‘Turkey stair carpeting and gilt mirrors?’ said Kenneth incredulously.
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘Darling, your taste is quite damnable.’
‘I can’t see that there’s any need for you to be rude because I like things you don’t like. I think Turkey carpets are sort of warm and – and expensive looking.’
Antonia was measuring out the ingredients for cocktails, but she lowered the bottle of gin she was holding, and directed one of her clear looks at Violet. ‘You don’t care whether a thing’s good to look at or not as long as it reeks of money,’ she remarked.
Violet got up, quickly yet gracefully. ‘Well, what if I do like luxury?’ she said, her low voice sharpening a little. ‘If you’d been born with a taste for nice things, and never had a penny to spend which you hadn’t worked and slaved for, you’d feel the same!’ One of her long, capable hands disdainfully brushed the skirt of her frock. ‘Even my clothes I make myself ! And I want – I want Paris models, and nice furs, and my hair done every week at Eugene’s, and – oh, all the nice things that make life worth living!’
‘Well, don’t make a song about it,’ recommended Antonia, quite unmoved. ‘You’ll be able to have all that if Kenneth really does inherit.’
‘Of course I inherit,’ said Kenneth impatiently. ‘Hustle along with the drinks, Tony!’
Antonia suddenly put down the gin bottle. ‘Can’t. You do it. I’ve suddenly remembered I was supposed to meet Rudolph for lunch this morning. I must ring him up.’ She took the telephone receiver off the rest, and began to dial. ‘Did he ring me up, do you know?’
‘Dunno. Don’t think so. How much gin have you put in?’
‘Lashings… Hullo, is that Mr Mesurier’s flat? Oh, is it you, Rudolph? I say, I’m frightfully sorry about lunch. Did you wait for ages? But it wasn’t my fault. It truly wasn’t.’
At the other end of the telephone there was a tiny pause. Then a man’s voice, light in texture, rather nasal, rather metallic, in the manner of modern voices, replied hesitatingly: ‘Is it you, Tony? I didn’t quite catch – the line’s not very clear. What did you say?’
‘Lunch!’ enunciated Antonia distinctly.
‘Lunch? Oh, my God! I clean forgot! I’m devastatingly sorry! Can’t think how I could –’
‘Weren’t you there?’ demanded Antonia.
There was another pause. ‘Tony dear, this line’s really awful. Can’t make out a word you say.’
‘Put a sock in it, Rudolph. Did you forget about lunch?’
‘My dear, will you ever forgive me?’ besought the voice.
‘Oh yes,’ replied Antonia. ‘I forgot too. That’s what I rang up about. I was down at Arnold’s place at Ashleigh Green and –’
‘Ashleigh Green?’
‘Yes, why the horror?’
‘I’m not horrified, but what on earth made you go down there?’
‘I can’t tell you over the telephone. You’d better come round. And bring something to eat; there’s practically nothing here.’
‘But, Tony, wait! I can’t make out what took you to Ashleigh Green. Has anything happened? I mean –’
‘Yes. Arnold’s been killed.’
Again the pause. ‘Killed?’ repeated the voice. ‘Good God! You don’t mean murdered, do you?’
‘Of course I do. Bring some cold meat, or something, and come to supper. There’ll be champagne.’
‘Cham – Oh, all right! I mean, thanks very much: I’ll be round,’ said Rudolph Mesurier.
‘By all of which,’ remarked Kenneth, shaking the cocktails professionally, ‘I gather that the boy-friend is on his way. Will he be bonhomous, Tony?’
‘Oh, rather!’ promised Antonia blithely. ‘He can’t stand Arnold at any price.’
Five
There was no sitting-room in the Verekers’ flat other than the big studio. Supper was laid on a black oak table at one end, after one dog-whip, two tubes of paint, The Observer (folded open at Torquemada’s crossword), Chambers’s Dictionary, The Times Atlas, a volume of Shakespeare, and the Oxford Book of Verse had all been removed from it. While Murgatroyd stumped in and out of the studio with glasses and plates, Kenneth took a last look at the half-completed crossword, and announced, as was his invariable custom, that he was damned if he would ever try to do another. Rudolph Mesurier, who had arrived with a veal and ham pie, and half a loaf of bread, said he knew a man who filled the whole thing in in about twenty minutes; and Violet, carefully powdering her face before a Venetian mirror, said that she expected one had to have the Torquemada-mind to be able to do his crosswords.
