Free Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery by Anthony Berkeley Page B

would he please forgive her?
    “How do you do, Margaret?” said Anthony, taking the slim fingers in his great paw; and the slight pressure he gave them said perfectly plainly that it wasn’t his place to forgive anything; wouldn’t she rather forgive him instead for sulking in that childish way, for which he was heartily sorry?
    So that was all right.
    “Why stand up when we can sit down?” Roger remarked, observing the results of his tactfulness with some satisfaction; and he set a good example by throwing himself at full length on the springy turf. The others followed suit.
    “Now what we’ve got to do,” he went on, lying on his back and puffing hard at his pipe, “is to form an offensive and defensive alliance of three. Your job, Margaret, will be to get us any information we want about the household and so on, and mine to put that information to the most advantageous use.”
    “What about Anthony?” asked Margaret.
    “Oh, he’s the idiot friend. He came down on purpose to be it. We mustn’t do him out of that, or he’d be awfully disappointed.”
    “Poor Anthony!” Margaret laughed. “Roger, I think you’re horrid.”
    “Not horrid,” Anthony said lazily. “Just an ass. But pretend not to notice it, Margaret. We always try to ignore it in the family.”
    “Reverting to the topic in hand,” Roger observed, unperturbed, “there’s one thing that I really must impress on both of you. Rather a nasty thing, but we’ve got to face it. From the facts as we know them at present, there’s simply only one deduction to be drawn; if we want new deductions, we must have new facts.”
    “I see what you mean,” Margaret said slowly. “Yes, and I see that it’s quite true too. But how on earth are we to get any new facts?”
    “Well, let’s see if a little judicious questioning will bring anything to light.” Roger paused for a moment as if considering. “I suppose you were very fond of your cousin, Margaret?” he said after a second or two in an almost careless voice.
    It was Margaret’s turn to pause and consider. Then: “No!” she said almost harshly. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you, though I realise that it doesn’t make my position any better. I detested her!”
    “You detested her?” Roger repeated, raising himself on his elbow to look at her in his astonishment. “But I thought she’d been so kind to you? I thought she was such a charming woman?”
    Margaret laughed bitterly. “Quite a number of people think that. Elsie took good care that they should. Isn’t there a saying about speaking only good of the dead? Well, I never have been a conventional person. Elsie was one of the most loathsome people who can ever have existed!”
    “Oho!” said Roger softly. “She was, was she? Talk about new facts! This looks like opening up a whole new field of enquiry. Perpend, lady! Why was Elsie ‘one of the most loathsome people who can ever have existed’?”
    “It is rather a sweeping charge, isn’t it?” said Margaret soberly. “Well, I’ll tell you the whole story and you can judge for yourself. When Elsie met George she was in rather the same position as I was in myself a few months ago – broke to the wide. But she didn’t let him know that. She pretended to belong to a good family and to have plenty of money of her own. In fact, she deliberately set out to deceive him. George believed every word she said, fell in love with her and married her – which, of course, was what she’d been aiming at.”
    “You mean she married Dr Vane for his money?”
    “Purely and simply! I know, because she used to boast of it to me, and advise me to do the same. Boast of it! How she’d taken him in and hoodwinked him from beginning to end. She got a tremendous marriage settlement out of him, too. All the money she left me. Ten thousand pounds settled on her absolutely. Of course she hadn’t a penny of her own. She often used to tell me how well she’d done for herself. Oh,