Contrary to the expectations of his relatives he did not put in an appearance at the Inquest next morning, a circumstance which caused his three aunts to form a whole-hearted if brief alliance. Mrs Lupton supposed him to be ashamed to look her in the face, but considered that decency should have compelled him to be present; Miss Matthews read in his absence a deliberate slight to his uncle’s memory; and Mrs Matthews, more charitable, feared that there was a callous streak in his nature, due, no doubt, to his youth.
The other members of the family all attended the Inquest. Even Owen Crewe came, though reluctantly. Agnes, looking brightly cheerful, but speaking in the hushed tones she considered suitable to the occasion, explained audibly to her mother that she had had quite a fight with Owen to get him to come, but had felt that he really ought to, if only to support her.
‘I cannot see what the affair has to do with either of us,’ said Owen in the disagreeable voice of one dragged unwillingly from his work.
‘I suppose you will permit Agnes to feel some concern in her uncle’s death?’ said Mrs Lupton austerely.
Owen, who never embarked on an argument with his mother-in-law, merely replied: ‘I can see no reason why I should be called upon to waste an entire morning over it,’ and moved away to a seat as far removed from her as possible. When he discovered that Randall was not present he gave a short laugh, and said: ‘Wise man!’ the only effect of which was to make his wife say with unimpaired jollity that Owen was always cross in the mornings.
Mrs Rumbold, beside whom Owen had seated himself, said in a confidential voice: ‘It is kind of horrid, isn’t it? I mean, knowing poor Mr Matthews, and all.’
Owen looked round at her with the instinctive distrust of a shy man accosted by a stranger, and said: ‘Quite,’ in a stiff voice.
Mrs Rumbold smiled dazzlingly. ‘You don’t remember me, do you? Well, I’m sure I don’t know why you should! My name’s Rumbold. We knew poor Mr Matthews very well. We live next door, you know.’
Owen blushed, and half rose from his seat to shake hands. ‘Oh, of course! I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m very bad at remembering faces. How do you do? Er – very nice of you to come.’
‘Well, we sort of felt we had to,’ whispered Mrs Rumbold. ‘I must say I’m not one for this sort of thing myself, but those two poor old dears wanted Ned – that’s my husband – to come, so here we are. Ned doesn’t think anything much will happen, though.’
‘Nothing at all, I should imagine,’ replied Owen, dwelling fondly on the thought of Mrs Matthews’ emotions could she but have heard herself described as a poor old dear.
‘We’re not the only people outside the family here, that’s one thing,’ remarked Mrs Rumbold. ‘Half Grinley seems to have turned up. Just curiosity, if you ask me. Oh, there’s Dr Fielding come in! Well, he doesn’t look as if he was worrying much, I must say.’
‘No reason why he should,’ said Owen.
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Mrs Rumbold doubtfully. ‘I mean, he didn’t seem to know Mr Matthews had been poisoned, and him a doctor! Ned keeps on telling me no one can blame him, but what I say is, if he’s a doctor he ought to have known. Don’t you agree?’
‘Really, I don’t understand these matters,’ replied Owen, who, though not particularly observant, had by this time taken in not only Mrs Rumbold’s blue eyelashes, but also her arresting picture-hat, with its trail of huge pink roses, and was in consequence feeling acutely self-conscious at being seen with anyone so spectacular. He said something about wanting to have a word with his father-in-law, and retreated to a place beside Henry Lupton just as the Coroner came into court.
The Inquest, in the opinions of those people who had come to it in the hopes of witnessing a thrilling drama, was most disappointing. Beecher was called first, and described how he had found his master’s body on the morning of the 15th May. Very few questions were asked him, and he soon stood down to give place to Dr Fielding.
It was generally felt that the proceedings were now going to become more interesting, and a little stir ran through the court-room as the doctor got up. Several ladies thought that he looked very handsome, and one or two people confided to their neighbours, very much as Mrs Rumbold had done, that he looked as cool as a cucumber.
