Randall, leaving the study in the wake of his aunt, did not follow her to the library, where he could ear her voice raised in denunciation of himself, but strolled instead to the foot of the stairs, and after a brief glance round the empty hall went up, not hurriedly, but soft-footed. There was no one on the upper landing. The first door led into Gregory Matthews' bedroom, and was not locked. Randall turned the handle, and went in, and quietly closed the door behind him.
The room, which was large, and gloomy with mahogany, had the unfriendly look that uninhabited apartments wear. The bed was draped by a dust-sheet; the windows were shut; and the dressing-table, the chest of drawers, and even the mantelpiece were swept bare of all personal belongings.
Randall glanced about him, and presently moved towards the wardrobe, a huge, triple-doored piece that took up nearly the whole of one wall. Gregory Matthews' clothes were neatly arranged in it, but they did not seem to concern Randall, for after a brief survey he closed the doors again, and went across to the dressing-table. There was nothing in either of its drawers, except a watch and chain, and a box containing cuff-links and studs, and the chest at the opposite side of the room contained only piles of underclothing.
Randall shrugged, and walked over to the door which communicated with his uncle's bathroom. Here the same barrenness met his gaze; not so much as a razor strop had been left to remind him of his uncle's erstwhile presence. He went at once to where a small medicine chest hung, but it was quite empty. He slowly shut it, and turned away towards the door leading out on to the landing. He opened it, and stepped out of the room just as Stella came running lightly up the stairs.
She checked at sight of him, and stared, a frown slowly gathering on her brow. Randall met the stare with his faint, bland smile, and closed the bathroom door behind him. “Good-morning, my precious,” he said.
She remained with her hand still resting on the big wooden knob at the head of the banisters. “What were you doing in there?” she asked, her voice sharp with suspicion.
“Just looking over the scene of the crime,” he answered. He held out his open cigarette-case. “Will you smoke, my love?”
“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.”
“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. “Pollen 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?”
“Pollen 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 arbitrary 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.
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 teatime, 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 dressdesigning, 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 (rightful 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.