‘Where did them bottles come from?’ demanded Murgatroyd, transfixed by the sight of their opulent gold necks.
‘Left over from Frank Crewe’s party last week,’ explained Kenneth.
Murgatroyd sniffed loudly, and set down a dish with unnecessary violence. ‘The idea!’ she said. ‘Anyone’d think it was the funeral party already.’
Constraint descended on the two visitors. Violet folded her lovely mouth primly, and cleared her throat; Rudolph Mesurier fingered his tie and said awkwardly: ‘Frightful thing about Mr Vereker. I mean – it doesn’t seem possible, somehow.’
Violet turned gratefully and favoured him with her slow, enchanting smile. ‘No, it doesn’t, does it? I didn’t know him, but it makes me feel quite sick to think of it. Of course I don’t think Ken and Tony realise it yet – not absolutely.’
‘Oh, don’t they, my sweet?’ said Kenneth derisively.
‘Kenneth, whatever you felt about poor Mr Vereker when he was alive, I do think you might at least pretend to be sorry now he’s dead.’
‘It’s no use,’ said Antonia, spearing olives out of a tall bottle. ‘You’d better take us as you find us, Violet. You’ll never teach Kenneth not to say exactly what he happens to think.’
‘Well, I don’t think it’s a good plan,’ replied Violet rather coldly.
‘That’s only because he said that green hat of yours looked like a hen in a fit. Besides, it isn’t a plan: it’s a disease. Olive, Rudolph?’
‘Thanks.’ He moved over to the far end of the studio, where she was seated, perched on a corner of the dining-table. As he took the olive off the end of the meat-skewer she had elected to use for her task, he raised his eyes to her face, and said in a low voice: ‘How did it happen? Why were you there? That’s what I can’t make out.’
She gave him back look for look. ‘On account of us. I wrote and told him we were going to get married, thinking he’d be pleased, and probably send us a handsome gift.’
‘Yes, I know. I wish you’d consulted me first. I’d no idea –’
‘Why?’ interrupted Antonia. ‘Gone off the scheme?’
‘No, no! Good God, no! I’m utterly mad about you, darling, but it wasn’t the moment, I mean, you know I’m hard up just now, and a fellow like Vereker would be bound to leap to the conclusion that I was after your money.’
‘I haven’t got any money. You can’t call five hundred a year money. Moreover, several things aren’t paying any dividend this year, so I’m practically a pauper.’
‘Yes, but he had money. Anyway, I wish you hadn’t, because as a matter of fact it’s landed me into a bit of a mess. Well, not actually, I suppose, but it’s bound to come out that we had a slight quarrel on the very day he was murdered.’
Antonia looked up, and then across the room towards the other two. They seemed to be absorbed in argument. She said bluntly: ‘How do you know which day he was murdered?’
His eyes, deep blue, and fringed with black lashes, held all at once a startled look. ‘I – you told me, didn’t you?’
‘No,’ said Antonia.
He gave an uncertain laugh. ‘Yes, you did. Over the telephone. You’ve forgotten. But you see the position, don’t you? Of course, it doesn’t really matter, but the police are bound to think it a bit fishy, and one doesn’t want to be mixed up in anything – I mean, in my position one has to be somewhat ci
rcumspect.’
‘You needn’t worry,’ said Antonia. ‘It’s me they think fishy. I was there.’
‘Tony, I simply don’t understand. Why were you there? What in the world can have taken you there? You haven’t been on speaking terms with Vereker for months, and then you dash off to Riverside Cottage for the week-end – it doesn’t seem to me to make sense!’
‘Yes, it does. Arnold wrote me a stinking letter from the office on Saturday morning, and I got it that day. I went down to tackle him about it.’
‘Ah, you darling!’ Mesurier said, laying his hand in hers, and pressing it. ‘You needn’t tell me. He wrote something libellous about me. I can just imagine it! But you shouldn’t have done it, my sweet. I can look after myself.’
‘Yes, I daresay you can,’ answered Antonia, ‘but I wasn’t going to have Arnold spreading lies about you all the same.’
‘Darling! What did he tell you?’
