“So he gave you two thousand pounds? Why, it’s fantastic. You couldn’t have expected as much as five hundred.”
“I didn’t. But he gave himself away badly. He was so shaken that I realised I was in a stronger position than I had supposed. So I increased my price. I believe if I’d asked for five thousand I’d have got it. I gave him, of course, the guarantee, that doubtless you’ve read, that this should be a final payment, and indeed a final interview. I had intended to go back this afternoon. Indeed, I see no reason why I shouldn’t.”
“If the police allow you, we shall raise no objection.”
Brand whistled. “The police? So it’s come to that.”
“If he didn’t commit suicide and it wasn’t a stroke, what other alternative is there? Besides, as you remarked, it isn’t easy for a man to kill himself with a blow on the head. No, what was in my mind was that perhaps you had stumbled on some bit of information that let you into some secret he was anxious should not be divulged. Had that been the case, I should have asked you to let me share the story…”
“And I should promptly have refused. The sentences for blackmail in this country of late years have been appalling. I’d rather be taken for breaking a bank—anything, in short, except murder.”
“Murder,” repeated Richard. “Perhaps you will.”
Brand left the edge of the table, where he had seated himself at the beginning of the conversation, and said, “Murder? I? Is that what you mean? They’ll think I did it? What a fool I am. Of course they will. I’m the last person who admits to seeing him. I’d got that money out of him. Why should I murder him if I’d got the cheque? Because I was afraid he’d try and cancel it, or that, when you heard, the rest of you would urge him to do so? Not very good reasons, surely. And if I killed him, after I got it, why didn’t I destroy the agreement? I admit there wasn’t much likelihood of my ever touching anything, but if he had mentioned me or any of my children in his will, I daresay that agreement would invalidate it. At all events, I’m sure Eustace would make as much trouble as he could. Possibly Miles would help him. As a matter of fact, I’ve never been able to gauge Miles’s attitude to Ruth’s family. I think collectively he thinks us deplorable, with nothing but our birth to commend us, and he, being the kind of fellow he is, wouldn’t give a locust for that.”
Richard said coldly, “I must say, Brand, these asides are in the very worst possible taste.”
“I don’t know that I should call it the best of taste to ask a man if he’s murdered his father.”
“I merely wished to warn you of what conceivably may be suggested.”
“So that I could think up my defence? Kind of you. As a matter of fact, I’m no author. I paint and I do draughtsman’s work and I can get drunk and make a beast of myself, but none of those qualifications would make me capable of telling a really good story, that would get me past the police.” He commenced to walk up and down the room, with long lunging strides. “I know you’re thinking all the worst possible things about me, Richard, and in a way I’m sorry. But I haven’t any unmentionable secrets that I could hold over our father’s head, and I’m not hypocritical enough to pretend that his death makes much difference to me. My thoughts of him have always been pretty hard, and I daresay they were mutual. He was, literally, in a position to make my life. And he wouldn’t. I’ve no patience with these bloody little poets, who go into all the magazines that charge the public half a crown and don’t pay the contributors a stiver, who sing the praises of poverty, queen of the saints and all that kind of thing. Poverty’s damnable; it’s bad enough when one’s alone, but when there are five or six other people anxious to share the crust that isn’t sufficient for you, then it becomes degrading. I’ve pointed that out to my father time after time; and he didn’t believe me. He didn’t care either, of course. And so I’ve been in the treadmill till I was half mad. You don’t know—and nor did he—what it is to walk up and down blank streets all night, because you daren’t go home; you’re afraid of what you might do. Oh, I don’t say you never lie awake, too, but that’s because someone may get a better job than you, or have a bigger house or create a bigger stir. But to know your work isn’t being done—it’s no use telling me there are plenty of men in the world who spend their lives unprofitably daubing canvas; the point is that it’s my job, and I’ve been out of my mind sometimes because I couldn’t get at it. You remember that torture of the ancients—how they tied up a man in the blazing sun with water out of reach? Well, we torture quite
