Mingled With Venom

‘Why was there any idea that they would marry, then, she and Mr Bosse-Leyden?’

‘Oh, of course, you’re a stranger in these parts, aren’t you? Well, it’s an open secret so no harm in telling you. Diana and Rupert don’t get on. Rupert’s sweet on Fiona and Diana is sweet on Garnet Porthcawl, over at Seawards, but there can’t be a divorce now because, if there is, Quentin and Millament, (Rupert’s kids), lose what’s left to them when they grow up.’

‘So the parents—’

‘Are prepared to make a go of it.’

‘Admirable.’

‘I think it’s bloody silly. I wouldn’t sacrifice my happiness for a couple of brats. Let them stand on their own feet when they grow up. I’ve got to stand on mine and I’ve had far fewer advantages. They’re getting a good education and, although I don’t suppose Rupert is more than just comfortably off, he makes a reasonable living. Those educational books he writes sell in their thousands, I’ll bet, and I believe Diana makes a bit of pin-money with her dogs. I think they’re fools not to grab a bit of what they want while they can get it.’

‘That is a point of view, certainly. I wonder what Mr Porthcawl thinks about it.’

‘Well, actually, although he wants Diana, I don’t suppose he wants the kids landed on him as well, and I gathered, before all this business about the terms of the Will came up, that Diana would have had to take them because Fiona certainly would not let herself be saddled with them.’

‘I see. Were the terms of the Will known to the family before Mrs Leyden died?’

‘No. I once managed to see a draft which I thought was the real thing, but it turned out not to be.’

‘Did it differ very much from the present Will?’

‘Oh, well, yes. For one thing, it cut me in for five thousand pounds of my own instead of making me dependent on Maria.’

‘Are you disappointed?’

‘Yes and no. It would have been nice to have the money, but I might have squandered it. Now at least I know I will be able to finish my training, and that’s what I really want.’

‘Did the others know what was in the draft you saw?’

‘I dropped a hint or two, but, of course, there was also the second dinner party, when she dropped her own hints, and pretty broad ones. We thought she was going to tell us something at the first one, and I believe she did intend to do that.’

‘What prevented it?’

‘Her sudden fancy for the boy whom Blue and Parsifal adopted. It was the first time she had met him and he made a big hit with her. I think that’s when she decided to wait a bit before disclosing what was in her Will. It turns out that she’s left him twenty thousand, to be given him when he comes of age. Bluebell is going to do pretty well too—twenty per cent, the same as her brother. It seems that nothing is to go direct to Parsifal—not that he’ll mind—but Garnet is really sitting prettiest of the lot, because there are no strings, such as me and the upkeep of that barracks of a house, tied to his share, which will come to eighty thousand pounds, no less.’

‘But nobody knew beforehand what the provisions of the Will were, in spite of Mrs Leyden’s broad hints?’

‘I’m sure nobody really knew. Fiona must have done a bit of speculating, because she had left some crossed- out scribblings, but all of them with big query marks. I’m pretty sure she’d forgotten about them when she took herself off to stay at Seawards, and I fancy that Maria, as well as me, had seen them because when next I went into the little room Fiona used as a study, the scribble was gone.’

‘I see. Do you think Mr Bosse-Leyden had any expectation that he would benefit personally from the Will?’

‘I doubt it. She hated the sight of him because he was a fly-by-night. She thought poor Rupert blotted the family copybook.’

‘That was his father, surely?’

‘Yes, but Rupert was the living proof of his father’s goings-on, I suppose. No, poor old Rupert wouldn’t have had any hopes. I expect he’s surprised that his kids are on the list of winners.’

‘I see.’

‘On Fiona’s scribbled list Rupert was to get a considerable packet, but I expect that was a bit of wishful thinking on her part, because she was quite expecting that he would divorce Diana and marry her, so I suppose she hoped there would be a nice lump in the kitty that he would share with her when the divorce was fixed and they could marry.’

‘So Miss Bute’s calculations and the draft you saw of the Will which must have been altered before Mrs Leyden died, did not tally?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice. I’ll tell you one thing, though. In a way, the abuela’s death was her own fault. If only she’d done what we all expected her to do—come clean about the Will and let us know what to expect—there wouldn’t have been any murder.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Simply because it would have been too obvious who’d done it. It would have been the principal beneficiary, of course.’

‘I think that is a most doubtful inference for us to make.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Most murders are committed for money, aren’t they? Isn’t it the root of all evil?—or do you think horseradish is that?’

‘Love of money is the root of all evil, Miss Aysgarth.’

‘Would you have any objection,’ asked Dame Beatrice, calling at Headlands three days later, ‘to my having