The Castleford Conundrum

by J. J. Connington

  Miss Lindfield hastened to put the matter right before she was openly arraigned for forgetfulness.

  “It’ll do just as well tomorrow, won’t it?” she suggested quietly. “You’re not doing anything special in the morning. Hillie can drive you over.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Winifred conceded in a grudging tone. “That’ll have to do. Just tell Hillie, will you, Connie? Say I want her to have the car ready at half-past eleven. Tell her to be there, sharp. I hate having to wait about.”

  Miss Lindfield rose at once and left the room without replying except by a nod of cheerful acquiescence. By the time she got back, she reflected, Winnie would be talking about something else, and the fancied grievance would be forgotten. These affairs could always be handled simply enough, if one knew when to hold one’s tongue.

  The door had hardly closed behind her when Frankie in his turn got up and slipped quietly from the room. The moment he was gone, Kenneth shot a glance of inquiry at his brother. A slight contraction of Laurence’s brows warned him that the time was hardly ripe for the subject they meant to introduce.

  “Nice girl, Hillie,” Laurence said, reflectively.

  He settled himself lower in his armchair as he spoke, and seemed to interest himself in keeping the ash on his cigar. Winifred did not notice the close observation he was keeping on her under his slightly lowered lids. That remark had been carefully calculated, in spite of its apparent casualness.

  “Grown up quite good-looking,” Kenneth chimed in, with the air of a man making a discovery. “Surprising how they shoot up, isn’t it? Seems only the other day since she was a kid. In the marriage-market now. Well, well! Any applicants, Winnie? Any men coming about the house after her, hey?”

  This suggestion quite evidently annoyed Winifred. “Don’t be silly, Kennie,” she chided, shrugging her shoulders as she spoke. “She’s only twenty.”

  “Twenty, hey? ‘Come and kiss me, sweet and twenty.’ Shakespeare. Needn’t tell me Shakespeare didn’t know what he was talking about. Surprising she hasn’t got a string of them after her already. Young, fresh, on the quiet side, perhaps, but some like ’em so. You’ll soon see, Winnie.”

  He nodded his head with an air of wisdom.

  “Oh, well, the sooner she gets married, the better I’ll be pleased,” Winifred assured him, rather pettishly.

  Laurence lifted his eyes from his cigar and threw a silent message across to his brother: “That’ll do. You’ll make a mess of things if you go on.”

  It was quite enough for Kenneth to remind Winifred of her stepdaughter. The last few sentences had blown up the flame of a jealousy which was never quite extinct. Beyond that, it was needless to labour the point and perhaps, in doing so, make her hostile to themselves. Laurence, the psychologist of the pair, was satisfied with the result so far.

  As Kenneth was casting about in his mind for a fresh subject, his son and Miss Lindfield came back into the room together. Frankie had a cardboard box in his hands.

  “I say, Daddy, I found this up in the attic today. Auntie Connie said I’d better let you see it. She wouldn’t let me use them until I asked you about them.”

  Kenneth took the box from him, cut it on a table, and lifted the lid. A pair of old automatic pistols belonging to his dead brother met his eyes, as well as some packets of ammunition.

  “Ronnie’s old pistols!” he exclaimed in surprise. “Well! Well! That brings things back, doesn’t it, Laurie? Remember how he got the wind up at the start of the war? Revolution, starvation, looting, God knows what! And he bought these things to be on the safe side. A worrying sort, poor old Ronnie! Always was.”

  He picked up one of the automatics and examined it with a faint touch of sentiment.

  “A .32 by the look of it,” he commented idly.

  Miss Lindfield came forward and lifted its companion from the box, rather gingerly on account of the dust which had accumulated on the weapon during its long storage.

  “Let’s have a look at it, Kennie,” Laurence demanded as his brother replaced his one in the box.

  Kenneth passed it to Frankie, who reluctantly handed it over to his uncle. Connie Lindfield was still examining the other pistol.

  “I don’t quite see how it works,” she said, after puzzling over it for some moments. “How do you open it up to load it?”

  “I’ll show you,” Laurence volunteered.

  Miss Lindfield moved across to his chair and watched him manoeuvre the breech-mechanism.

  “I see now—like this?”