‘He didn’t tell me anything specific, because I never saw him. He wrote a few pages of drivel, all about how I should very soon know the sort of blackguard I meant to marry, and how you were a skunk, and a thief, and various other things like that.’
‘Gosh, he was a swine!’ Mesurier exclaimed, flushing. ‘He realised, of course, that in another year he couldn’t prevent our marriage, so he tried to blacken me to you. Have you got that letter?’
‘No, I burned it. I thought it would be safer.’
He looked at her intently. ‘You mean in case the police got hold of it? You aren’t keeping anything back, are you, darling? If Vereker made any definite accusation I wish you’d tell me.’
‘He didn’t.’ Antonia got off the table as Murgatroyd came into the studio, and glanced towards her brother. ‘If you’ve finished quarrelling, supper’s ready.’ She thought it over, and added conscientiously: ‘And if you haven’t, it still is.’
Kenneth came towards the table. ‘I’ve made her cross again, haven’t I, my lovely? Where’s the oil and vinegar?’
‘I’m not cross,’ Violent said in a sad voice. ‘Only rather hurt.’
‘My adored!’ he said contritely, but with a gleam of his impish smile.
‘Yes, that’s all very well,’ said Violet, taking her place at the table, ‘but I sometimes think you only care about my good looks.’
He flashed his brilliant, half-laughing, half-earnest glance at her. ‘I worship your good looks,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ replied Violet dryly.
‘She isn’t really so good-looking,’ observed Antonia, wrestling with the joints of a cold fowl. ‘Her eyes are set a bit too far apart, for one thing, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but one side of her face isn’t as good as the other.’
‘But look at that lovely line of the jaw!’ Kenneth said, dropping the wooden salad spoon, and tracing the line in the air with his thumb.
‘When you’ve quite finished, both of you!’ Violet protested. She looked provocatively at Mesurier, seated opposite to her, and said: ‘Aren’t they awful? Don’t you think we’re frightfully brave to marry them?’
He responded in kind, and they kept up an interchange of light badinage throughout the meal. Attempts to draw the other two into the conversation were not very successful. Kenneth had a glowering look on his face, which Violet could always conjure up by flirting with another man; and Antonia, when appealed to by Violet to assure Mesurier that she didn’t look marvellous in red, but, on the contrary, positively haggish, replied with such disastrous frankness that the topic broke off like a snapped thread.
‘You’re an artist, aren’t you?’ said Rudolph hastily.
‘No,’ said Kenneth.
‘Well, I may not be an artist as you highbrows understand it –’
‘You aren’t. You can’t draw.’
‘Thank you, dear. But I do make a living out of it,’ said Violet sweetly. ‘As a matter of fact I do poster-designs and commercial work, Mr Mesurier. I found I had a sort of knack’ – Kenneth sank his head in his hands and groaned – ‘a sort of knack,’ repeated Violet, ‘and I suppose my stuff caught on. I’ve always had a sense of colour and line, and –’
‘Oh, darling, do shut up!’ begged Kenneth. ‘You’ve got about as much sense of colour and line as Tony’s bull-terriers.’
Violet stiffened. ‘I don’t know if you’re trying to annoy me, but –’
‘My angel, I wouldn’t annoy you for the world, but if only you’d just be, and not talk!’ begged Kenneth.
‘I see. I’m to sit mum while you air your views.’
‘She can’t possibly not talk at all, Kenneth,’ said Antonia reasonably. ‘What he means is, Don’t talk Art.’
‘Thank you. I’m quite aware that nobody but Kenneth knows anything about Art.’
‘Well, if you’re aware of it, why the hell do you –’
‘Champagne!’ said Rudolph, leaping into the breach. ‘Miss Williams, you will, won’t you? Tony?’
‘Why is there never any ice in this place?’ demanded Kenneth, suddenly diverted.
‘Because we bought the oak coffer with the money we meant to spend on a refrigerator,’ replied Antonia.
This change of topic, coupled with the champagne, saved the party from breaking up there and then. No further references were made to Art, and by the time the quartette rose from the table and drifted over to the other end of the room Violet had softened towards Kenneth, who was passionately anxious to make amends; and Rudolph had volunteered to make Turkish coffee if Murgatroyd didn’t mind. He and Antonia went off to the kitchen together, and under Murgatroyd’s scornful but indulgent eye brewed a decoction which, though it would have puzzled a Turk, was quite drinkable.
