Free The Second Shot by Anthony Berkeley Page A

reflections passed through my mind instantaneously; yet though I recognized their truth, the situation seemed to lose nothing of its embarrassment. ‘If it would really afford you any relief, my dear girl,’ I said with unwonted diffidence, ‘I should be most pleased for you – er – to make use of me in any – that is – ’
    But before I could bring this halting sentence to a conclusion Armorel’s head was already on my shoulder, and Armorel’s tears had broken out afresh. ‘It’s true,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s perfectly true, what that damned woman said. How the hell did she know? It’s supposed to be secret. Eric
is
going to sell Stukeleigh!’
    ‘No!’ I exclaimed, my stupefaction such that I actually forgot for the moment that I was holding, like any hero of a nineteenth-century novel, a weeping young woman in my arms. A Paladin in Pince-nez indeed!
    ‘Yes. And the way she said it seems to have brought it home to me worse than ever. Oh, Pinkie, it – it makes me feel too
awful
.’
    We sat for a few moments in silence, as if under a common shock. In truth Armorel’s news had quite upset me. It distresses me, almost as if I had a personal interest in it, to hear of a fine old mansion passing out of the hands of the family that has owned it for centuries: and in this case… Stukeleigh, the Scott-Davies’ home, was a magnificent Tudor country house, one of the finest examples of Tudor domestic architecture (a period in which I am exceedingly interested) in the country.
    ‘And not only Stukeleigh,’ Armorel’s voice went on drearily, ‘but everything that belongs to it – the furniture, that lovely little village, the lands, and – and the pictures.’
    So the rumours had been true. Eric Scott-Davies, last ignoble remnant of a proud house, was preparing to sell not only the portraits of his ancestors but their very home.
    ‘Can’t he be stopped?’ I muttered. ‘How could he possibly do such a thing?’
    ‘Oh, it means nothing to him. Less than nothing. That’s almost more awful, in a way. He was brought up there, every one of them’s been brought up there for hundreds of years, all their pictures hang on the walls they lived in – and it all means less than nothing to Eric.’
    I admit that I was surprised that it should mean quite so much to Armorel. Apparently I allowed my feelings to be divined, for she twisted suddenly away from me and burst out fiercely: ‘Oh, I know what you’re thinking. Just because I smoke, and use slang, and don’t behave like the nice girls you knew when you were a boy in the year dot, you think I’ve got no feelings. My God, Pinkie, if you knew! I tell you, I love every brick of Stukeleigh, and every blade of grass in the park, and every reed in the cottagers’ thatches, so much that it’s like a knife turning in my tummy to think of it being sold.’
    ‘It’s terrible,’ I agreed, deprecating this dramatic outburst, but well able in the circumstances to excuse it.
    ‘And it’s so unnecessary. If I were in Eric’s place I could manage perfectly on what’s left, even now. Stukeleigh does just pay for itself, run properly.’
    ‘And do I understand that on Eric’s death you inherit?’ I ventured.
    Armorel sat, her arms round her knees, looking moodily at her toes. Her feet, I noticed for the first time, were small and particularly well-shaped. ‘Oh, yes, that woman got it all right. How the hell she knew I can’t imagine, but it’s true enough. According to Uncle’s will, if Eric dies unmarried I get Stukeleigh. Almost makes one wish he would, doesn’t it? And pretty quickly too. Oh, I know I’m a beast even to think of such a thing, but Pinkie, he doesn’t
deserve
Stukeleigh.’
    ‘He does not,’ I agreed fervently. I could not remonstrate with her for the terrible sentiment she had just expressed, for to my discomfort she was already crying again.
    I touched her arm tentatively, with the intention of expressing my silent sympathy, and to