'Come on, girl,' he said. 'You can tell me all about it upstairs, and, if you're good, I'll read you my poems.'
'Don't believe it,' said Rosamund sulkily. 'You don't want me to sing, that's all.'
'There's one poem I know you'll like,' said Tancred persuasively. 'It's all about you. Come along.'
'I want one about me,' said Binnie. 'You promised one about me. And that's my nightie she's got on!'
Tancred took Rosamund by an unresisting arm, and led her from the room. Dame Beatrice rose in leisurely fashion, placed her empty cup on a small table, and followed them out. After a moment, Binnie followed, too.
'Don't see why she should pinch my nightie,' she said. 'I'm going to get it back. It's not that I grudge it her, but she can't just go about sneaking things. It's not right.'
'She's worse than you told us in your letter, then,' said Humphrey to his uncle. Romilly looked gloomy. Dame Beatrice, who had not gone upstairs in the wake of Rosamund and Tancred, but who had stepped aside to allow Binnie to pass her, noticed this from her vantage point at the side of the archway which did duty for a door. She heard Romilly answer:
'Well, it's bound to be progressive, I suppose, although she's been a little calmer of late.' Dame Beatrice came back into the room.
'She will be calmer again in a minute or two,' she said. 'I warned you that this influx of guests might excite her.' She settled herself composedly in the chair she had previously occupied and looked across at him.
'I can't help that,' he said. 'I had to call the family together for a very good reason, and, as you are an interested party, I had to get you to come along, too. There is nothing you can do for Trilby. She's naughty, not deranged. I expect you have found that out by now. Well, now seems as good a time as any for me to hold the business meeting which is the prime reason for this pleasant little get-together.'
'I don't see how you can,' said Corin. 'We're short of four members of the group. Don't we wait until Binnie and Tancred come down, and Hubert and Willoughby get here?'
'I don't know why all the rest of us should wait,' said his twin sister. Those other two can hear all about it later on. Don't forget we've got a rehearsal at ten tomorrow morning, and we must run over our programme before dinner tonight.'
'The meeting need not take long,' Romilly insisted. 'I have enticed you here on various pretexts. None of my offers was genuine. I had better confess that at once. You, my dear Humphrey, were led to believe that I could obtain for you a House at a minor public school. I am not in a position to do so. Tancred has been told that a publisher is prepared to put out his poems and guarantee him a respectable advance and a scale of royalties. This is untrue. Binnie-I wrote to her separately, Humphrey, and had the letter delivered by special messenger at a time when I knew you would be at school-thinks that I can get her a job modelling clothes. Giles has been promised...'
'Oh, cut it out!' said Giles. The belligerent words were expressed in a quiet voice, but with a degree of menace which encouraged Humphrey, who, so far, had responded only with a red face and a bristling attitude, to put his face almost into Romilly's and exclaim:
'You rotten, lying, oily swine!'
'Just a moment, Humphrey,' said Judith. 'Let Uncle Romilly finish what he has to say.'
'I had to find the means to get you all together,' went on Romilly, 'and to pretend to offer each of you something to his advantage seemed by far the best way. Hubert expects me to get him ecclesiastical preferment, and Willoughby wants to...'
'Knock your block off, I should think,' said Giles. 'Have you forgotten that he has been out of a job for months?'
'I have forgotten nothing,' said Romilly. 'Hear me out. Having gathered you together under these false pretences and lying promises, I propose to acquaint you with the terms of my Will.'
'So you told us,' said Binnie, appearing in the archway. 'I think Trilby and Tancred have gone to bed together. What Will? Do we all share, or have you left everything to Corin and Corinna?'
'Why us, Binnie?' asked Corin, pushing back his shoulder-length, unkempt hair.
'Because-yes, I've been in the next room, listening; so convenient, not having proper doors-because it seems to me that Corin and Corinna are the only people who haven't been promised things.' She advanced into the room. 'You two got your own booking at the Winter Garden, didn't you?' she asked.
'Sure,' said Corin, 'but Romilly offered us free board and lodging and the use of a car while we were down here.'
'The estate which I propose to buy later on, and all my money,' said Romilly deliberately, 'might be willed to whichever one of you murders me, and I am not disclosing the terms of my bequests at this stage. Therefore, as a murderer cannot gain financially by the death of his victim, I have a feeling that I shall remain alive for a good long time, you know. Just my idea of a little bit of fun. That's all. Enjoy yourselves.'
'The murderer could gain financially so long as he wasn't caught,' said Giles grimly.
'He will be caught,' said Romilly, with a significant glance at Dame Beatrice. 'One of you has taken what he thought was a shot at me. I advise him not to try again. Well, I'll leave you to think things over.'
(2)
'But it doesn't make sense,' said Binnie, for the fourth time since the discussion had broken out, which it did upon Romilly's departure.
'It must make sense to one of us,' said Corin. 'As I see it, it's a warning. The old man's got a hunch that one of us intends to do him in. That means it really was a shot we heard last night.'
Binnie squeaked in dismay. Her husband said morosely:
'All that nonsense aside, the fact remains that he's got us all down here by making lying promises to us. If you ask me, he deserves to be shot.'
'Well, I advise you not to have a second go,' said Tancred, coming suddenly into the room. 'I've left Rosamund with Judith, by the way. I suppose their absence is to be desired, rather than deplored, under the present circumstances. Incidentally, Cousin Humphrey, why do you want to liquidate our host and close relative?'
'You'd want to do it yourself, if you had the guts of a flea,' said Humphrey violently. 'Didn't he promise you that he'd got hold of a publisher who would pay for those rhymes of yours? Well, he hasn't, and he won't. He's been leading us all up the garden.'
'Meaning you won't get that better job to which your talents as usher do not entitle you?'
'Look here,' said Giles, 'our quarrel is with Romilly, not with one another. He promised to lend me the money for a part-share in some racing-stables, and the promise is just as worthless as those he made to the rest of you. Don't let's bicker.'
'The promise he made to us isn't worthless,' said Corin.
'Isn't it?' asked his sister. 'What if he doesn't lay on the transport he promised us? Have you realised what it's going to cost if we have to pay for a car to get us to Bournemouth and back each day? The money we're paid for our show is going to look pretty silly with about fifty pounds knocked off it.'
'I hadn't thought of that. He wouldn't be such a swine, would he?' asked her twin.
'I don't know. He's made fools of Humphrey and Tancred and Giles. Why should we escape his morbid little sense of humour? After all, how much do we know about him, anyway? We've been out of touch with him since we were babies, except for that silly house-warming he chose to give, and he doesn't own this place, anyway; he only rents it. I'm not at all sure we were born, in fact, before he went out to Kenya or wherever it was. What I can't understand is what his game is. I mean, why on earth bring us all together like this, on the strength of some lying promises?'