“Yes. Arnold's been killed.”
Again the pause. “Killed?” repeated the voice. “Good God! You don't mean murdered, do you?”
“Of course I do. Bring some cold meat, or something, and come to supper. There'll be champagne.”
“Cham - Oh, all right! I mean, thanks very much: I'll be round,” said Rudolph Mesurier.
“By all of which,” remarked Kenneth, shaking the cocktails professionally, “I gather that the boy-friend is on his way. Will he be bonhomous, Tony?”
“Oh, rather!” promised Antonia blithely. “He can't stand Arnold at any price.”
Chapter Five
There was no sitting-room in the Verekers' flat other than the big studio. Supper was laid on a black oak table at one end, after one dog-whip, two tubes of paint, The Observer folded open at Torquemada's crossword, Chambers's Dictionary, The Times Atlas, a volume of Shakespeare, and the Oxford Book of Verse had all been removed from it. While Murgatroyd stumped in and out of the studio with glasses and plates, Kenneth took a last look at the half-completed crossword, and announced, as was his invariable custom, that he was damned if he would ever try to do another. Rudolph Mesurier, who had arrived with a veal and ham pie, and half a loaf of bread, said he knew a man who filled the whole thing in in about twenty minutes; and Violet, carefully powdering her face before a Venetian mirror, said that she expected one had to have the Torquemada-mind to be able to do his crosswords.
“Where did them bottles come from?” demanded Murgatroyd, transfixed by the sight of their opulent gold necks.
“Left over from Frank Crewe's party last week,” explained Kenneth.