“Mustn’t it be lovely to be Conrad?” said Aubrey, looking round the table. “Sitting there in a perfectly unassailable position, making spiteful remarks to me! I cant help entertaining what I admit to be a very ignoble hope that we shall discover that he had a motive for killing Father after all.”
Conrad looked rather taken aback. “Look here, who do you consider might have had a motive?”
“It would be so much easier to tell you who hadn’t,” replied Aubrey. “I shouldn’t think even a policeman could suspect darling Aunt Clara. Unless you’re cherishing a hideous secret, you would appear to be out of the running — but do try not to look so smug about it! It goes against the grain, but I’m bound to say I don’t see what Eugene would have had to gain. Char and Ingram seem to be out of it too. I can’t think of anyone else.”
“You’d much better not talk about it at all,” said Clara severely. “Depend upon it, it won’t lead to any good.”
“I don’t know about anyone else, but if you mean to say that you think Bart would have laid a finger on Father...”
Aubrey sighed. “I simply can’t bear it when you start on your oppressive Damon and Pythias act, Con dear. I daresay Bart didn’t do it, but the meanest intelligence — yes, that’s my polite way of saying yours, so that angry flush isn’t wasted — must perceive that he has a perfectly beautiful motive. Of course, if Ray is the murderer, the whole thing is most sordid, because he must have done it for filthy lucre, which one can’t help feeling lets the whole family down; but if Bart did it, his motive, however little it may appeal to me personally, lifts the crime on to a much higher plane. All for Love, in fact. Darling Clara, please pour me out another cup of coffee!”
“I consider it in the highest degree unlikely that Bart had anything at all to do with it,” said Charmian, before Bart could speak.
“Yes, precious, so do I, but if half what one reads is true love has a most peculiar effect, even upon people like Bart. I wouldn’t know. Of course, the thing that would afford one a really subtle gratification would be to find that Faith had atoned for years of almost complete ineffectiveness by — Oh dear, there’s Clay! To think I had nearly committed a social solecism! I didn’t quite though,, did I?"
“If you imagine I’m going to sit here while you cast your rotten aspersions on my mother, you’re jolly well mistaken!” said Clay, growing very red in the face, and assuming the blustering tone he was too prone to use when talking to his brothers.
“Why don’t you knock me down?” mocked Aubrey. “Go on! What are you waiting for?”