Stella. ‘What’s the use of going on like this? It makes everything ten times worse than it is already. I can’t see what you’re worrying about, Guy. We know you didn’t do it, and if the police think you did at least they can’t do anything about it, because they’ve nothing to go on. I mean, they can’t even test the glass uncle drank out of, because it was washed up days before they came here.’
‘Guy isn’t worrying about that,’ Randall said, watching Guy’s face from under his lashes. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t in the whiskey-and-soda.’
Guy’s mouth twitched. ‘Of course it wasn’t. I’m not exactly worrying about anything, but this – this atmosphere of suspicion gets on my nerves. My own belief is that the whole thing will fizzle out for lack of evidence. After all, the police don’t solve every crime by any means.’
‘I wish to heaven Aunt Gertrude hadn’t started the rotten business,’ remarked Stella.
‘God, I could strangle her!’ Guy said, his voice shaking with suppressed emotion. He saw them both looking at him, and forced a laugh. ‘Well, I’d better go down, and see what they’re up to,’ he said, and brushed past his sister at the head of the stairs, and ran down.
Randall watched him go, carefully put out the stub of his cigarette in a bowl of ferns at his elbow, and said: ‘Dear me!’
‘It’s enough to get on anyone’s nerves,’ said Stella defiantly. ‘You don’t live here, so you don’t know what it’s like.’
‘I hesitate to proffer advice unasked,’ drawled Randall, ‘but if I were Guy’s fond sister I would tell him to go to work as usual. For one thing, it would look better.’
‘He won’t. I did say I thought he ought to carry on; in fact, I even got Mr Rumbold to advise him to go back to work, but he’s frightfully highly-strung, and things do get on his nerves very easily. I think it’s through having too much imagination. Because he has, you know.’
‘Judging by the only example of his work which I have been privileged to behold I should describe his imagination as being not only excessive, but morbid,’ said Randall.
Stella, who was not an admirer of her brother’s decorative schemes, made no reply to this, but merely said: ‘Well, I’m going down again. And I may as well warn you, Randall, if the police ask me I shall tell them how I saw you coming out of uncle’s bathroom.’
‘A very good idea,’ said Randall cordially. ‘Let us start a General Information Bureau. You can inform about me in uncle’s bathroom, and I can counter with some of Guy’s remarks.’
‘You rotten cad!’ Stella flashed.
He smiled. ‘Do you want a truce, my sweet?’
She stood quite still, gripping the banisters, for a moment, and then, without a word, flung round on her heel, and ran downstairs. Still smiling, Randall followed her at his leisure.
Mrs Lupton had not waited for her husband to join her, but after having delivered herself of some sweeping strictures on her elder nephew’s manners and morals, had left the house to attend a meeting of the local Nursing Association. Henry Lupton had just come away from the study when Randall reached the hall, and was hovering about in an uncertain fashion near the front door. He looked a little surprised when Stella, with the briefest of greetings, went past him into the library, but a moment later he saw Randall on the bend of the staircase, and started forward. ‘I want to speak to you!’ he said in an urgent undertone.
‘Do you?’ said Randall, continuing his languid progress down the stairs.
‘Yes, I do! I –’ He cast a quick look behind him to be sure that Stella had shut the library door – ‘I want to know what you meant by the – the disgracefully rude things you said to your aunt!’
‘The desire evinced by so many people of apparently normal intelligence of being informed of what they know very well already is a source of constant wonder to me,’ remarked Randall. ‘However, I’m quite willing to oblige you if you’re sure you want me to.’
Henry Lupton looked up at him, his own eyes strained and questioning. ‘What did your uncle tell you about me?’ he demanded. ‘That’s what I want to know! That Sunday before he died, when he asked you into his study. I might have known! I might have guessed he’d tell you!’
‘You might, of course,’ agreed Randall. ‘Did you suppose he wouldn’t? He thought it would appeal to my sense of humour.’
‘I’ve no doubt it did,’ said Lupton bitterly.
‘Up to a point,’ said Randall. ‘Have we now finished this discussion?’
‘No. I want to know – I insist on knowing what you mean to do!’
‘What I mean to do?’ repeated Randall, dropping the words out disdainfully one by one. ‘Is it possible – is it really possible that you imagine I am going to concern myself with your utterly uninteresting love-affairs?’
Lupton flushed, but his muscles seemed to relax. ‘I don’t know. I’d believe anything of your family, anything! As for you, if you saw a chance to make mischief you’d take it!’
‘In this case,’ said Randall unpleasantly, ‘it affords me purer gratification to dwell upon the thought of my dear Aunt Gertrude duped and betrayed.’
