“I shouldn't be surprised,” agreed Hannasyde, stooping to pat Bill. “I've just told him I don't trust him myself.”
She smiled. “He's nice, isn't he?” she said ingenuously.
“Very nice.”
There was a quizzical look in Hannasyde's eye, though his voice remained perfectly grave. Antonia was quite impervious to it. “Rather a bore for him, all this,” she said. “Specially as he's always disapproved of us, more or less. However, it can't be helped.” She nodded in a friendly way, and went on up the stairs.
The Superintendent resumed his progress down the stairs, wondering by what sign (hidden from his own trained eye) Miss Vereker deduced that her cousin disapproved of her.
Disapproval was certainly not the predominant emotion visible in Giles Carrington's face when Antonia was ushered into his sitting-room. He got up quickly from a deep chair, and stretched out his hand. “Tony! My dear child, what on earth brings you here? Has anything happened?”
“Oh no!” replied Antonia. “Only I got fed-up with everybody at the flat, and thought I'd come and see if you were in. Can I have some coffee?”
Giles said: “Yes, of course. But you ought not to be here at all, you know. In fact, as soon as you've had your coffee I'm going to take you home again.”
Antonia sighed. “Sorry; I'll go now if you want me to. It was only that I suddenly couldn't bear it any longer, and there wasn't anyone but you I could come to. Except Leslie, I suppose; but she's so livid about Roger turning up, and dishing Kenneth, that she's almost as bad as the rest of them. However, if you're bored with our rotten affairs it doesn't matter.”
“Sit down,” said Giles, pulling up another chair. “You know I'm not bored. What's the matter, chicken?”
She looked up at him, flushing, sudden surprise in her eyes. “Oh Giles, you haven't called me that for years!” she said.
“Haven't I?” he said, smiling down at her. “No, perhaps I haven't.”
“You know jolly well you've had a hate against me ever since you were such a vile beast about John Fotheringham!” said Antonia.
“Well, that's one way of putting it,” said Giles.
“It's the only way of putting it,” said Antonia firmly. “In fact, I practically made up my mind never to speak to you again, after the things you said to me.”
“You didn't speak to me again, Tony, for over a year.”
“Yes, I did,” contradicted Antonia. “I spoke to you at the Dawsons' dance, and once I had to ring you up about my Insurance shares. All the same, I wouldn't have, if I could have helped it. Only then I got myself into this ghastly mess, and I had to send for you to get me out of it.”
Giles was watching her inscrutably. “Why, Tony?”
She smiled at him. “Well - well - whom else could I have sent for?” she asked, puzzled.
“Brother — fiancé — ?” suggested Giles.
It was evident that this had not previously occurred to her. “Oh!” she said doubtfully. “Yes, I suppose I could, not that they'd have been much use. Anyway, I didn't think of them. And I'm glad I did send for you, because really and truly I was quite sick of the hate, and - and you have been frightfully decent to me ever since all this happened. So I don't mind admitting that actually I made a mistake about John - though I still think you were utterly rancid about the whole affair.” She paused, and then added: “I've been rather wanting to bury the hatchet absolutely ever since Arnold was killed, I did mean to have it all out with you at Hanborough, that day, only when you turned up it didn't seem as though we ever had had a hate, and I forgot. Only if you did happen to be still feeling secretly stuffy about me, I thought I'd just mention the matter.”
“Tony,” Giles said abruptly, “are you still engaged to Mesurier?”
“Yes, and it's the most unutterable bore,” she replied, with her usual shattering honesty. “To tell you the truth, it was partly because he turned up at the flat tonight that I cleared out.”
“Tony, what in the world did you get engaged to that fellow for?”
“I can't make it out. It's all most odd, and I'm inclined to think I really must have been slightly deranged when I did it. But really, Giles, I thought I liked him awfully. And Kenneth had just picked up Violet, and life seemed fairly moth-eaten anyway, so - so I got engaged to Rudolph. And the funny part of it is I went on thinking he'd do for ages, and never noticed the things Kenneth kept on pointing out, like showing his teeth too much when he smiles, and wearing the sort of smart clothes that one's own men don't wear. And I didn't see that he was on the flashy side, till all of a sudden it dawned on me. I mean, absolutely in a burst. I can tell you the exact date, It was that Sunday - the day after Arnold was murdered - when we were all in the studio. You were there too, and Violet. It came over me like a - like a tidal wave, for no reason at all. And now I feel rather rotten about it, because really he didn't do anything to make me go clean off him like that.”
“It doesn't matter how rotten you feel about it, Tony. You've got to break if off. Understand?”
“Well, of course I understand. But I can't break it off while there's a chance of him being pinched for the murder. It would be a frightfully mean trick.”
“It's a much meaner trick to keep him dangling when you've no intention of marrying him.”
She considered this. “No, I don't think it is,” she answered presently. “It's bound to look a bit fishy if I throw him over while he's a suspect.”
“Tony, what if he did it?” Giles asked.
“Oh well, then I shall just have to stick to him!” she said. “However, I left him proving to everybody how he couldn't possibly have done it, so perhaps he didn't. He's being rather pleased with himself at the moment, and that, coming on top of all the rest, was too much for me, so I bolted.” She turned, as Giles's man came into the room with the coffee-tray, and waited until it had been arranged on a low table beside her chair. “Thank you. Is that cream? Because if so, lovely!”
“All the rest of what, Tony?” Giles asked, as the door closed again.
“I'll tell you. I've put two lumps into yours. Is that enough? Well, to start with, Leslie Rivers drifted in after you left this afternoon, so I sent Roger out to order more whisky - it's completely incredible the amount he puts away, you know - and then she let fly. Usually she's a quiet sort of creature, and definitely sensible, but - this is absolutely private, Giles - she's not sane when it comes to Kenneth, and from the way she talked about Roger, you'd think he'd come home on purpose to do Kenneth an injury. Well, I got rather bored with that, because really and truly it's Violet who wants the Vereker fortune, much more than Kenneth, and I've got a distinct hope that she may throw him over now that he's poor again. Though I'm bound to say that he hadn't any expectations at all when she got engaged to him, so perhaps she won't. Leslie says she doesn't care tuppence for him, but then she's prejudiced. I admit I haven't much time for Violet myself - in fact, I can't stand her but I daresay she feels a lot more than she shows. She's the sort that doesn't give herself away at all, so you can never tell what she's thinking. But that's not the point. The point is I got bored with Leslie being intense about the whole situation. She went away after a bit then Kenneth and Violet came back from that matinee in the middle of a most drivelling row. Apparently some fat old man with a pearl tie-pin came up to speak to her in the theatre, and according to Kenneth, called her Vi, and pawed her shoulder, and was quite obviously one of her past conquests. Well, you know what Kenneth is. He promptly went off the deep end, and came home in one of his moods, and pranced up and down the studio raving at Violet. And Violet made things worse by saying that Tie-pin was a Big Man in the City, and she'd met him quite by accident when she was waiting for a friend in the lounge of some hotel or other. Well, that didn't go with a swing by any means, and Kenneth was extraordinarily rude, and talked about Pick-ups and things. I hoped Violet would break off the engagement there and then, but she didn't. And, of course, I went and said the wrong thing without the least meaning to, so Violet then had a shot at withering me.”