Death in the Stocks Read Free Page B

through the back,' said the Inspector.
    'Oh!' said Antonia. 'Rather beastly.'
    'Yes,' said the Inspector.
    She stretched out her hand mechanically towards an open box of cigarettes, and began to tap one of them on her thumb-nail. 'Very nasty,' she observed. 'Who did it?'
    'The police have no information on that point at present, miss.'
    She struck a match, and lit the cigarette. 'Well, I didn't, if that's what you want to know. Have you come here to arrest me, or something?'
    'Certainly not, miss. All I wish to do is to make a few inquiries. Anything you can tell me that would throw some light on -'
    She shook her head. 'Sorry, but I can't. We haven't been on speaking terms for months.'
    'Excuse me, miss, but if that's so, how do you come to be in Mr Vereker's house now?'
    'Oh, that's easy,' she replied. 'He wrote me a letter which made me see red, so I came down to have it out with him.'
    'May I ask if you have that letter, miss?'
    'Yes, but I don't propose to show it to you, if that's what you're after. Purely personal.'
    'I take it the matter was very pressing? Mr Vereker would have been in London again on Monday?'
    'Well, I didn't feel like waiting till Monday,' retorted Antonia. 'He wasn't in Eaton Place when I rang up, so I took a chance on his being here. He wasn't, but the beds were made up, and there was some milk and butter and eggs and things in the larder, which made it look fairly certain that he was expected, so I waited for him. When he didn't turn up at midnight I went to bed, because it seemed to be a bit late to go home again then.'
    'I see. And you haven't been out of the house since - I think you said it was about seven o'clock - last night?'
    'Yes, of course I've been out of the house since then,' she said impatiently. 'I took the dog for a run just before I turned in. That's when he had the fight. A mangy looking retriever set on him about half a mile from here. Blood and fur all over the place. However, there was no real damage done.'
    The Constable was surveying the bull-terrier, lying watchfully by the door. 'You dog wasn't hurt then, miss?' he ventured.
    She looked contemptous. 'Hardly at all. He's a bull terrier.'
    'I was only thinking, miss,' said the Constable, with a deprecating glance towards the Inspector, 'that it was odd your dog wasn't bitten too.'
    'You don't seem to know much about bull-terriers,' said Antonia.
    'That'll do, Dickenson,' intervened the Inspector. He addressed Antonia again. 'I shall have to ask you, miss, if you would come back to the Police Station with me. You'll understand that you being a relative, and in Mr Vereker's house at the time, the Chief Constable would like to have your statement, and any particulars you can give of the deceased's -'
    'But I tell you I don't know anything about it,' said Antonia snappishly. 'Moreover, if I'm wanted to make statements and sign things, I'll have a lawyer down to see I don't go and incriminate myself.'
    The Inspector said in a measured tone. 'No one wants you to do that, miss. But you must surely realise that the police are bound to want all the information they can get. You can't object to telling the Chief Constable quite simply anything you know about your brother -'
    'Don't keep on calling him my brother! Half-brother!'
    'I beg pardon, I'm sure. Anything you know about your half-brother, and what you yourself were doing at the time of the murder.'
    'Well, I've already told you that.'
    'Yes, Miss, and what I want you to do is tell it again, just in what words you please, at the Station, where it can be taken down in shorthand, and given you to read over and correct, if you like, and sign. There isn't any harm in that, is there?'
    The girl stubbed the end of her cigarette into her saucer. 'It seems to me there might he a lot of harm in it,' she said with paralysing frankness. 'If you're going to investigate my half-brother's murder you're bound to find out quite a lot of happy little details about our family, so I might just as