He was indeed perfectly self-possessed, and gave his evidence with easy assurance, and no waste of words. Questioned, he admitted that he had not discovered, upon a cursory examination, anything about the body incompatible with his first verdict of death from syncope. He became rather technical, and one half of his audience thought: Well, even doctors can’t know everything; while the other half adhered to its belief that doctors ought to know everything. Questioned further, Fielding gave a still more technical description of the cardiac trouble for which he had been treating the deceased. When asked what circumstances had led him to communicate his patient’s death to the Coroner he said at once: ‘The dissatisfaction expressed by a member of the family with my diagnosis.’
This reply, delivered though it was in a calm voice, caused another stir to run through the court-room. It was felt that the details of some shocking family scandal were at any moment going to come to light, and when Mrs Lupton got up to give her evidence everyone stared at her hopefully, and waited in pent silence to hear what she was going to divulge.
But Mrs Lupton, who made nearly as good a witness as the doctor, divulged nothing. She knew of no reason why her brother should have been poisoned; simply she had felt that his death had not been due to natural causes. No, she did not think she could explain why she had had this feeling. It had attacked her forcibly on her first sight of the corpse. Her instinct was seldom at fault.
‘What did I tell you?’ whispered Sergeant Hemingway to the Superintendent.
Mrs Lupton sat down amid a general feeling of disappointment. People eyed the rest of the Matthews family, wondering which of them would next be called. The Coroner said something to the Clerk, and Superintendent Hannasyde finally annihilated all hope in the breasts of the curious by getting up and asking for an adjournment pending police inquiries. This was granted, and there was nothing left for the disgusted spectators to do except go home, and indulge their imaginations in a good deal of fruitless surmise.
Owen Crewe, threading his way out of the court-room in the wake of his wife, said into her ear: ‘I told you you were wasting your time,’ and began to feel much more amiable, and forbore to snub Janet when she squeezed her way up to him and announced that she was so thankful nothing more had happened. Once outside the building he firmly declined an invitation to lunch with his mother-in-law, told his wife that while she might do as she pleased he had every intention of returning to town, and walked off purposefully to where he had parked his car. Agnes would have liked to have talked it all over with her mother, but as her ideal of matrimony was founded largely on the theory that wives should whenever possible accompany their husbands, she bade her family a regretful farewell and went dutifully away with Owen.
Miss Matthews, who had attended the Inquest armed with a shopping-basket and a list of groceries, darted off in the direction of the High Street; and Mrs Matthews, leaning slightly on her son’s arm, smiled wanly on those of her acquaintance whom she happened to notice, and proclaimed her utter spiritual exhaustion. ‘I feel,’ she said in a solemn voice, ‘that I must have just a little interval of quiet. Stella dear, I wonder if you can see Pullen anywhere?’
‘Yes, he’s waiting on the other side of the square,’ said Stella.
‘Tell him to bring the car here, dearest. Oh, he has seen us!’ She turned to bestow one expensively gloved hand on Edward Rumbold. ‘I haven’t thanked you for coming,’ she said deeply. ‘I think you know what we feel. To know that one had a friend at one’s side during that terrible ordeal – ! Is it foolish of me to be so sensitive? To me it was an agony of the spirit. All those hundreds of eyes, fixed on one!’ She shuddered, held Mr Rumbold’s hand an instant longer, and then released it. ‘If only one could feel that one
had left all the unpleasantness behind in that stuffy court!’
‘You must try not to let it upset you,’ said Edward Rumbold kindly. ‘Of course it’s all very distressing for you, and we’re very sorry about it.’
She gave a faint, brave smile. ‘I can’t talk of it now,’ she said. ‘When I have had time to collect my thoughts … Will you come in and see us a little later on? At tea-time, perhaps?’
‘Yes, I’ll come if you want me, of course,’ he replied. ‘But –’
‘Oh, do!’ said Stella suddenly. ‘It’s too ghastly when there’s no one but Family in the house.’
He could not help laughing. ‘After that highly flattering invitation, how could I refuse?’ he said teasingly.
‘Well, I didn’t mean it quite like that,’ she admitted. ‘And of course you’ll bring Mrs Rumbold too.’
‘Darling,’ said Mrs Matthews reproachfully, ‘that goes without saying, as Mr Rumbold knows.’