  She repeated the action with the pistol in her hand.

  “Here! Let me try, Auntie Connie,” Frankie broke in, pulling the revolver away from her.

  He snapped the jacket back once or twice, then pointed the pistol at a picture, and pulled the trigger.

  “Can’t I have a cartridge to put into it, Daddy?”

  Winifred had been watching the scene with apprehensive eyes.

  “Frankie! I forbid you to load that beastly thing in my drawing-room. I won’t have it loaded, do you hear?”

  “Oh, all right!” Frankie surrendered ungraciously.

  His father saved the situation by holding out his hand for the weapon which, after a pretence of further examination, he dropped casually back into the box. Laurence handed the other to Miss Lindfield, whence it in turn passed to Kenneth who placed it with its companion. Frankie watched them covetously.

  “I can have them, can’t I, Daddy? I won’t use them in the house, if Auntie doesn’t like it,” he added as an inducement.

  Kenneth shook his head decisively.

  “No. Not for you. Dangerous.”

  “But, Daddy . . .”

  “You heard what your Daddy said?” Winifred broke in. “I won’t have these horrid things used anywhere here. You’d be sure to hit somebody, Frankie.”

  Frankie, defeated, was about to make an angry retort when he caught his father’s eye fixed meaningly upon him.

  “Oh, all right, Auntie, if you don’t like it.”

  Miss Lindfield apparently was touched by his disconsolate air, for she made a suggestion to divert him.

  “I’d like to see what your rook-rifle can do, Frankie. You haven’t fired it yet. Suppose we go over to the old harness-room and try it there? We can fix up a target on the wail. It’ll be quite safe,” she added for Winifred’s benefit. “I’ll see that there’s no damage done.”

  Connie Lindfield’s proposal was not put forward altogether on Frankie’s account. She had a shrewd idea that the Glencaples wanted Winifred to themselves. Laurence had dropped a hint to her about “some business to be talked over after dinner”; and she needed no help in guessing what that business was. The Glencaple faction was in the ascendant now, and Connie Lindfield meant to stand well with the brothers. By taking both Frankie and herself off the scene at this juncture, she would score a good mark.

  Frankie fell in with her suggestion at once, though he still cast longing glances at the forbidden brace of pistols on the table. He picked up his rook-rifle and followed Miss Lindfield out of the room. As soon as the door closed behind them, Kenneth straightened his tie mechanically, established himself firmly on the hearth-rug, and emitted a slightly explosive puff of breath which was his habitual preliminary to discussing serious business.

  “Now we’ve got rid of the rest of them for a while. No interruptions likely. Can talk business quietly, hey? Right! Well, did you ring up your lawyer?”

  Winifred, with business men, adopted either of two poses. She might flatter them by displaying incompetence and admiring their ability to manage the simplest matters efficiently; or she might pose as a kindred spirit who liked to have everything ship-shape. She chose the second affectation on this occasion.

  “I rang up Mr. Wadhurst yesterday,” she explained. “I told him just what you told me to say. I said I’d changed my mind altogether about my will. I was going to alter it all, I said, and I wanted him to send it to me so that I could see what was in it. I hadn’t ma
de up my mind exactly, I said, what changes I was going to make. The main things in it were going to be changed; but some of the smaller bequests would most likely remain as they were. That was why I wanted the document, I said, to see what was what. And when I’d made up my mind, I told him, I’d see him or send him a draught so that he could make a new will for me. Was that right?”

  “That’s O.K.,” Kenneth acquiesced with a nod of his bullet-head. “You’ve got the will here, eh? Let’s have a look over it together. See things better with it before us, perhaps.”

  “It’s in the right-hand drawer of the escritoire over there,” Winifred indicated it with a gesture. “Get it, will you, Kennie?”

  Kenneth waddled across the room, searched for a moment in the drawer, and produced the bulky document. He unfolded it as he returned to the hearth-rug; and began to glance through its provisions, making a running commentary in an undertone as he went along.

