“As a matter of fact,” Margaret went on more calmly, “I was going to cut and run for it. I’d discovered the game wasn’t worth the candle after all. But I hadn’t fixed any date or made up my mind what to put my hand to next, and then—and then this happened.”
There was a little silence.
“Can you give me a few more details about your cousin?” suddenly asked Roger, who seemed to have been pursuing a train of thought of his own. “A little bit more about her character, and what she looked like, and all that sort of thing?”
Margaret considered. “Well, she was little and fragile to look at, with rather a babyish face, fair hair, and a slight lisp which she cultivated rather carefully. She used to pose as the helpless, appealing little woman, though anybody less helpless than Elsie, so far as her own interests were concerned, I’ve never met. Her idea (as she told me perfectly frankly) was that men liked the helpless, appealing type; and judging by results, she wasn’t far wrong. As for her character, I don’t see what else there is to tell you. She was a hypocrite, a bully, utterly selfish, mean, and bad all through.” Margaret gazed out to sea, breathing heavily, her cheeks flushed. Evidently she was calling to mind some of the humiliations and unkindnesses she had suffered at the dead woman’s hands. Anthony watched her with deepening indignation.
“Did her husband know her real character?” Roger asked thoughtfully.
Margaret removed her eyes from the horizon and began to pluck with aimless fingers at the turf by her side. “I don’t know!” she said slowly, after a momentary hesitation. “As a matter of fact I’ve often wondered that. Sometimes I think he must have, and sometimes I’m quite sure he didn’t. Elsie was clever, you see. I don’t suppose she showed her real self to anybody but me. And I shouldn’t say that George was very observant. He was always perfectly courteous to her.”
“Is he very upset about her death?”
“Outwardly, not a bit; but what he’s feeling inside him I haven’t the least idea. George never shows his feelings. He might be made of stone for all the emotion he ever displays. Besides, he spends nearly all his time shut up in his laboratory, just as he always has all the time I’ve been here.”
“You can’t say whether they got on well together, then?”
“Not a word! All I can tell you is that he was always courteous to her, and she⸺” Margaret uttered a cynical laugh. “Well, it was going to pay her to keep on good terms with him, so I’ve no doubt she did.”