“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.”
“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!”