Too Many Cousins

at least interested in things of the mind—a very typical modern product. And then there were, or there had been, the other three: Raymond, the man of imagination, Blanche, who resented being poor, and the estate office clerk turned soldier, Sydney Dresser, who was a mere shade—just ‘kind’, as Cecile had said. Yet in all the six ran a strain of the same blood, and these dissimilarities might be more superficial than profound. Harvey Tuke, a convinced believer in the influence of heredity, felt he would like to know more about the Victorian merchant and the intermediate generations. For there was a plain possibility that one of these three survivors, two of whom were women, had deliberately set about the destruction of several cousins and collateral heirs. No one, it was true, could look the part less than the fussy chemist, or the perfumier’s daughter, or the smart secretary of that rising civil servant, Mr. McIvory; but the experience of fifteen years in the Department of Public Prosecutions had engrafted on Mr. Tuke’s innately cynical temperament a deep distrust of appearances. All the world, in his view, w^s indeed a stage; and the more compelling the motive, the better the actor.
Vivien Ardmore, returning with a tray of glasses, and followed by Mr. Mainward bearing another crowded with bottles, found Harvey still examining her books, Mrs. Tuke reclining elegantly in an easy chair, and Gecile Boulanger, her hands thrust in the pockets of her navy jacket, staring out of the window at the mews below.
“A souvenir of France, Mrs. Tuke?” said Miss Ardmore. “In other words, Pernod? Or gin and lime? Or will you put your fate to the touch, and dare the punch?”
Mrs. Tuke declared for Pernod, and so did her husband. Gecile Boulanger signified, by an impatient shrug, that what she drank was all one to her, and had some punch foisted on her. Mr. Mainward, with an air of gallantry, elected to try this concoction, and sniffed it in a connoisseurish manner before he drank.
“Remarkably good,” he declared.
“So it ought to be,” said Miss Ardmore innocently. Remarking that aniseed was wasted on her, she had taken punch herself and was sipping it cautiously. “I remember now. Someone brought some brandy—Courvoisier—and we shot that in. The rest’s practically pure Algerian and gin and sugar.”
Holding the strong opinions he did on the proper treatment of wine and spirits, Mr. Tuke looked at her with pity. Gecile Boulanger, who had set down her glass untasted, evidently thought that her cousin had already taken enough stimulant to fortify her against shocks, and said abruptly:
“Vivien. I suppose you haven’t heard about Blanche?”
“What about her?”
“She’s dead.”
Vivien Ardmore stared. “Dead? Blanche? . . . I didn’t even know she was ill.”
“She wasn’t ill. I mean, she took poison. By accident. Or that’s what they say. And Raymond—he’s dead too. I don’t suppose you knew that either.”
As a method of breaking bad news, this lacked finesse. Vivien Ardmore’s grey eyes widened. She gulped down some more punch as though she hardly knew what she was doing.
“ Two of us?” she said. “Good lord. Of course I didn’t know. About either. Anyway, I haven’t heard from Raymond for a couple of years, at least. What happened to him?” “He was drowned, in a stream. Another—accident.”
“When was all this?”
“Blanche died on Bank Holiday Sunday, and Raymond about a week before.”
“Why on earth didn’t you let me know, 060116?”
“Because I didn’t know myself, even about Blanche, till somebody sent me a newspaper the day before yesterday. I’ve been trying to telephone to you, but you’re always out. And I only heard about Raymond this morning, from Mrs. Tuke. Mr. Tuke knew somehow. And then later on Mortimer came—I’d Written to him——”
“Do you mean he didn’t tell you about Blanche?”
“No. He said he’d been very overworked r”
Miss Ardmore made a contemptuous sound. She discovered the glass in her hand, and emptied it. Her look travelled from tier cousin’s tense face to Mr. Tuke, from him to his wife, from Mrs. Tuke to Mr. Mainward, and back to Gecile. Except for Yvette, they were all standing.
“Well,” Vivien said. “Poor old Blanche. And Raymond wasn’t a bad sort. At any rate, he could write. I say, it’s a bit wholesale, Cecile. There was Sydney, too, you know.”
“It isn’t all,” said Mile Boulanger grimly. “Three months ago someone tried to push me under a lorry.”
“Cecile, are you serious?”
“Of course I am serious. I tell you I was pushed. I am sure of it now. I was nearly killed too.”
Again Vivien Ardmore’s grey eyes travelled round the quartette. Her wide mouth smiled wryly.
“I could do with a cigarette. And some more punch. For heaven’s sake, Cecile, drink yours up. You look pretty grim.”
Mr. Mainward, with the air of impressement with which he did everything (for women, at any rate) leapt to refill her glass. Cecile, as though her own brusque announcements had indeed shaken’her a little, emptied hers at a draught.
“I wish everyone would sit down,” Vivien said irritably. “We look like a lot of stuck mutes.” She sat down herself, her eyes on Harvey. “Mr, Tuke, where do you come in?”
“Mile Boulanger came to see my wife and told us the story, as far as she knew it. I was able to carry it a stage further. I had heard of your cousin Raymond’s death from another source. It was in some London paper, by the way.”
“I didn’t see it.” Vivien Ardmore looked at Cecile. “I say, I can’t get this. About your being pushed under a lorry.”
“Nearly under,” Cecile corrected her. “Well, it happened, I couldn’t get it, as you say. But I can now.”
“But who? . . . Who, Cecile?”
Cecile’s shoulders lifted in a very French shrug.
“You had better ask ‘why’?” she said.
‘ ‘ Well, why ? ” For a moment her cousin appeared genuinely at a loss. Then the fine grey eyes dilated again. They seemed to darken. “Oh, my hat!” said Miss Ardmore in a small voice. “The money,