Free Crooked Wreath by Christianna Brand Page B

seen Grandfather, alive and well; by nine o’clock, Brough had finished sanding the paths, and the evidence of the footprints showed that nobody had gone near the lodge after that. Between those times, the family had been all together–except for him. Between those times, only he, Edward, could possibly have gone down to the lodge; and in the drawing-room was the sign that he had had “one of his little attacks.” They thought that he had gone into the drawing-room, to fetch the radio; that he had caught sight of the wreath and looked up at it again, and again lost consciousness; that, unsettled and ill-tempered as he had been all day–as they all had been that day–evil had insinuated itself into his unresistant mind; that he had taken the poisons and gone down to the lodge, before Brough began his sanding, and there had killed Grandfather. He could easily have done it in the time, and he could not say that he had not. Philip and Claire and Peta had whispered together, they had called Bella over and whispered to her, while Ellen sat beside him, talking to him quietly, asking him, as though she believed him, how he had really spent his time. But she did not believe him. She had gone to the others at last and he had seen that, coolly and matter-of-factly, she was acquiescing with all they said. They were going to try to protect him, they were going to lie about him, they were banded together to shield him from the consequences of what he, in his innocence, had done. Stephen–cold, just, quiet, relentless Stephen–had been safely away down by the lodge; Philip had gone out to the terrace and found the camera, which had been there on the balustrade all night, and had examined it. There was a new film in it all right. But Philip, at first rejoicing, had then reluctantly worked out a time schedule. A minute or two in the cloakroom, trying to be sick; a minute or two in the drawing-room, glancing up, losing consciousness, robbing the bag standing unlocked on a chair where he, Philip, had left it after the incident just before lunch; three minutes, two minutes, running across the lawn to the lodge–five minutes, if you would–to knock at the window and obtain admittance; to tell Grandfather some hurried tale about an injection ordered by Philip, or without preamble to thrust the needle into the arm of an old man utterly unsuspecting and so disarmed. Two minutes more to run back again across the grass. Five, six, seven minutes left to sit, gradually recovering from the trance, out on the balustrade of the front terrace; to notice the camera, to put the new film in, to stroll to the back terrace, unaware and innocent, and yet a murderer! It could have been done; and he knew that this was what, beneath their loyal self-deception, they believed had been done.
    He sat in the armchair, digging with shaking fingers into the padded arms. Cockrill, in the centre of the little group, rolled himself the fourth of a chain of untidy, wispy cigarettes. “Very well. Thank you for all you’ve told me. In return, I’m going to tell you something; I must warn you that I don’t like the look of this at all. I think it’s perfectly conceivable that Sir Richard has been murdered; or, if you want to put it more prettily, assisted out of a world that the killer may have thought he would soon be leaving anyway. And if he was murdered, it seems to me more than likely it was by somebody from this house.”
    If he had expected an uproar, thought Edward, he must have been disappointed. They had long ago accustomed themselves to that idea. But oh! why must they allow themselves to glance up at the picture like that, at the wreath of roses now replaced neatly above the gilt frame, at the stain on the parquet where the water had soaked in. Cockie didn’t miss those glances, not he! He pointed to the mark on the floor with the toe of his small, shabby shoe. “What’s