“Well, I would. Because generally murderers get found out because they did something silly, or left some important detail to chance. Kenneth never does.”
“My dear girl, Kenneth is hopelessly casual.”
“Oh no, he's not! About things that he doesn't think matter he may be, but when he gets interested in anything, or thinks something worth while, he concentrates on it in a dark and secret way which Murgatroyd says is like our grandfather - not the Vereker one, but the other. By the way, ought he to go to the funeral?”
“Yes, of course. He must.”
“Well, that's what Murgatroyd and Violet say. It's about the only thing they've ever agreed on. But Kenneth says no. He says it would be artistically wrong. However, I'll tell him what you think.”
Her method of conveying this information was characteristic, and wholly lacking in tact. Set down at the entrance to the mews shortly before four o'clock, she ran up the outside stairway to the front door, let herself into the flat, and went at once to the studio. Undeterred by the presence not only of Violet Williams, but of Leslie Rivers, who was curled up on the divan, watching Kenneth at work, and of a tall, fair man in the early thirties, who was smoking a cigarette in the window embrasure, she said: “It was a rotten Inquest, so you didn't miss anything. But Giles says of course you must show up at the funeral, Kenneth. Hullo, Leslie! Hullo, Philip, I didn't see you. Has anyone taken the dogs out?”
“Yes, I did,” said Leslie, in her slow, serious way. “You asked me to.”
“Well, thanks. Giles says you can hire the proper clothes.”
“I daresay, but I won't,” replied Kenneth, somewhat inarticulately, because he was holding a paint-brush between his lips. “Get rid of these people, will you? They think they've come to tea.”
“They may as well stay, then,” said Antonia.