‘Your aunt doesn’t suffer through it!’
‘What a pity!’ said Randall.
The baize-door at the back of the hall opened at this moment, and Miss Matthews came through carrying her replenished bowl of flowers. ‘Oh, Henry! Gertrude’s gone,’ she said. ‘And I must say, Randall, I think it was most uncalled-for, whatever it was you said to her. Not that I know what it was, for I don’t, and I’m sure I don’t want to. And if you mean to stay to lunch I do think you might have let me know, because whatever your Aunt Zoë’s ideas of housekeeping may be mine are different, and there won’t be enough.’
‘Fortunately,’ said Randall, ‘I have no such intention.’
‘Well, I hope I am not inhospitable,’ said Miss Matthews, slightly mollified, ‘but I must say I’m glad to hear it. There are quite enough people to feed in this house without adding to them. I’ve already had to make it plain to Zoë that I’m not going to have her friends coming here to meals all day and every day, and behaving as though the drawing-room existed just for them to play Bridge in. I know very well what her idea is, and I’m not going to put up with it! The house is just as much mine as it is hers. More so, if everyone had their rights, and so is the car, and I won’t have it used without her even asking me if I want it! … Yes, Zoë, I am talking about you, and I don’t care who hears me!’
Mrs Matthews who, possibly attracted by her sister-in-law’s voice, had come out of the library, said sweetly: ‘Were you, dear? Well, you can talk about me as much as you like, if you want to.’
‘I shall,’ said Miss Matthews. ‘And I hope you heard what I said!’
Mrs Matthews gave her an indulgent smile. ‘No, dear, I’m afraid I didn’t. I came to remind you that I shall want the car this afternoon, if you are sure it is quite convenient to you.’
‘Well, it isn’t,’ said Miss Matthews, with ill-concealed triumph. ‘Pullen has taken it to be decarbonised.’
Mrs Matthews’ smile faded, and a certain rigidity stole over her face. After a slight pause she said, carefully polite: ‘My dear Harriet, surely you knew that I have an appointment to have my hair done this afternoon? I distinctly remember telling you about it, and asking whether you wanted the car yourself. Surely the car might have been decarbonised another day?’
‘Pullen said it ought to be done,’ replied Miss Matthews, obstinately.
Mrs Matthews compressed her lips. There was a distinctly un-Christian light in her eyes, but she said smoothly: ‘I am sure you did it for the best, Harriet, but in future perhaps it would be wiser if we consulted one another before giving quite such arb
itrary orders. Don’t you agree?’
‘No, I don’t!’ snapped Miss Matthews, and walked off to put her flowers down in the drawing-room.
Randall watched her go, and glanced down at Mrs Matthews. ‘My poor Aunt Zoë, do you find life very trying?’ he said softly.
She was looking after her sister-in-law, but at Randall’s words she turned. She met his cynical eyes, and said without a trace of annoyance in her voice: ‘No, Randall, not at all. When you reach my age you will have learned not to judge people harshly, my dear boy. I am very, very fond of your Aunt Harriet, and all those little idiosyncrasies which you young people are so impatient of mean just nothing to me. You should always try to look beneath the surface, and remember that when people do things that are not very kind there may be a very good reason for it.’
‘I am silenced,’ bowed Randall.
She came to the foot of the stairs, and laid her hand on his arm for a moment as she passed him. ‘Try to be more tolerant, Randall dear,’ she said thrillingly. ‘It is always such a mistake to condemn people’s little foibles. One should try to understand, and to help them.’
She gave his arm a faint squeeze, and went on up the stairs. Randall looked anxiously at his sleeve, smoothed it, and said: ‘After that I feel that anything else would be in the nature of an anti-climax. I shall go home.’
‘Your aunt is a very sweet woman,’ Henry Lupton said warmly. ‘I admire her more than I can say.’
‘So do I,’ said Randall. ‘I always have.’
‘And I think you might at least refrain from sneering at her!’
‘That,’ said Randall, ‘is the second time today I have been accused of sneering at my clever Aunt Zoë. I am quite guiltless, believe me. In fact, my admiration for her is growing by leaps and bounds.’
Henry Lupton stared at him suspiciously, but Randall only gave a tantalising smile, and walked across the hall to pick up his hat and gloves. ‘I suppose you’ll come down for the Inquest?’ Lupton said.
Randall yawned. ‘If nothing more amusing offers, I might,’ he answered. ‘Not if it is going to be held at some unearthly hour of the morning, of course. Convey my respectful farewells to my aunts if you see them again.’ With which casual recommendation he strolled out of the house, leaving his uncle half-indignant and half-relieved.