Whether Mr Rumbold knew it or not, he did not bring his wife to tea at the Poplars, but explained to Stella, who met him half-way down the drive, that she had another engagement.
‘I don’t blame her,’ said Stella candidly. ‘Ours is a Godforsaken household. And to make things worse we’ve been fending off reporters all day. They’ve been simply clustering about the place, and of course Mother let herself be interviewed, so God knows what we shall see in the papers tomorrow.’
‘Nonsense, you’re letting yourself feel all this too much, Stella.’
‘I can’t help it,’ she replied, falling into step beside him. ‘It has absolutely got me down. Oh well, you pretty well know, don’t you? It isn’t only uncle’s death: it’s Aunt Harriet as well. I don’t hold any brief for Mummy –’
‘Then you should,’ interposed Rumbold.
‘Well, I know perfectly well she can be most frightfully annoying,’ said Stella defensively. ‘But actually what I was going to say when you most rudely interrupted me was that though I don’t hold any brief for Mummy I do think Aunt Harriet is treating her awfully badly. She does every blessed thing she can think of to put a spoke in Mummy’s wheel, and if Mummy so much as moves a table half an inch out of its usual place she kicks up a row, and says she ought to have been consulted.’
Edward Rumbold was silent for a moment, but he said presently: ‘I shouldn’t let that worry me too much, if I were you. Both your mother and your aunt are very much on edge, and – well, they are both of them disappointed at not being left in sole possession of the house, aren’t they?’
The twinkle in his eyes was reflected in Stella’s. ‘I should think they jolly well are!’ she said.
‘Yes, well, you must give them time to get over that,’ he advised. ‘You’ll probably find that they’ll settle down quite comfortably in the end.’
‘I hope they may,’ said Stella. ‘I only know that I’m definitely not going to go on living here as things are at present. Aunt Harriet’s all right with Guy, but she doesn’t like me, and doesn’t leave me alone for a minute. Everything I do is bound to be wrong. I told Mummy last night I couldn’t stick it much longer.’
He looked concerned, but said cheerfully: ‘Well, you won’t have to, will you? When are you going to get married?’
She did not answer at once, and when she did it was in a studiedly offhand tone. ‘Oh, not for a year, anyway! We never meant to get married this year, you know, and now that all this has happened we both think we ought to put it off at least till everything’s been cleared up and I’m out of mourning.’
He took hold of her wrist, and made her stand still. ‘My dear child, there’s nothing wrong, is there?’
‘Oh, good lord, no!’ said Stella. ‘As a matter of fact, it was my idea that we’d better wait a bit. I practically insisted on it, because there’s Deryk’s practice to be considered, and – and if we’ve got a murderer in the family he might like to think twice about marrying into it.’
‘Not if he’s a decent chap,’ Rumbold said.
‘Well, naturally, he didn’t say that. But he does quite agree with me about not plunging into marriage until things have blown over. What I want to do is to share a tiny flat with a girl I knew at school. She’s taken up dress-designing, and I thought I might get some sort of a job too. Do you think I’d be any good as a mannequin?’
‘No, I don’t,’ he replied. ‘What does your mother say about it?’
‘Oh, she’s against it, of course, but I expect she’ll come round to it in time. She had to admit that it’s pretty frightful at home now, but I got fed-up, because she would keep on moaning about it’s being far worse for her than for Guy and me.’
They had reached the house by this time, and were met in the hall by Miss Matthews, who greeted Mr Rumbold effusively, and bore him off to the drawing-room, so that she could have a little talk with him alone, before her sister-in-law came downstairs from her room.
This scheme, however, was doomed to failure, because Mrs Matthews had elected to curtail her afternoon rest, and was already seated on the sofa in the drawing-room, with a small piece of fancy-work in her hands, and a cigarette burning in an ash-tray beside her.
Miss Matthews, thoroughly put out, at once exclaimed that the room reeked of smoke, and rushed to open all the windows. Mrs Matthews paid not the slightest heed to this act of hostility, but rose and shook hands with Edward Rumbold, and invited him to sit beside her on the sofa.
