“You were, in fact, indifferent?”
“That's it,” said Roger. “Just the word I wanted. Though I must say that now I know what he was worth, I'm not at all surprised he was disliked. Mean, very mean. You'd hardly believe this, but fifty pounds was all I could get out of him, and he only gave me that because he didn't want it to get about that a brother of his was spending the night on the Embankment. He'd picked up a lot of very respectable ideas, I thought. Didn't like me coming to his house at all. If I were one of these sensitive people, which thank God I'm not, I should have been quite offended at the way he took it. You'd hardly believe it, but he only gave me that miserable fifty pounds on condition I didn't come near him again.”
“I'm surprised you were satisfied with fifty pounds, Mr Vereker.”
“I wasn't at all satisfied with it, but I'm a reasonable man, and you can't expect people to carry much more than fifty pounds on them. Besides, I didn't know he'd made such a packet out of the old mine.”
Antonia suddenly elected to take part in the conversation, and said forcefully: “Look here, I don't want to crab your story, but if it's got to be Kenneth or you or me (the murderer, I mean), I'd rather it was you. So don't tell me you were going to fade out of Arnold's life for fifty pounds!”
“Certainly not,” replied her imperturbable half-brother. “As a matter of fact, the story is rather funny. Because I hadn't actually thought how much Arnold was probably good for. The poor fellow was very upset at seeing me; oh, very upset! Well, you can't really blame him, because I've always been the disreputable member of the family, and. I daresay he was afraid I might drag the name in the mud, or something. Naturally, as soon as I saw how green he was looking I realised that this was where I tried my hand at a little polite blackmail. I said I'd come to stay with him. He didn't like that at all. In fact, he got a bit violent at one time. However, he cooled off after a bit and offered me fifty pounds to clear out. So I pocketed that, and said I'd think it over. Then he came out with what he thought was a very good idea, though I wasn't so struck with it myself. He was to give me a ticket to Australia, or any other place I liked at the other side of the world, and pay me two hundred pounds a year for as long as I stopped there.”
“I call that a good offer,” said Antonia.
“Yes, only I don't want to go to Australia,” explained Roger.
“What has become of the money your father left you?” asked Giles.
Roger looked faintly surprised. “I don't know. That was a long time ago. You don't expect money to last for ever. Anyway, it didn't.”
“Good lord!” said Giles. “Well, go on!”
“Forgotten where I was. All this talk is making me very thirsty,” said Roger, getting up and going across the room to the sideboard. “Anyone else join me in a spot?” Receiving no answer to this invitation, he said: “Oh, well!” and poured himself out a double whisky. Armed with that he returned to his chair.
“That's better,” he said. “Where was I?”
“Two hundred pounds a year to stay in Australia,” prompted Hannasyde.
“Yes, that's right. Well, I said I'd think it over, and Arnold said I could take it or leave it. I may have been a trifle rash — though I don't think so, because from all I've heard Australia wouldn't suit me at all - but I said I'd leave it. That was more or less the end of the meeting. Arnold had a date, and wanted to be off.”
“With whom?” asked Hannasyde quickly.
“How on earth should I know? I didn't ask him.”
“Do you know where he meant to dine?”
“Look here,” said Roger, “you don't seem to have got the hang of things very well at all. We weren't having a friendly chat.”
“Very well,” said Hannasyde. “What happened next?”
“Oh, nothing much! I told Arnold he could give me a lift as far as Piccadilly, and we got into his car and drove off. He didn't much want to give me a lift, but he seemed to be afraid I might tell his butler who I was, or something, if he refused. On the way he said his offer would stand open till Monday, and I could think it over. However, the more I thought about it the less I liked the scheme. Besides, I'd got fifty pounds.”
The Superintendent was watching him closely. “So what did you do, Mr Vereker?”
“I went to Monte Carlo,” replied Roger.
“You went to Monte Carlo?” repeated the Superintendent.
“Seemed an obvious thing to do,” said Roger. “I've been wanting to try out a System for some time.”
“You threw away a certain two hundred a year for a flimsy chance of making some money gambling?”
“Why not?” asked Roger, eyeing him blandly.
The Superintendent glanced rather helplessly at Giles. Giles's lips quivered.
“Yes, that's in the part,” he said.
Hannasyde turned back to Roger. “When did you leave for Monte Carlo?”
“Next morning,” said Roger.
“On Sunday?”
“I daresay it may have been a Sunday. I didn't notice.”
“So that on the night of 17th June you were in England?”
“That's right,” agreed Roger. “If I'd known that Arnold was going to be murdered, I wouldn't have been, but it can't be helped now.”
“Where did you spend that night, Mr Vereker?” Roger finished what was left in his glass, and set it down. His sleepy gaze travelled from one intent face to the other.
“Well, that's a very awkward question,” he confessed.
“Why is it an awkward question?”
“Because I don't know what to say,” answered Roger. The Superintendent's brows began to draw together.
“You can say where you were on the night of 17th June, Mr Vereker!”
“Well, that's where you're wrong,” said Roger. “I can't.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” said Roger simply, “I don't know.”
Chapter Sixteen
His words produced an astonished silence. He smiled in his apologetic way and took advantage of his audience's surprise to get up and replenish his glass. “We shall be needing some more whisky, Tony,” he remarked. “Thought I'd better mention it.”
The Superintendent found his voice. “You don't know where you spent the night of 17th June?” he repeated.
“No,” said Roger. “I don't.”
“Come, Mr Vereker, that is not quite good enough!” There was a note of anger in Hannasyde's voice, but it left Roger unmoved. “Well, I was in London. That I can tell you.”
“For God's sake, Roger, pull yourself together!” his cousin besought him. “You dined at the Trocadero, didn't you?”
Roger thought this over. “Wasn't it the Monico?” he inquired.
“Did you pay for your dinner with a ten-pound note?” demanded Hannasyde.
“Now you come to mention it, I believe I did,” Roger admitted. “Wanted change, you see.”
“Very well, then, we can assume that you dined at the Trocadero,” said Hannasyde. “What time was it when you left the restaurant?”
“I don't know,” said Roger.
There was no trace of his usual kindliness in the Superintendent's face by this time. His grey eyes were stern, his mouth set rather rigidly. “Very well, Mr Vereker. Do you happen to know what you did when you left the Trocadero?”
Roger performed a vague gesture with one hand. “Just drifted about here and there,” he said.
“Did you spend the night in a hotel or a boardinghouse?”
“No,” said Roger.
“You booked no room anywhere?”
“No,” repeated Roger, still amiably smiling. “Left my bag at the station.”
“Mr Vereker, you cannot have walked about London all night. Will you be good enough to put an end to this farce, and tell me without any more trifling - where you were?”
“The trouble is I don't know where I was,” replied Roger, with the air of one making a fresh disclosure. “You see, I didn't give the address to the taxi-driver, which accounts for it.”
“You were with someone, then?”