Blue Murder (20 page)

“Well? there you are,” smiled Leda. ‘We're both agreed on that. But Stanton's wife is very strait-laced in some ways. Oh yes, she is—you'd be surprised,” she went on as she sensed Arnold's disbelief. “I'm far less conventional than Betty, in spite of all her modern ways. I tell you she was quite horrified when I said that you and I had every intention of living in the same house together after she and Stan have left. ‘
What–alone?
' she said, in a voice that would have done credit to Queen Victoria. Of course I laughed at her.”

“But,” protested Arnold, “it's a point of view that must be considered. I did mention it to you before, if you remember, but we decided that it would be more convenient for me to stay for a bit on account of the police always wanting me for questions. I'm so used to being here that I regard it as my home, and I haven't wanted to think about leaving. But if people are going to talk—”

“They're not,” said Leda positively. “They wouldn't dare to talk about me in the village. Besides, I've arranged it all now. I just wanted to know how you felt about it. I did it on the spur of the moment, but of course I had to tell you about it.”

“I don't quite understand,” said Arnold.

“Well,” explained Leda, “I just told Betty that you and I are engaged to be married. My dear, you should have seen her: she simply
crawled
! Oh, these conventions make me laugh. It always seems so much worse for two engaged people to be left alone together—but there you are. It's all right now.”

But—but,” spluttered Arnold, “you can't let people believe that we're engaged to be married. It isn't true.”

“Of course it isn't,” said Leda, “but they don't know that.”

As if realising suddenly the reason for his embarrassment, Leda began to roar with laughter.

Oh, you poor dear!” she exclaimed, patting his shoulder. “You surely don't think that I mean to marry you, do you? I'm not quite so unconventional that I could propose to a man, and if I were, I do hope I should make a better job of it than this. I haven't any matrimonial designs on you, Arnold, I assure you, and I'm sure you haven't. But if people like Betty are going to be foolish over our being friends, the only sensible thing to do is to let them believe that it's quite proper according to their poor lights.”

“Yes, but—”

Leda looked at him in sudden suspicion.

“You're not engaged to anyone else, are you?” she asked.

“No, no,” replied Arnold. “You know I'm a confirmed bachelor.”

“Sometimes they are the most susceptible,” said Leda, “but I must say there's no one in this village likely to turn your head. But I can see that the idea of being engaged to me is hateful to you. We're such good friends that it didn't occur to me that you'd loathe it so much. I just thought it was the best way of avoiding an awkward situation. But, of course, if you feel like that about it—”

“Oh, it's not the idea of being engaged to you that worries me,” Arnold hastened to explain. “It's just that I wonder if it's wise. But if you really think—”

“That's settled then,” said Leda happily. “I'll try and ward off all the congratulations from you: people make such a fuss over an engagement. You don't need to bother about a pledge of our affection. I've plenty of rings, and of course I couldn't accept one from you as it's all a pretence. And now let's forget all about it. Where are those damned dogs?”

“Are you going to have any children?” asked Betty Hardstaffe. “I know it's awful of me to ask such a personal question, but after all, I'm one of the family, and I'm interested. It's seeing you with Paul like that, I suppose, that made me ask. I hope you don't mind.”

She was sitting on the painted garden seat under the larch tree on the lawn, watching while Arnold played St. Bernard to her little son's Pomeranian. At her question, he rose to his feet, and dusted the knees of his trousers.

“No more,” he said to the child. “Good dog, then. Kennel.”

The child obediently backed on all fours under the seat, whence he uttered spasmodic growls and barks, until he forgot, and became a white rabbit instead.

“No, I don't mind,” replied Arnold. “Why should I? I'm fond of children, always have been, but I don't imagine that I shall ever have any of my own now.” 

Betty looked puzzled.

“You mean—”

“I mean it's no use thinking about it until I'm married, and that may never happen.”

“But Leda told me—” Betty hesitated. “That is, I thought that you and Leda would be getting married soon. There's no need for a long engagement, and neither of you is so very young, if you don't mind my saying so.”