  “H’m! ‘I, Winifred Lindfield or Castleford, wife of Philip Castleford, residing at Carron Hill’ and so forth. Trustees: Philip Castleford, old Wingham—dead now—and Young Hillie, when she gets to twenty-one. Very nice! H’m! Now we come to business. ‘First, for the payment of all my just and lawful debts, sickbed and funeral expenses . . .’ and so on. Then five thousand to me—thanks! And five thousand to Laurie, too. And a couple of hundred to Doris Lindfield or Seldon. That drops out; she’s dead. And five thousand to Connie. I don’t grudge that. And some odds and ends of jewellery to her, too. And another hundred or two in minor things to different people. And”—his voice choked very slightly at the next item—“the residue of my estate to my husband, Philip Castleford, or, if he predecease me, to his daughter Hilary Castleford.”

  He paused for a moment or two, involved in mental calculation.

  “Let’s see. Ronnie left you just over £46,000. Just about that. Death duties came off that, though. Wait a sec.”

  “The death duty was fourteen per cent, I remember,” Laurence supplied as his brother hesitated.

  “Fourteen per cent? Right. That’s about a seventh chopped off. Say £6,500 went to the Government. That left you with round about £40,000 somewhere for yourself, Winnie. Now let’s see. Five thousand each for Laurie, Connie, and me: £15,000. Death duties and odds and ends, say about £6,000—really less than that. And that gives you a residue of just about £20,000 which goes into Master Phil’s pocket. Seems a lot.”

  He paused and glanced across at his brother. It was Laurence’s turn now to throw his weight into the scale. Winifred liked Laurence the better of the two. He was a bachelor, for one thing; and Winifred preferred single men. One could imagine things about them. Nobody could imagine anything romantic about Kenneth, with his stout, middle-aged wife.

  Laurence sat up in his chair and leaned forward confidentially.

  “This is the way I look at it, Winnie,” he began, with an air of giving disinterested advice. “Neither Kennie or I have anything personally at stake in the affair. You’re younger than either of us and you’ll see us both out, now that I’ve got the upper hand of that trouble of yours with the insulin treatment.”

  He paused almost imperceptibly to let this sink in. Winifred had a horror of death; she could hardly bear to let the thought of it cross her mind; and when she had turned diabetic she had seen herself in fancy at the very edge of the grave. Laurence’s phrases reminded her—as they were carefully calculated to do—that his skill had set her up again and that she might put away all immediate fear of decease. Any gratitude of which she was capable was due to her doctor.

  “But if we’re out of it,” Laurence went on, “still there’s young Frankie. You like him. Neither his father nor I can leave him much. And, after all, Ronnie was his uncle. It would look a bit queer, wouldn’t it, if Ronnie’s money went to Hillie, and Frankie got left out in the cold?”

  Laurence had no need to scan his sister-in-law’s face closely to see the effect of this last shot. The ever-present jealousy woke at once in response. When that will was made, Hilary had been a child. Now she was a rival, even if an unconscious one. Let her have the money? Winifred, now that she saw the possibilities, was in little need of spurring on to alter the will. It would be changed now, in any case, if merely to cut that girl out of it. And in her eagerness to set that matter right, Winifred was ready to take any suggestions which the brothers cared to offer her.

  “Of course,” Laurence went on casually, “merely for the sake of appearances, it might be as well to put Kennie’s name and mine into the new draught. I’ve left everything to Frankie myself; and Kennie, of course, has done the same.”

  “Naturally,” Kenneth jerked out in confirmation.

  “So if you care to put our names in, it’ll do no harm,” Laurence pointed out. “We shan’t be there to hear your will read, but still I’d like to feel I was in it. You too Kennie?”

  “Same here. Sentiment, hey? Just for the look of the thing. After all, we’ve been good friends, eh, Winnie?”

  Winifred was listening with only half her attention. The rest of her mind was filled with a malicious delight at the thought of being able to damage Hilary at no cost to herself. What an escape that had been! When the will was made, she had paid little attention to its details, her mind being filled with other things; and she had been too stupid to follow out the implications of the testament until Laurence had put them bluntly before her that night. Now that she knew where she stood, she would take good care that no money of hers went in that direction. She had a vision of Hilary surviving her, still young and fresh, and rich as well. Not that!

  “Yes, yes,” she said, absently, in response to Kenneth’s half-heard remark. “Of course, Kennie. I quite agree with you. I do indeed.”

