Free Buffet for Unwelcome Guests by Christianna Brand Page B

therefore the who. Some details to be sorted out, naturally; but for the rest—he knew; a few words recollected, a dozen, no more—and with a little reflection, how clear it all became! Curious, thought Cockie, how two brief sentences, hardly attended to, might so twist themselves about and about as to wind themselves at last into a rope. Into a noose.
    He established himself in what had been Cyrus Caxton’s study and sent for Elizabeth. ‘Well, Mrs. Caxton?’
    White teeth dug into a trembling lower lip to bite back hysteria. ‘Oh, Inspector, at least don’t call me by that horrible name!’
    ‘It is your name now; and we’re engaged upon a murder investigation. There’s no time for nonsense.’
    ‘You don’t really believe—’
    ‘You know it,’ said Cockie. ‘You were the first to know it.’
    ‘Dr. Ross was the first,’ she said. ‘You saw him yourself, Inspector, leaning over Cyrus as he was lying back in that chair; sort of—snuffing. Like a terrier on the scent. He could smell the cyanide on his breath, I’m sure he could; like bitter almonds they say it is.’
    It had not needed an analyst to detect the white traces of poison on the peach and in the heavy syrup. ‘Who brought the food for the luncheon, Mrs. Caxton?’
    ‘Well, we all… We talked it over, Theo and Bill and I. It was so difficult, you see, with no servants; and me being in London. I ordered most of the stuff to be sent down from Harrod’s and Theo brought down—well, one or two things from Fortnum and Mason’s…’ Her voice trailed away rather unhappily.
    ‘Which one or two things? The peaches, you mean?’
    ‘Well, yes, the peaches. He brought them down himself, yesterday. He was up and down from London all the time, helping Bill. But,’ she cried, imploringly, ‘why should Theo possibly have done this terrible thing? His own father! For that matter, why should anyone?’
    ‘Ah, as to that!’ said Cockie. Had not Cyrus Caxton spoken his own epitaph? At certain times there are numerous males, the drones, which have very large eyes and whose only activity is to eat and to participate in the mass flight after the virgin queen. He had seen them himself, stuffing down Mr. Caxton’s oysters and cold chicken and ham, their eyes, dilated with devotion, fixed with an astonishing unanimity upon Mr. Caxton’s bride. ‘Only one of them mates, however,’ he repeated to himself, ‘and he dies in the process . ’ That also had been seen to be true. ‘Elizabeth,’ he said, forgetting for a moment that this was a murder investigation and there was to be no nonsense, ‘from the hornet’s-eye angle, I’m afraid you are indeed a virgin queen.’
    And Theo, the young drone, stout and lethargic, playing with his stocks and shares in his cosy London flat… Inspector Cockrill had known him since his boyhood. ‘You needn’t think, Cockie, that I wanted my father’s money. I’m all right: I got my share of my mother’s money when she died.’
    ‘Oh, did you?’ said Cockrill. ‘And her other son, Bill?’
    ‘She left it to my father, to pass on if he thought it was right.’
    ‘Wasn’t that a bit unfair? He wasn’t Bill’s own father; and it was her money.’
    ‘I think she’d probably sort of written him off. I mean, it’s easy enough to hop across from America nowadays, isn’t it? But he never came to see her. Though I believe the servants let him know, when she was dying; and they did correspond. In secret; my father would never have allowed it, of course.’
    ‘Of course!’ said Cockie. He dismissed the matter of money. ‘How well, Theo, did you know your father’s new wife?’
    ‘Not at all well. I saw her when I came to visit my mother during her illness, and again at the funeral after she died. But of course…’ But of course, his tone admitted, a man didn’t have to know Elizabeth well, to… There was that something…
    ‘You never contemplated marrying her yourself?’
    But Theo, lazy and