Arnold took a long time to walk the few paces to the seat.

Of course, the engagement! His engagement to Leda.

Somehow he could never remember it, and was always placing himself in some such awkward predicament as this. He wished he had never agreed to playing in this farce.

“Leda and I haven't discussed the subject,” he said stiffly.

“Well, I think you ought to,” said Betty, “for both your sake and hers. Leda may not be able to have children, though I believe there are cases where women of fifty have had babies quite safely, and she's not as old as that yet, of course. Perhaps she might not like to discuss it, though she's always boasting that she's very unconventional.”

“And isn't she?” asked Arnold.

Betty raised her delicately pencilled eyebrows.

“Who? Leda? She's the most conventional woman I know, barring none. Why, old Mrs. Hardstaffe would have run away years ago if it hadn't been for Leda. That nice old lawyer who's the coroner for this district was in love with her for years, and they'd decided to elope and snatch a little happiness together. But Leda found out somehow and threatened to tell her father. Stan says that it finished his mother: she became an old woman overnight. She never tried to run away again.”

“It's strange that the police don't seem to have discovered yet who the—about her death,” said Arnold seizing the chance to turn the conversation as far as possible from its embarrassing beginning.

“Strange? It's dreadful!” replied Betty. “Sometimes I wake in the night and think about it until I feel I shall go mad. One murder in a family is bad enough, but two...! It makes you wonder whether it's finished with yet. Most bad things go in three, don't they? And I'm so afraid for Stan or even the baby. If I wasn't quite sure that Stanton isn't in the least like his father, I should suspect some homicidal tendency in the family. But though he gets into a bit of a temper when I spend too much money on a hat, he's really got the sweetest disposition. He simply wouldn't hurt a fly.”

Arnold, knowing her to be biased, murmured some non- committal reply.

Betty regarded him gravely for a moment, then put an impulsive hand on his arm.

“You'll think it dreadful of me,” she said, “but I can't help saying this: I do wish you weren't going to marry my sister-in-law. You're far too nice, and you really don't know her as Stan and I do. I shouldn't be in the least surprised to hear that she did all the proposing, and you found yourself engaged to her before you knew what she was getting at. There!” she exclaimed. “I can see by your face that I'm right. I thought it the first time she told me about it.”

She cut short Arnold's weak attempts at denial. 

“Oh, don't worry,” she went on. “I shan't say a word about it. But she'll never make you happy. You're not her sort. She's as much like her father as two peas are in a pod, and if Stan has all the good nature, she has all the bad.” She gazed earnestly at him. “Take my advice, Arnold, and get out of it somehow. Go away from here— just disappear—anything—only don't let her spoil your life. I really do know what I'm talking about—”

“Well! And what
are
you talking about?”

They both swung round. To his startled dismay, Arnold saw Leda smiling at him.

“Vampires,” said Betty calmly. “But I can't make Arnold believe in them.”

Betty Hardstaffe cut across Leda's long-winded description of her latest cleverness in outwitting the local bore at the Woman's Comforts for the Troops knitting party, and said casually, but clearly, “By the way, I've invited Charity Fuller to dinner tomorrow night.”

They were sitting alone in the dining-room with their inevitable knitting.

“—and you should have seen Mrs. Tyson's face when I said it, but, as everyone said to me afterwards, she really asked for it. ‘My dear Mrs. Tyson', I said—You've
what
?”

Betty looked up.

“I presume that the last part of that sentence is meant for me,” she remarked. “I said that I've—”

I heard what you said,” Leda interrupted, “and if it's your idea of a joke, Betty, I can only say that it's in exceedingly bad taste.” 

Betty smiled.

“Bogey-bogey!” she jeered. “It certainly isn't a joke. I saw her in the village this afternoon and asked her. Stan rang up to ask if it was okay for him to bring a friend for the week-end, so I said of course it was.”