  Laurence struck while the iron was hot. In her present mood she would agree to anything; and once it was down in black and white, she would stick to it, merely to avoid trouble. He pulled out a notebook, rested it on his knee, and began to jot down items.

  “Just let me have that will, Kennie. Thanks. Now how would something like this do? I’ll dot down the points. Then Wadhurst can turn the draught into legal form.”

  Winifred nodded absent-mindedly in response.

  “First, then,” Laurence went on, “All just and lawful debts, etc. That’s usual. Second . . . let’s see.” He consulted the will. “The two legacies to Kennie and myself come later, so they drop out at this point. Your half-sister Doris drops out also. Connie’s the next. What about Connie?”

  “Connie’s down for £5,000 in that will,” Kenneth put in nervously.

  “I know that,” Laurence retorted rather impatiently. “But do you think five thousand’s enough for her, Winnie? She’s no relation of ours; but she’s your half-sister. Relationship ought to count. I’d be inclined, in your shoes, to give Connie more than that. Say £7,500. How would that do?”

  Kenneth’s mouth opened to protest, but closed abruptly as Laurence’s brows contracted sharply. Kenneth could not see the point of this generosity—which would be at their expense—but Laurence was the chief tactician of the pair and Kenneth was accustomed to follow blindly on the lines laid down by the mastermind.

  “Yes, let Connie have it. I think she ought to have it. I do indeed,” Winifred hastened to agree.

  “And the same jewellery?” Laurence pursued. “Or perhaps you’d like Hillie to have some of that?”

  “No! I don’t want that. She’s to get none of it. Put it down that Connie’s to get all my jewellery. Not just those things you have there in the will. I’ve bought a lot of things since then, and Connie’s to have everything. Make that clear, Laurie.”

  “Very good, then. And now there are one or two odd legacies. They can stand, I suppose? You agree? Then that’s that. And the next item’s Phil. H’m! A man ought to be able to look after himself in this world. Say a couple of thousand for Phil? How would that do? That’ll give Hillie a hundred a year after Phil dies. Let it go at that?”

  A hundred a year to that l
ittle upstart! Winifred was driven to protest.

  “A. hundred a year seems an awful lot for that girl, Laurie. She ought to be able to earn her own living, at her age really. She’s no relation of mine. She’s no claim on me, not the slightest. Connie’s different altogether.”

  Laurence’s face admirably concealed his enjoyment at the success of his tactics. He had steered very neatly round the rock of Castleford himself.

  “It might look shabby, if you didn’t do something,” he pointed out in a convincing tone. “We want to be fair, don’t we? And that seems fair enough—generous, if anything, but still fair. It might cause talk if you didn’t do something on that side, and for the sake of Ronnie’s memory I think any talk of that sort would be a pity. You agree, Kennie?”

  “Oh, all right,” Kenneth acquiesced sulkily.

  Then a jest in his own peculiar line of humour occurred to him.

  “You can always marry the wench yourself, Laurie. Keep it all in the family, hey? Ha! Ha! That’s a good notion, eh?”

  Laurence shot an angry glance at him under frowning brows.

  “Sometimes I feel like Queen Victoria, Kennie. ‘We are not amused.’ If I thought of marrying, I’d want somebody ten or fifteen years older than Hillie—somebody with experience of life.”

  At this sentiment, Winnie gave an unconscious nod of approval. Laurence was a man of discrimination, she reflected. He had the good sense to see how little real attraction there was in an empty-headed chit, compared with a woman of her own age.

  Kenneth opened his mouth and closed it again abruptly. He had meant to say: “Like Connie, eh?” but his brother’s face warned him that further personalities had best be left alone.

  “That’s about all,” Laurence pointed out, returning to the problem of bequests. “I take it that your wishes would be met by this arrangement for the residue of the estate: Kennie and I are to be put down for the life-rent of it, divided equally between us. After we’re gone, Frankie comes into the capital sum. That makes sure he gets it eventually and it puts Kennie and me nominally into the will for sentiment’s sake. Executors: say Connie, Kennie, and I, with a Bank or the Public Trustee to come if Kennie and I die first. That’s what you wanted, I think, Winnie?”