Death in the Stocks by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online Page B

I'll be round,' said Rudolph Mesurier.
    'By all of which,' remarked Kenneth, shaking the cocktails professionally, 'I gather that the boy-friend is on his way. Will he be bonhomous, Tony?'
    'Oh, rather!' promised Antonia blithely. 'He can't stand Arnold at any price.'

Chapter Five

    There was no sitting-room in the Verekers' flat other than the big studio. Supper was laid on a black oak table at one end, after one dog-whip, two tubes of paint, The Observer folded open at Torquemada's crossword, Chambers's Dictionary, The Times Atlas, a volume of Shakespeare, and the Oxford Book of Verse had all been removed from it. While Murgatroyd stumped in and out of the studio with glasses and plates, Kenneth took a last look at the half-completed crossword, and announced, as was his invariable custom, that he was damned if he would ever try to do another. Rudolph Mesurier, who had arrived with a veal and ham pie, and half a loaf of bread, said he knew a man who filled the whole thing in in about twenty minutes; and Violet, carefully powdering her face before a Venetian mirror, said that she expected one had to have the Torquemada-mind to be able to do his crosswords.
    'Where did them bottles come from?' demanded Murgatroyd, transfixed by the sight of their opulent gold necks.
    'Left over from Frank Crewe's party last week,' explained Kenneth.
    Murgatroyed sniffed loudly, and set down a dish with unneccessary violence. 'The idea.' she said, 'Anyone'd think it was a funeral party.'
    Constraint descended on the two visitors. Violet folded her lovely mouth primly, and cleared her throat; Rudolph Mesurier fingered his tie and said awkwardly: 'Frightful thing about Mr Vereker. I mean - it doesn't seem possible, somehow.'
    Violet turned gratefully and favoured him with her slow, enchanting smile. 'No, it doesn't, does it? I didn't know him, but it makes me feel quite sick to think of it. Of course I don't think Ken and Tony realise it yet - not absolutely.'
    'Oh, don't they, my sweet?' said Kenneth derisively.
    'Kenneth, whatever you felt about poor Mr Vereker when he was alive, I do think you might at least pretend to be sorry now he's dead.'
    'It's no use,' said Antonia, spearing olives out of a tall bottle. 'You'd better take us as you find us, Violet. You'll never teach Kenneth not to say exactly what he happens to think.'
    'Well, I don't think it's a good plan,' replied Violet rather coldly.
    'That's only because he said that green hat of yours looked like a hen in a fit. Besides, it isn't a plan: it's a disease. Olive, Rudolph?'
    'Thanks.' He moved over to the far end of the studio, where she was seated, perched on a corner of the diningtable. As he took the olive off the end of the meat-skewer she had elected to use for her task, he raised his eyes to her face, and said in a low voice: 'How did it happen? Why were you there? That's what I can't make out.'
    She gave him back look for look. 'On account of us. I wrote and told him we were going to get married, thinking he'd be pleased, and probably send us a handsome gift.'
    'Yes, I know. I wish you'd consulted me first. I'd no idea -'
    'Why?' interrupted Antonia. 'Gone off the scheme?'
    'No, no! Good God, no! I'm utterly mad about you, darling, but it wasn't the moment, I mean, you know I'm hard up just now, and a fellow like Vereker would be bound to leap to the conclusion that I was after your money.'
    'I haven't got any money. You can't call five hundred a year money. Moreover, several things aren't paying any dividend this year, so I'm practically a pauper.'
    'Yes, but he had money. Anyway, I wish you hadn't, because as a matter of fact it's landed me into a bit of a mess. Well, not actually, I suppose, but it's bound to come out that we had a slight quarrel on the very day he was murdered.'
    Antonia looked up, and then across the room towards the other two. They seemed to be absorbed in argument.
    She said bluntly: 'How do you know which day he was murdered?'
    His eyes, deep blue,