He let the subject drop, but might well have pursued it more rigorously had he but heard what his half-brother was saying to Antonia at that very moment.
Roger, who said that the sight of Kenneth dabbing at a picture was very unrestful, had sought refuge in the kitchen, where he found Antonia busily engaged in ironing handkerchiefs. This was a hardly less disturbing sight than that of an artist at work, but it had the advantage of being unaccompanied by the smell of turpentine. Having ascertained that Murgatroyd had gone out to do the marketing, Roger sank into the basket-chair by the fire, and lit a cigarette.
“You'll catch it if Murgatroyd comes in,” Antonia warned him.
“I daresay she won't for a bit,” said Roger hopefully. “That girl's here again.”
“Who? Violet?”
“She's going to find me a service-flat.”
“Good,” said Antonia. “The sooner the better.”
“Now, don't you get spiteful!” said Roger. “Because for one thing I quite like you, and for another I've got a good idea.”
“Why on earth do you like me?” demanded Antonia, curious but ungrateful.
“I don't know. You can't account for these things. Mind you, I don't like that pimple you've got yourself engaged to, but that's neither here nor there, and as far as I can see you won't marry him. However, that wasn't what I wanted to say. This Violet-girl.”
“What about her?”
“Well, I think it would be a good idea to get rid of her. I mean, do you want her joining the family?”
“Not particularly.”
“Of course not. Who would? I know her type. Give her three months, and she'll be managing the lot of us, and talking me into giving Kenneth more money than I've got. You may think I don't bother my head over these things, but that's where you're wrong. When I haven't got anything else to do I think a lot, and, of course, it's quite obvious that she's not at all the sort of girl Kenneth ought to marry.”
“How do you propose to stop him?”
“Well,” said Roger, tipping the ash of his cigarette vaguely in the direction of the stove. “Kenneth seems to be a jealous young cub. Flies off the handle at nothing. My idea was that if I took Violet about a bit it might lead to the engagement's being broken off.”
“Yes,” said Antonia. “But it might lead to a new one's being formed.”
A gleam crept into Roger's eyes. “If she's clever enough to catch me, she can keep me,” he said. “She won't be the first to try, not by a long chalk.”
“It's not a bad idea,” Antonia said slowly. “Only I doubt if you'll succeed in taking Violet in. She's no fool.”
“Anyway,” said Roger, “she might just as well be useful as not, and there's bound to be a lot to do settling me into a flat.”
“Are you trying to lure Violet just to move you into a flat?” Antonia inquired scornfully.
“Well, someone's got to do it,” he pointed out. “Not that that's my only reason, because it isn't. Far from it. Now I've come into all this money I shall go about a bit here and there, and she's a very good sort of girl to take around. What I mean is, she's smart, and she won't want me to think out what she'd like to eat. If there's one thing that wears me out quicker than anything it's having to choose a lot of food for someone else to eat. Besides, if she's supposed to be going to be my sister-in-law I shan't have to be polite. Not that I want to be rude, but I find ceremony very exhausting. And, talking of things being exhausting, they tell me I own the mine now.”
“I thought it was a limited company.”
“Yes, but I've got all Arnold's shares, which apparently gives me control. Of course I've nothing against holding the shares, but I'm not going to control the mine. It's absurd. I suppose Kenneth wouldn't like to be chairman?”
“I shouldn't think so,” said Antonia indifferently. “But why worry? You may be arrested for murdering Arnold before you have to think about appointing chairmen.”
Roger blinked at her, and said uneasily: “I don't see why you need to bring that up, just when I'd forgotten about it. The fact of the matter is I don't like it. Not that I did murder Arnold, because such an idea never entered my head, but it's no good saying people don't get convicted of crimes they didn't commit. Very often they do. Let alone that it's very disturbing to have a lot of detectives with their eyes glued on you. That's one reason why I shall be glad to get out of this place. I can't stand having that Superintendent bobbing in and out like a dog at a fair. It's not my idea of comfort, by any means. If he thinks he's going to treat my flat like his own house he's mistaken, and that's all there is to it.”
Antonia put the iron back on the stove. “Giles wants to know why you can't live in Eaton Place,” she observed.
“Because I don't want to be bothered with a great house like that, and a lot of servants worrying me to know whether I'll be in to lunch, and what I'd like to wear. Besides, if you run a pack of servants you have to look after them. I've already told Kenneth he can have Eaton Place, which, of course, is why Violet's so keen on fixing me up in a flat.”
“One thing I will say for you, Roger,” remarked Antonia, preparing to depart, “you may be an ass in some ways, but there aren't many flies on you. All the same, there aren't many on Violet either, so don't be too optimistic about cutting Kenneth out.” She paused, as a thought occurred to her, and added: “I suppose you couldn't see your way to marrying her? Then Kenneth could marry Leslie, and everything would be splendid. Violet would make you rather a good wife, too.”
“No one would make me a good wife,” replied Roger simply. “Moreover, if by Leslie you mean that girl who was here yesterday, I don't think it would be splendid at all. We shouldn't get on. Every time I meet her, she looks at me as though she'd like to murder me. It's very unnerving, I can tell you.”
At this moment the door opened, and Violet looked into the kitchen. “Oh, you are here!” she said. “I heard someone talking, so I thought it must be you two.”
Antonia could not help wondering how much she had heard, and had the grace to blush. However, Violet was not paying any attention to her. She suggested to Roger that they should go out together to look at flats, and added, with a thoughtful glance at his suit, that she knew of a very good tailor if he had not already got one of his own.
Antonia, seeing Roger go off meekly in Violet's wake, was more than ever convinced that she would be the very person for him to marry.
The events of the next few days did nothing to weaken this conviction. Not only was Roger installed in a furnished flat, but an entire wardrobe was purchased for him, so that Kenneth regained possession of his shirts and pyjamas, and Murgatroyd was induced to look upon Violet for the first time with approval.
Roger was so well pleased with his flat that he roused himself sufficiently to give a dinner-party as a sort of house-warming, and invited not only his half-brother and sister, but Violet and tiles as well. He did not invite Mesurier, for various comprehensive reasons which he was quite ready to expound to any and everybody. It had naturally been impossible to keep Mesurier's financial antics a secret from him, and he was only deterred from dismissing him from the firm by Kenneth's warning that to do so would be tantamount to fixing the date of his wedding to Antonia. “If you want that tailor's-dummy for a brother-in-law, let me tell you that I don't!” said Kenneth.
“Certainly not,” said Roger. “In fact, that was why I thought I'd sack him. Though, mind you, I should like to sack him on my own account, because for one thing I don't care for him, and for another I'm all for sacking someone just to see what it feels like.”
“I suppose you only know what it feels like to be sacked,” remarked Kenneth waspishly.
“Exactly,” nodded Roger, utterly impervious to this or any other insult. “And, funnily enough, the last time I got the boot it was for almost the same thing. Only, as it happens, I wasn't thinking of paying the money back. I don't say I mightn't have thought of it, if I'd had any means of doing it, but I hadn't. However, if you think sacking Mesurier will make Tony marry him, I won't do it. Because if she marries him she'll expect me to call him Rudolph, and I don't mind telling you that I don't like the name. In fact, I think it's a damn silly name. What's more, if I had to call him by it I should feel very self-conscious. Not that I really like tiles either, but that's merely a matter of taste. There's nothing against the name as a name, nothing at all.”