“
You
said!” exclaimed Leda.

“Yes. Why not? You didn't happen to be in at the time so I couldn't ask you what you thought about it, and when I saw Miss Fuller a little while afterwards, I asked her to come, too. After all, nothing is more deadly than an odd number at dinner, and it will cheer us up to have a little company. This house is full of ghosts!”

She glanced round the room into which the evening shadows were already stretching their fingers, and shivered.

“If you had a clear conscience you wouldn't see ghosts,” declared Leda. “I never do.”

Betty flushed.

“What do you mean by that?” she demanded.

“Keep your perm on,” laughed Leda. “I don't mean anything. It isn't my way to hint at things. I always say straight out what I have to say, as you should know by now. And I'm telling you that you have no right to ask people here without asking me first. When Stan comes, I shall tell him the same.”

“Oh, don't be silly, Leda,” said Betty. “What a fuss you make about two extra people! Why, at home, Stan brings back any of his friends he likes and I'm always having to open a tin of something for them.”

Leda strode across to the silver cigarette box on the side-board, and swore at finding it empty.

“Perhaps you've got more tins stored away than I have,” she said. “Personally I consider it unpatriotic to hoard, and it's as much as I can do to make our rations go round as it is. In any case, I won't have that—that woman in my house.”

“I think she's a nice little thing,” replied Betty, speaking with the assured dignity of a young matron about a spinster as young as herself. “It isn't as if she'd never been here before. I'm sure all that gossip about her and your father was exaggerated.”

“I refuse to discuss that with you,” said Leda. “I've told you that I won't have her in the house, so you'll have to go and tell her so. I don't suppose she's on the 'phone.”

“Being one of the lower-social animals!” murmured Betty. What a snob you are, Leda. Anyway, I shall do nothing of the kind. You seem to forget that this house is only half yours. You can't prevent Stan from bringing friends here if he wants to, and you can't prevent me inviting anyone into his half of the house. You're not afraid of her making eyes at Arnold, are you?”

Leda flushed angrily.

“Certainly not. He wouldn't take any notice of her if she did. You really do have some surprisingly—well, I can only say,
common
ideas sometimes, Betty.”

“What can you expect from a grocer's daughter?” asked Betty, beginning to enjoy herself. “Oh, I know that Pa owns a whole chain of high-class stores now, and has a town house and all that, but you can't deny that he started by wearing a white apron and selling candles in his father's shop.”

“Need we go into that?” asked Leda.

“I don't see why not,” returned Betty. “I know you think that Stan married beneath him, but after all, your father was only a village school-master, and I never could see that that was anything to write home about. As for Arnold not noticing Charity Fuller, it would take a better man than him to avert his eyes when she pulls her skirt just a teeny-weeny bit above her knees, and looks meltingly at him. She'll pinch him from underneath your supercilious nose while you're sniffing at her. Red heads are notorious for doing that. I daresay you're wise to try and keep her out of his way. Once a man of Arnold's age starts looking twice at a pretty girl, he gets into trouble. I'd better write her a note putting her off!”

“No, you can't do that: it will look very rude,” said Leda hurriedly. “I don't worry about her in that way at all, I can assure her. If Arnold met some woman he liked better than me, he would tell me so, and I should be sensible enough to understand. I'm not a child, and I daresay I know one or two things that even you have never experienced!”

She smiled suddenly.

“I'm sorry I sounded annoyed about dinner tomorrow,” she said. “But it is a bit difficult to arrange meals at a minute's notice these days, and Cook gets upset. It isn't that I object to Charity Fuller personally, it's just that whenever she comes here to dine—”

She paused.

“Well?” prompted Betty.

“Things happen,” replied Leda.

Some time later, Arnold was to wonder whether the solution of the Hardstaffe murders would ever have come to light if it had not been for Betty's sudden impulse to invite Charity Fuller to dine.

But that time was not to come for several weeks yet, and he had no premonition of it as he dressed for dinner that night.