It was a warm evening, and all this exertion made Antonia so hot that she announced her intention of having a bath. She withdrew into the bathroom, reappearing in the studio a quarter of an hour later in beach pyjamas, which became her very well, but offended Murgatroyd, who told her she ought to be ashamed of herself, on a Sunday and all. Kenneth, flat on a divan, had taken off his coat, somewhat to Violet’s disapproval, and was lying with his hands linked behind his head, and his shirt open at the throat. Violet sat on a floor cushion, looking graceful and cool, and self-possessed; and Rudolph Mesurier, who had compromised with the heat by undoing the buttons of his rather too-waisted coat, leaned against the window, blowing smoke rings.
Ten minutes later the door-bell rang, and Antonia said: ‘That’ll be Giles.’
‘Lord I’d forgotten he was coming!’ said Kenneth.
Violet reached instinctively for her vanity case, but before she had time to do more than peep at her reflection in the tiny mirror, Murgatroyd had ushered in the visitor.
‘Here’s Mr Giles!’ she announced grimly.
Giles Carrington paused on the threshold, surveying the group in some amusement. ‘You look like an illustration of high life and low life,’ he remarked. ‘Sunbathing, Tony?’
‘Come inside, and pour yourself out a drink,’ said Kenneth. ‘And don’t be shy of telling us the worst: it’s all in the family. Am I the heir, or am I not? If I am, we’re going to buy a refrigerator. There’s no ice in this ruddy place.’
Giles paid not the slightest attention to this, but smiled down at Violet. ‘It’s useless to expect either of my cousins to introduce us. My name is Carrington.’
‘I know; they’re hopeless. Mine is Williams. I’m Kenneth’s fiancée, you know.’
‘I didn’t, but I congratulate him. Good-evening, Mesurier.’
‘Oh, how sweet of you!’ Violet said, with an arch look up at him.
‘That’s only his nice Eton manners,’ said Antonia reassuringly. ‘When’s the Inquest, Giles?’
‘On Tuesday. You’ll have to attend.’
‘Blast! Are you going to be there?’
‘Yes, of course. I’ll take you down.’ Giles poured himself out some whisky, and splashed soda into it. ‘Arnold’s car has been found,’ he said casually.
‘Where?’
asked Antonia.
‘In a mews off the Cromwell Road.’
‘Will that help the police at all, do you suppose?’ inquired Violet.
‘I hardly think so. Nothing but Arnold’s suitcase and hat and a hamper of provisions was found in it, I believe.’
‘What, no blood?’ said Kenneth lazily. ‘No gory knife? I call that a sell for the police.’
‘Haven’t they discovered any clue at all?’ Rudolph asked. ‘Surely there must be something to show who it was? I mean finger-prints, or something.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,’ replied Giles in his cool, pleasant way. ‘The police haven’t taken me quite so far into their confidence.’
‘Did you see anything more of that lamb-like Superintendent?’ said Antonia, clasping her hands round her knees.
‘Yes, I gave him a lift back to Town.’
Kenneth sat up. ‘Look here, whose side are you on?’
Giles Carrington looked up quickly. Kenneth grinned. ‘No, I didn’t mean that exactly, but you’ve got to act for us.’
‘That is what I’m trying to do,’ answered Giles.
‘Lots of snags in the way,’ murmured Kenneth, lying down again. ‘Tony’s pitchforked herself bang into the middle of it, and I don’t think I can prove an alibi. All the same,’ he added, tilting his head back to watch the fluttering of a moth against the skylight, ‘they’ll find it pretty hard to fasten the murder on to me. For one thing, I haven’t got a knife, and never had a knife; and for another, no one would ever believe I could do a job as neatly as this one, without leaving any trace behind. Also, I haven’t had any very recent quarrel with –’ He jerked himself upright again. ‘Damn! What a fool I was! I wrote and asked him for some cash, and he refused. I’ll lay any odds you like he’s kept my letter and a copy of his answer.’
‘Oh, Kenneth, don’t talk such rubbish!’ Violet begged. ‘Of course they don’t think you did it!’
‘They probably will, but they’ll find it devilish hard to prove,’ said Kenneth. ‘What do you think, Giles?’
‘If you’d like to call at my office to-morrow at twelve, I’ll tell you,’ replied Giles, finishing his drink.