“The estate brings in about four thousand a year. It’s not that. I know very well he’s been selling out his invested capital for years. That’s where the pinch is going to come. What’s that you’ve got hold of?”
“Faith’s marriage settlement.”
Raymond took it out of his hand, and ran his eye down its provisions. He gave one of his short laughs. “Quite a nice little jointure! A thousand a year, most of which will be squandered on Clay!” He got up, tossing the settlement deed back into the tin box. “All right: it seems fairly simple. You’d better bring the will up to Trevellin, and read it to the family. Usually done after the funeral, isn’t it? Well, God knows when that’ll be, but if I know anything about Ingram and Eugene and Aubrey, there’ll be no peace until they know how much they’re going to get and precious little when they do know!”
Clifford accompanied him out to his car, expressing in an embarrassed tone the conventional wish that there were something he could do to assist the Penhallows in their affliction. As he added the conviction that Rosamund would be as anxious as he was himself to bring aid and comfort to the family, the wish sounded more than usually insincere, and drew nothing more than a grunt from Raymond. Clifford then said that if Raymond did not think that his presence in the house would be a nuisance he felt that he ought to motor out to Trevellin to see his mother. Raymond replied that he might do as he pleased, got into his battered runabout and drove off towards Bodmin.
By the time he returned to Trevellin, the morning was considerably advanced, and not only the Vicar and Penhallow’s old friend, John Probus, had called to condole, but the house was invaded by Detective Inspector Logan, supported by Sergeant Plymstock, at present engaged in pursuing investigations which however quietly proceeded with, had had the effect of casting at least half the household into a flutter.
The Inspector, who was a sensible-looking man of about forty-five, knew the Penhallows well by reputation but he had not previously come into contact with them nor had he until this morning penetrated into what must, he privately considered, be surely the most extraordinary house in the county. He had an impression of innumerable rooms of all shapes and sizes all crammed with furniture, many leading one out of the other; of local stone corridors; of irrelevant staircases; of rambling cellars; of huge fireplaces; and of odd doors which gave unexpectedly on to hitherto unsuspected halls and passages. He had not uttered a word on first being led to Penhallow’s bedroom, but he admitted to his dazed Sergeant, later, that he really did think he’d got by mistake into a sort of Aladdin’s cave.
Ingram, who, in Raymond’s absence, had constituted himself as head of the establishment, took him there, and was struck at once with a sense of loss. The great bed stood empty, the blazing quilt stretched neatly across it; the mountain of ash had been cleared out of the hearth; and the litter of miscellaneous objects on the refectory table had been removed. The silence of the room brought home his father’s death to Ingram as nothing else had done, yet Penhallow’s spirit seemed to hang over it, so that Ingram almost expected to hear his loud, jovial voice hail him. He was rather shaken, and said: “By Jove! The poor old Guv’nor! Brings it home to one!”
From Ingram, the Inspector learned the names and relationships of those living in the house.. He was obliged to write these down, and to refer to them frequently during the course of his inquiries. Sergeant Plymstock said crankly that it would be a month of Sundays before he got any of them sorted out. He had always understood Penhallow to have been a proper tyrant, but by the time his superior had elicited from Ingram various admissions which showed the extent and nature of Penhallow’s despotism he began to feel that his previous impressions of the deceased had been milk-and-water bowdlerising of the truth.
It had not taken Logan long to discover the almost certain means by which Penhallow’s death had been brought about. In response to his preliminary inquiries, Faith had said: “But I’m the only person in the house who takes sleeping-draughts. Unless you do, Eugene? Only it isn’t exactly a sleeping-draught. I’ve taken it for years. Dr Lilton prescribed it for me. It’s veronal. But I always keep it in my own room!”
“Is it kept under lock and key, madam?” Logan asked her.