The door then opened to admit Beecher, carrying the tea-tray, and as there was a sharp wind blowing, the window-curtains all flapped inwards, a vase of flowers was knocked over, and the butler was only just in time to save the door from slamming-to behind him. This misadventure forced Miss Matthews to shut the windows again, which annoyed her, and by the time the water from the flower vase had been mopped up, the vase restored to its place, and Guy had walked in and demanded to know what all the commotion was about, her temper had reached a dangerous pitch, and even vented itself on Guy, who was usually immune from attack.
It was at this quite inauspicious moment that the door opened again, and Randall, looking like a symphony in brown, came languidly into the room.
Eight
To the outside observer the effect caused by Randall’s entrance could not be anything but comic. Mr Edward Rumbold, after one swift glance round the assembled company, became afflicted suddenly by a cough which made it necessary to shade his mouth with his hand for several moments. Mrs Matthews’ sweet smile vanished abruptly; Miss Matthews broke off short in the middle of what she was saying and glared at Randall; and Guy said: ‘Oh, God!’ as though his endurance was at an end.
Randall looked round with a glint in his eyes, and said affably: ‘How nice it is to see you all looking so happy and comfortable!’
‘What the devil do you want?’ said Guy disagreeably.
‘Guy dearest!’ said his mother, mildly reproving.
‘Ah, how do you do?’ said Randall, shaking hands with Edward Rumbold. ‘I’m quite delighted to see you. I was afraid I should find unadulterated family. Do not trouble to ring the bell, dear Aunt Harriet: Beecher knows I am here.’
‘I wasn’t going to!’ said Miss Matthews, quivering with annoyance. ‘I’m sure I don’t know why you’ve elected to come here. I noticed that you didn’t trouble yourself to come to the Inquest.’
‘No, I thought it would be much kinder to let you tell me all about it,’ said Randall, drawing up a chair, and carefully hitching up his trousers before sitting down in it.
‘I don’t want to discuss it in any way, least of all with you!’ snapped Miss Matthews.
‘Really?’ said Randall incredulously. ‘And to think I nearly refrained from visiting you today for fear I should find you all talking about the Inquest in that peculiarly reiterative way you have!’
‘If you had one spark of decent feeling, Randall, you would have been present at the Inquest!’ said Miss Matthews, moving the cups about with a good deal of clatter. ‘Not that I expected it. I’ve given up expecti
ng you to behave in anything but a thoroughly selfish manner. Just like your uncle! Though you’re not the only person I could mention who thinks of no one but themselves. I name no names, but those whom the cap fits can wear it,’ she added darkly.
Mrs Matthews intervened at this point, and said in a grave voice: ‘Isn’t this a little undignified? When one thinks that only a week ago Death visited this house, doesn’t it seem to you that we should all of us try to turn our minds away from petty squabbles to something higher and better?’
Guy made an impatient movement, and strode away to the window, and stood with his back to the room, fidgeting with the blind-cord.
‘Certainly, my dear aunt!’ said Randall, who had listened to her with an air of courteous interest. ‘Let us by all means try! But you must suggest the subject. No one else is nearly so fit.’
‘I think each one of us could think of something if we tried,’ said Mrs Matthews gently. ‘Even you, Randall.’
‘I can tell you a story about a golfer who went to heaven,’ said Randall, ‘but I’m afraid that exhausts my repertoire of higher and better things.’
‘If you are trying to shock me, Randall, I can only assure you that I am not shocked, but only very sad to think that you can joke about things which to me are sacred.’
‘Aunt Zoë,’ said Randall, ‘you never disappoint me.’
Edward Rumbold felt that it was time to intervene. He said: ‘The younger generation are most of them distressingly irreverent, Mrs Matthews. I met a “sweet young thing” the other day who propounded the most startling views on the Christian religion!’ He drifted easily into anecdote, and succeeded in diverting not only Mrs Matthews, but Harriet Matthews as well.
Guy came away from the window as Mr Rumbold’s story ended, and began to hand round the tea-cups. Stella entered the room almost immediately, nodded to Randall, and sat down on a floor-cushion by her mother.