Sequel to Murder: The Cases of Arthur Crook and Other Mysteries by Anthony Gilbert

Author:Anthony Gilbert [Gilbert, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781936363247
Publisher: Crippen & Landru
Published: 2018-01-06T16:00:00+00:00

The Reading of The Will

They all hated her, they had all been wronged by her, but they all accepted without question her invitation to Holdenbrooke Castle to hear the reading of her will. Not that she was dead, or had, so far as they could guess, any thought of dying. People said she was like the phœnix, this evil, brilliant, fearless old autocrat, rising afresh from the ashes of each sick-bed. She had had three mortal illnesses during the five-and-twenty years of her seclusion and had disdainfully conquered them all. So long, indeed, had she withdrawn from life that she was spoken of in the same way as unicorns, warlocks, and other fabulous creatures. Fantastic tales were told of her life in that magnificent Northumbrian Castle; of her amazing extravagance, of the vast luxury in which she lived, of great trains of servants, of wonderful room with hand-painted walls, or gorgeous meals sumptuously served, of lights kept blazing night and day in those enormous unoccupied rooms, of astounding clothes (rumor declared that she wore no dress twice), of jewels that would have made women faint and sicken for jealousy, of great gardens where she never walked, and horses she never used... . And her relations died and were ruined, and wandered over the face of the earth, because she was pleased it should be so. There was a curse on the Holdenbrooke men, and their luck always gave way under their feet.

Her kinsfolk, when they read her strange, satirical summons, thought they knew what it implied—all, that is, except young Roger Holme, whose wife, Anne Holdenbrooke, had been dead six months.

“She’ll ask us all that damned way,” exclaimed hollow-cheeked, nerve racked Philip Holdenbrooke, “just to see our faces when she tells us she’s left her damned hoard to her serving-wench, and not a stiver to any of us. And we shall pay our own expenses.” The others all said the same; nevertheless, they all went.

Rather meticulously they chose different carriages, but they could not avoid one another when they reached Holdenbrooke, and huddled, a frozen, disheartened, hangdog little band, all acutely conscious of their material failure, all hating the tyrant at the castle, all too much in awe of her to say it aloud. She had to-day offered them fresh insult by refusing to send her own carriages, and arranging to have them conveyed by the ramshackle station omnibus. They climbed in like whipped dogs—Oswald, her eldest nephew, and Angela, his wife, black hatred in their hearts, remembering the child who had died of meningitis three years ago, and the Duchess’s answer to their appeal. “I am no supporter of the mealy-mouthed doctrine of the survival of the unfit.” The words beat in their ears like a drum; Philip, the younger nephew, and Hester, his wife, avoiding glances, heads bowed, cheeks flushed, ever since that frightful affair of the forged cheque in an hour of crazy desperation; only that blood-tie had saved them from prosecution, and that hadn’t kept them from semi-starvation.

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