'I doubt it, Inspector. I doubt it very much. But I wish you good luck. As I said just now, the sooner this distasteful business is cleared up, the better for everybody.'
Shaking his head, he went slowly out of the room.
II
Lucy had gone straight to the kitchen on getting back from the inquest, and was busy with preparations for lunch when Bryan Eastley put his head in.
'Can I give you a hand in any way?' he asked. 'I'm handy about the house.'
Lucy gave him a quick, slightly preoccupied glance. Bryan had arrived at the inquest direct in his small M.G. car, and she had not as yet had much time to size him up.
What she saw was likeable enough.
Eastley was an amiable-looking young man of thirty-odd with brown hair, rather plaintive blue eyes and an enormous fair moustache.
'The boys aren't back yet,' he said, coming in and sitting on the end of the kitchen table. 'It will take 'em another twenty minutes on their bikes.'
Lucy smiled.
'They were certainly determined not to miss anything.'
'Can't blame them. I mean to say – first inquest in their young lives and right in the family so to speak.'
'Do you mind getting off the table, Mr. Eastley? I want to put the baking dish down there.'
Bryan obeyed.
'I say, that fat's corking hot. What are you going to put in it?'
'Yorkshire pudding.'
'Good old Yorkshire . Roast beef of old England , is that the menu for today?'
'Yes.'
'The funeral baked meats, in fact. Smells good.' He sniffed appreciatively. 'Do you mind my gassing away?'
'If you came in to help I'd rather you helped.' She drew another pan from the oven. 'Here – turn all these potatoes over so that they brown on the other side…'
Bryan obeyed with alacrity.
'Have all these things been fizzling away in here while we've been at the inquest? Supposing they'd been all burnt up.'
'Most improbable. There's a regulating number on the oven.'
“Kind of electric brain, eh, what? Is that right?'
Lucy threw a swift look in his direction.
'Quite right. Now put the pan in the oven. Here, take the cloth. On the second shelf – I want the top one for the Yorkshire pudding.'
Bryan obeyed, but not without uttering a shrill yelp.
'Burn yourself?'
'Just a bit. It doesn't matter. What a dangerous game cooking is!'
'I suppose you never do your own cooking?'
'As a matter of fact I do – quite often. But not this sort of thing. I can boil an egg – if I don't forget to look at the clock. And I can do eggs and bacon. And I can put a steak under the grill or open a tin of soup. I've got one of those little electric whatnots in my flat.'
'You live in London ?'
'If you call it living – yes.'
His tone was despondent. He watched Lucy shoot in the dish with the Yorkshire pudding mixture.
'This is awfully jolly,' he said and sighed.
Her immediate preoccupations over, Lucy looked at him with more attention.
'What is – this kitchen?'
'Yes. Reminds me of our kitchen at home – when I was a boy.'
It struck Lucy that there was something strangely forlorn about Bryan Eastley.
Looking closely at him, she realised that he was older than she had at first thought. He must be close on forty. It seemed difficult to think of him as Alexander's father. He reminded her of innumerable young pilots she had known during the war when she had been at the impressionable age of fourteen. She had gone on and grown up into a post-war world – but she felt as though Bryan had not gone on, but had been passed by in the passage of years. His next words confirmed this. He had subsided on to the kitchen table again.
'It's a difficult sort of world,' he said, 'isn't it? To get your bearings in, I mean. You see, one hasn't been trained for it.'
Lucy recalled what she had heard from Emma.
'You were a fighter pilot, weren't you?' she said. 'You've got a D.F.C.'
'That's the sort of thing that puts you wrong. You've got a medal and so people try to make it easy for you. Give you a job and all that. Very decent of them. But they're all admin jobs, and one simply isn't any good at that sort of thing. Sitting at a desk getting tangled up in figures. I've had ideas of my own, you know, tried out a wheeze or two. But you can't get the backing. Can't get the chaps to come in and put down the money. If I had a bit of capital –'
He brooded.
'You didn't know Edie, did you? My wife. No, of course you didn't. She was quite different from all this lot. Younger, for one thing. She was in the W.A.A.F. She always said her old man was crackers. He is, you know. Mean as hell over money. And it's not as though he could take it with him. It's got to be divided up when he dies. Edie's share will go to Alexander, of course. He won't be able to touch the capital until he's twenty-one, though.'
'I'm sorry, but will you get off the table again? I want to dish up and make gravy.'
At that moment Alexander and Stoddart-West arrived with rosy faces and very much out of breath.
'Hallo, Bryan ,' said Alexander kindly to his father. 'So this is where you've got to. I say, what a smashing piece of beef. Is there Yorkshire pudding?'
'Yes, there is.'
'We have awful Yorkshire pudding at school – all damp and limp.'
'Get out of my way,' said Lucy. 'I want to make the gravy.'
'Make lots of gravy. Can we have two sauce-boats full?'
'Yes.'
'Good-oh!' said Stoddart-West, pronouncing the word carefully.
'I don't like it pale,' said Alexander anxiously.
'It won't be pale.'
'She's a smashing cook,' said Alexander to his father.
Lucy had a momentary impression that their roles were reversed. Alexander spoke like a kindly father to his son.
'Can we help you, Miss Eyelesbarrow?' asked Stoddart-West politely.
'Yes, you can. Alexander, go and sound the gong. James, will you carry this tray into the dining-room? And will you take the joint in, Mr. Eastley? I'll bring the potatoes and the Yorkshire pudding.'
'There's a Scotland Yard man here,' said Alexander. 'Do you think he will have lunch with us?'
'That depends on what your aunt arranges.'
'I don't suppose Aunt Emma would mind… She's very hospitable. But I suppose Uncle Harold wouldn't like it. He's being very sticky over this murder.'
Alexander went out through the door with the tray adding a little additional information over his shoulder. 'Mr. Wimborne's in the library with the Scotland Yard man now. But he isn't staying to lunch. He said he had to get back to London . Come on, Stodders. Oh, he's gone to do the gong.'
