arrangements for the funeral.'
'Funerals! One funeral after another, and that reminds me. Another of these precious Abernethies has been ringing you up – Timothy, I think he said. From somewhere in Yorkshire – and that's about a funeral, too! Said he'd ring again later.'
A personal call for Mr Entwhistle came through that evening. Taking it, he heard Maude Abernethie's voice at the other end.
'Thank goodness I've got hold of you at last! Timothy has been in the most terrible state. This news about Cora has upset him dreadfully.'
'Quite understandable,' said Mr Entwhistle.
'What did you say?'
'I said it was quite understandable.'
'I suppose so.' Maude sounded more than doubtful. 'Do you mean to say it was really murder?'
('It was murder, wasn't it?' Cora had said. But this time there was no hesitation about the answer.)
'Yes, it was murder,' said Mr Entwhistle.
'And with a hatchet, so the papers say?'
'Yes.'
'It seems quite incredible to me,' said Maude, 'that Timothy's sister – his own sister – can have been murdered with a hatchet!'
It seemed no less incredible to Mr Entwhistle. Timothy's life was so remote from violence that even his relations, one felt, ought to be equally exempt.
'I'm afraid one has to face the fact,' said Mr Entwhistle mildly.
'I am really very worried about Timothy. It's so bad for him all this! I've got him to bed now but he insists on my persuading you to come up and see him. He wants to know a hundred things – whether there will be an inquest, and who ought to attend, and how soon after that the funeral can take place, and where, and what funds there are, and if Cora expressed any wish about being cremated or what, and if she left a will -'
Mr Entwhistle interrupted before the catalogue got too long.
'There is a will, yes. She left Timothy her executor.'
'Oh dear, I'm afraid Timothy can't undertake anything -'
'The firm will attend to all the necessary business. The will's very simple. She left her own sketches and an amethyst brooch to her companion, Miss Gilchrist, and everything else to Susan.'
'To Susan? Now I wonder why Susan? I don't believe she ever saw Susan – not since she was a baby anyway.'
'I imagine that it was because Susan was reported to have made a marriage not wholly pleasing to the family.'
Maude snorted.
'Even Gregory is a great deal better than Pierre Lansquenet ever was! Of course marrying a man who serves in a shop would have been unheard of in my day – but a chemist's shop is much better than a haberdasher's – and at least Gregory seems quite respectable.' She paused and added: 'Does this mean that Susan gets the income Richard left to Cora?'
'Oh no. The capital of that will be divided according to the instructions of Richard's will. No, poor Cora had only a few hundred pounds and the furniture of her cottage to leave. When outstanding debts are paid and the furniture sold I doubt if the whole thing will amount to more than at most five hundred pounds.' He went on: 'There will have to be an inquest, of course. That is fixed for next Thursday. If Timothy is agreeable, we'll send down young Lloyd to watch the proceedings on behalf of the family. He added apologetically: 'I'm afraid it may attract some notoriety owing to the – er – circumstances.'
'How very unpleasant! Have they caught the wretch who did it?'
'Not yet.'
'One of these dreadful half-baked young men who go about the country roving and murdering, I suppose. The police are so incompetent.'
'No, no,' said Mr Entwhistle. 'The police are by no means incompetent. Don't imagine that, for a moment.'
'Well, it all seems to me quite extraordinary. And so bad for Timothy. I suppose you couldn't possibly come down here, Mr Entwhistle? I should be most grateful if you could. I think Timothy's mind might be set at rest if you were here to reassure him.'
Mr Entwhistle was silent for a moment. The invitation was not unwelcome.
'There is something in what you say,' he admitted. 'And I shall need Timothy's signature as executor to certain documents. Yes, I think it might be quite a good thing.'
'That is splendid. I am so relieved. Tomorrow? And you'll stay the night? The best train is the 11.20 from St Pancras.'
'It will have to be an afternoon train, I'm afraid. I have,' said Mr Entwhistle, 'other business in the morning…'
II
George Crossfield greeted Mr Entwhistle heartily but with, perhaps, just a shade of surprise.
Mr Entwhistle said, in an explanatory way, although it really explained nothing:
'I've just come up from Lytchett St Mary.'
'Then it really was Aunt Cora? I read about it in the papers and I just couldn't believe it. I thought it must be someone of the same name.'
'Lansquenet is not a common name.'
'No, of course it isn't. I suppose there is a natural aversion to believing that anyone of one's own family can be murdered. Sounds to me rather like that case last month on Dartmoor.'
'Does it?'
'Yes. Same circumstances. Cottage in a lonely position. Two elderly women living together. Amount of cash taken really quite pitifully inadequate one would think.'
'The value of money is always relative, said Mr Entwhistle. 'It is the need that counts.'
'Yes – yes, I suppose you re right.'
'If you need ten pounds desperately – then fifteen is more than adequate. And inversely also. If your need is for a hundred pounds, forty-five would be worse than useless. And if it's thousands you need, then hundreds are not enough.'
George said with a sudden flicker of the eyes: 'I'd say any money came in useful these days. Everyone's hard up.'
'But not desperate,' Mr Entwhistle pointed out. 'It's the desperation that counts.'
'Are you thinking of something in particular?'
'Oh no, not at all.' He paused then went on: 'It will be a little time before the estate is settled; would it be convenient for you to have an advance?'
'As a matter of fact, I was going to raise the subject. However, I saw the Bank this morning and referred them to you and they were quite obliging about an overdraft.'
Again there came that flicker in George's eyes, and Mr Entwhistle, from the depths of his experience, recognised it. George, he felt certain, had been, if not desperate, then in very sore straits for money. He knew at that moment, what he had felt subconsciously all along, that in money matters he would not trust George. He wondered if old Richard Abernethie, who also had had great experience in judging men, had felt that. Mr Entwhistle was almost sure that after Mortimer's death, Richard Abernethie had formed the intention of making George his heir. George was not an Abernethie, but he was the only male of the younger generation. He was the natural successor to Mortimer. Richard Abernethie had sent for George, had had him staying in the house for some days. It seemed probable that at the end of the visit the older man had not found George satisfactory. Had he felt instinctively, as Mr Entwhistle felt, that George was not straight? George's father, so the family had thought, had
