Free The Belting Inheritance by Julian Symons

business,” or as though he had been wearing a mask at the dinner-table and this had dropped for a moment to reveal his true face. These are not afterthoughts, they are things I thought at the time although I didn’t formulate them clearly, and you can dismiss them if you like as the fanciful notions of a literary young man. But it is a fact that I had been completely convinced by the evident sincerity with which he told his story, and that the first moment when I really doubted that he was David Wainwright was when he said in that cheerfully aggressive voice, “Trouble?” I think perhaps he knew that his tone had disconcerted me, for he changed it again in a moment.
    For the next hour he sat answering questions from Stephen and Miles, and he did so with remarkable coolness and conviction. They asked him about school, about incidents in their childhood, about servants they had had before the war. He answered nine out of every ten questions at once, and obviously what he said was correct. When he didn’t remember something he admitted it. At one point Miles said, “What about Durdle Door?”
    “What about it?”
    “What happened there? On the cliffs? You were ten and I was seven.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “If you were David you would know. I got stuck on the cliff. You crawled up and helped me to get to the top. We agreed we wouldn’t say anything to anybody about it, and we never did.” Spitefully – I had never known Uncle Miles spiteful before – he added, “I don’t suppose you even know where Durdle Door is.”
    That last sentence was a mistake, because if David had been on the hook, now he was off it. He laughed. “Of course I do, it’s near where we used to go for summer holidays. About the cliff, honestly, Miles, I don’t remember a thing. Try and be reasonable, old man. It was thirty years ago and I’ve forgotten a hell of a lot since then. For a while after I got out of Russia there were great yawning gaps so that if you’d asked me then what school I went to, I wouldn’t have known. Since then a lot’s come back to me, but I know there are still some holes.”
    “If you were David you’d remember,” Miles said obstinately.
    Markle had lighted another cigar and now he sat forward in the wing chair, pointing with it. “Remember you were the one who got stuck on the cliff. Maybe that’s why you’d be the one to remember, eh?”
    He looked about for smiles, but found himself ignored. David went on talking. In the time I knew him I never saw him lose his temper, but now he showed his feelings plainly – or was it that he gave a calculated display of anger?
    “As a matter of fact I think you’ve been pretty unreasonable altogether. If I weren’t your brother, how the hell do you think I could have answered half your questions, how would I have known my way about the house? I don’t want to harp on it, but that letter you wrote, Stephen – well, I don’t imagine it’s the sort of letter you’d want people to see.”
    There was a threat in the words rather than in the way they were spoken, but it struck home to Stephen. He pulled at his collar and said something unintelligible. His white face was twisted so that for a moment I thought that he might cry. Then he walked quickly, almost ran, out of the room. Clarissa followed him.
    “I can’t say I admire Stephen’s taste in wives,” David said. Markle laughed. “That doesn’t apply to your wife, though, Miles. You haven’t married again I suppose?”
    These apparently harmless words made Uncle Miles clench his fists. David said tauntingly, “You don’t want to do anything silly, Miles. Mustn’t have a fracas on my first night back under the family roof.”
    “You’re a scoundrel.”
    “Oh, come along now. I’m your brother. You remember, the one who rescued you from Durdle Door.”
    Miles stamped his foot in anger at this mockery, a gesture pettish rather than angry. “Why did you come here? If you don’t go away I’ll