The March Hare Murders by Elizabeth Ferrars Page B

this. I came because I wanted to talk to you about David.”
    Mark Verinder lifted his eyebrows. He said, “Oh?” and some of the drama dropped out of his manner. “David? Ah yes, the person—perhaps the one person—whom you do really love. Antigone, eh?” Pulling a chair away from the table, he sat down, resting one elbow on the table and crossing one short, thick leg over the other. “Well, what do you want to tell me about that rather dangerous young man?”
    Stella’s voice came out harshly. “David dangerous?”
    “But naturally.”
    “But you don’t mean——?”
    “However,” Mark went on, “most of us are dangerous in one way or another, so don’t let us be too concerned about that. How can I help you as regards David?”
    She looked at him doubtfully. “Do you want to help me?”
    “But of course.”
    “Can I be quite honest with you—and will you be honest with me?”
    “Have we ever been anything else with each other?”
    “Well then,” Stella said, “will you tell me, do you believe that David tried to murder you by setting fire to the summer-house?”
    She saw his eyes narrow. Small lines deepened at their corners. She saw the movement of his cheek-muscles as he bit on the stem of his pipe. Removing it from his mouth, he looked at it contemplatively before he answered.
    “Well, and if he did?” he said at last.
    “Then you do think so?”
    “But nothing came of it, so why worry?” He smiled.
    “But, Mark, he didn’t, he can’t have.”
    “But you think yourself that he did, don’t you?”
    “I don’t know what to think,” she admitted.
    “Poor Stella,” Mark said. “I’m sorry, I really am. But he does hate me, you know. He thinks I was to blame for—something that happened a long time ago. I wasn’t, and I was as upset by it as he was, but he didn’t understand that. If I’d realised, when you talked about your brother, who he was going to turn out to be, I think I’d have warned you against having him here. But there’s nothing you can do now, is there? The poor chap isn’t to blame.”
    The hostility died out of her face. “I knew you’d understand that, Mark. I’m glad you do. David isn’t really a dangerous person.”
    He laughed. “Then I wonder just what you do call a dangerous person, my dear.”
    “I mean, it isn’t his real self that hates you.”
    “We-ell, I’m not quite sure about that.”
    “There’s only one thing——”
    “Yes?”
    “This is what I really wanted to tell you about——”
    “Well?”
    “He’s got a revolver.”

    •   •   •   •   •

    Mark Verinder stared at her blankly, then he gave a whistle. He moved his shoulders, as if suddenly he felt that his shirt was sticking to him. Then he started rubbing the back of his neck.
    “Now what the hell are we going to do about that?” he muttered.
    “That’s it,” Stella said. “What are we going to do?” She added tentatively, “But I thought you ought to know.”
    “Thank you!”
    “And I don’t know where he’s put it.”
    “Better and better!”
    “D’you think Ferdie and I ought to make him go away?”
    “Perhaps. … Yet if—if he didn’t want to go, he could easily stay on in the neighbourhood, couldn’t he? In fact, it might be a better idea if I went away. I’m going abroad soon, in any case. But what a devilish situation, isn’t it? A revolver. … Of course, we could get on to the police—we ought to, I suppose—or his doctor. That might be best. Who’s his doctor, Stella? If he’s really going about with a revolver——”
    “But I don’t know that he is!” Mention of the police put Stella into a panic. “He may have thrown it away, for all I know. And perhaps the fire didn’t have anything to do with him, Mark. We’ve absolutely no evidence that it had.”
    “No, that’s true.” Verinder fingered the back of his neck again as if he had a pain there. “Yet if it wasn’t your brother …Stella, who else is