Chapter Seventeen
Her words were received in uncomprehending silence. Conrad broke it. “What do you mean, he won’t sign the certificate? Why not?”
“He thinks Father didn’t die a natural death,” responded Charmian bluntly.
They all stared at her. “Didn’t die a natural death?” Conrad repeated. “What on earth are you driving at, Char?”
“Oh dear, I do wish I hadn’t come home!” said Aubrey. “I can see, because I am very quick-witted and sensitive to atmosphere, that everything is going to become too morbid and repellent for words. Char, my precious, do put us out of this frightful suspense! I can’t bear it!”
“If you want it in plain words, Rame thinks Father was murdered,” said Charmian.
Clara dropped her teaspoon with a clatter into her saucer. Bart half-started from his chair, and sank back again, his eyes fixed incredulously on his sister’s face. Clay turned chalk-white, and moved his lips stickily.
“Rot!” said Conrad loudly and scornfully.
“Yes, that’s what I said, but apparently I was wrong,” Charmian replied, drawing her cigarette-case from her pocket, and taking a cigarette from it. She shut the with a snap, and turned to feel for a matchbox on the mantelpiece behind her.
“But what — how… ?”Bart demanded.
She struck a match, and lit her cigarette. “Poison, of course.”
“Rubbish!” said Clara strongly. “I never heard of such a thing! Poison, indeed! He ate and drank a lot of foolish things last night, as anyone could have told Rame! What next!”
“There was a sort of blue look about him,” Charmian said. “I noticed it myself, though it didn’t, of course, convey anything in particular to my mind. Rame asked if Father was in the habit of taking sleeping-draughts. Reuben and Martha both swore that he wasn’t. Them was a drain of whisky left in the decanter beside the bed, and he tasted it. He has taken both the glass and the decanter away with him, and I suppose you know what that means.”
“Do you mean — do you mean that there’ll have to be an inquest?” Conrad said, in a stupefied tone. “On Father.'
“Of course.”
Clara, who had been staring at Charmian with dropped jaw and slowly mounting colour, found her voice to say: “Inquest? We’ve never had such a thing in our family! I never did in all my life! Why, whatever next. I should like to know? Your father would be furious at the idea of anythin’ like that happenin’! It’ll have to be put a stop to: I won’t have it!”
“I wish it could be stopped,” returned Charmian. “Unfortunately, it can’t. This is where the police take over. Jolly, isn’t it?”
“Police?” Clay gasped. “Oh, I say, how awful! Rame must have made a mistake!”
“Of course he’s made a mistake!” said Clara, more moved than anyone could remember to have seen her. “This is what comes of callin’ in one of these newfangled doctors! I’ve no patience with it! Your father died because he ate and drank too much last night, and that’s all there is to it!”
No one paid any heed to this. Bart got up suddenly, thrusting back his chair. “But, my God, this is ghastly!” he exclaimed. “Are you saying that somebody put poison in the Guv’nor’s whisky? One of us?”
Charmian shrugged. Clay was inspired to say: “It’s titter piffle! I mean, who would?”
“Little brother, do you think you could keep your ill-omened mouth shut?” asked Aubrey plaintively. “I am beginning to feel quite too terribly unwell, and that remark has conjured up such a number of daunting reflections that I wish more than ever that I hadn’t stupidly forgotten to bring my vinaigrette with me. I don’t know who would — at least, not yet — but when I think of all who might -well, I needn’t go on, need I?'
“You figure on the list yourself, don’t you?” suggested Conrad, not very nicely.
“Yes, beloved, I should think I am destined to occupy a prominent position on the list, and that is what is upsetting me. Fancy being so unfeeling as to point it out to me in that horrid way! Oh, I do wish I weren’t here!”
“Do you mean to tell me,” demanded Clara, “that we’re goin’ to have police at Trevellin?”
“I suppose so,” replied Charmian.
“And it’s no use your saying that you’ve never heard of such a thing, Clara love, because they were practically never out of the house when the twins were innocent boys,” said Aubrey. “Not to mention the various occasions when Ray and Ingram and Eugene…”
“That was nothin’!” interrupted Clara. “A bit of boyish devilry, and your father always settled it without any fuss. But this! Well, I shall never get over it!” Vivian, who had been sitting in silence for some minutes, now said defiantly: “If he really was poisoned.. I quite see, of course, that I might have been the person to have done it.”
“Yes, darling,” agreed Aubrey, “but there’s nothing to be so grand about in that. It would be far more distinguished not to be a suspect. I mean, it’s so obvious, isn’t it, that it’s going to be too dreadfully commonplace to be one of those who might well have murdered Father?”
Bart turned his eyes towards him. “Not one of us — not one of us! — would have done such a thing!” he said fiercely.
“How sweet of you to say so, Bart! I shouldn’t think it’s in the least true, but I do appreciate the thoroughly nice spirit that inspired you to utter such noble words. I quite thought you would instantly assume that I was the guilty party.”
“I wouldn’t put it beyond you,” interpolated Conrad.
“No, I’m sure you wouldn’t, but that’s only because I wear a maroon velvet jacket and a silk shirt, and you can’t help feeling that such a man would be capable of committing almost any crime.”
“Well, all I know is that Father had made up his mind to make you live at home, which is about the last thing on earth that would suit your book!”
“Mustn’t it be lovely to be Conrad?” said Aubrey, looking round the table. “Sitting there in a perfectly unassailable position, making spiteful remarks to me! I cant help entertaining what I admit to be a very ignoble hope that we shall discover that he had a motive for killing Father after all.”
Conrad looked rather taken aback. “Look here, who do you consider might have had a motive?”
“It would be so much easier to tell you who hadn’t,” replied Aubrey. “I shouldn’t think even a policeman could suspect darling Aunt Clara. Unless you’re cherishing a hideous secret, you would appear to be out of the running — but do try not to look so smug about it! It goes against the grain, but I’m bound to say I don’t see what Eugene would have had to gain. Char and Ingram seem to be out of it too. I can’t think of anyone else.”
“You’d much better not talk about it at all,” said Clara severely. “Depend upon it, it won’t lead to any good.”
“I don’t know about anyone else, but if you mean to say that you think Bart would have laid a finger on Father...”
Aubrey sighed. “I simply can’t bear it when you start on your oppressive Damon and Pythias act, Con dear. I daresay Bart didn’t do it, but the meanest intelligence — yes, that’s my polite way of saying yours, so that angry flush isn’t wasted — must perceive that he has a perfectly beautiful motive. Of course, if Ray is the murderer, the whole thing is most sordid, because he must have done it for filthy lucre, which one can’t help feeling lets the whole family down; but if Bart did it, his motive, however little it may appeal to me personally, lifts the crime on to a much higher plane. All for Love, in fact. Darling Clara, please pour me out another cup of coffee!”
“I consider it in the highest degree unlikely that Bart had anything at all to do with it,” said Charmian, before Bart could speak.
“Yes, precious, so do I, but if half what one reads is true love has a most peculiar effect, even upon people like Bart. I wouldn’t know. Of course, the thing that would afford one a really subtle gratification would be to find that Faith had atoned for years of almost complete ineffectiveness by — Oh dear, there’s Clay! To think I had nearly committed a social solecism! I didn’t quite though,, did I?'
“If you imagine I’m going to sit here while you cast your rotten aspersions on my mother, you’re jolly well mistaken!” said Clay, growing very red in the face, and assuming the blustering tone he was too prone to use when talking to his brothers.
