The Silk Stocking Murders by Anthony Berkeley Page A

fiancée’s death.
    He stayed about five minutes only, and immediately the door had closed behind him the two laid out the lists side by side and pored over them eagerly.
    “Ah!” said Roger an instant later.
    “Hullo!” exclaimed Moresby the next moment.
    “Great jumping Jupiters!” shouted Roger within a second.
    There was not merely one name that coincided on both lists, but three.

CHAPTER X

LUNCH FOR TWO
    “A FTER all,” Roger was saying a few minutes later, “it isn’t such a coincidence as it seemed at first sight, you know. Half the Dorsetshire list are the sort of people who go to Monte Carlo in the season. Now one realises, it would have been even stranger if there hadn’t been any name to coincide.”
    “Well, it isn’t what I was expecting,” said Moresby. “Not three.”
    “No, but it isn’t any more odd than that I should know two of the three myself. It’s a pretty small crowd, you know, the Ascot, Goodwood, Hurlingham, Monte Carlo lot; and if you get mixed up with them at all, it doesn’t take long to run up against most of them. Not that I’ve had much to do with them myself, but I’ve met a few at various functions, and just as it happens Beverley is one of them. I don’t know him at all well, of course. Personally, I’m afraid I can’t stand the man.”
    “Ah!” said the Chief Inspector interestedly. “What’s the matter with him, Mr. Sheringham?”
    “Oh, nothing. He’s just precious. Very tall, very slim, very beautiful, very fair hair, very blue eyes, and insufferably conceited. He writes poetry. Not that I’ve any prejudice against poetry, Moresby, or even the people who write it (I used to try my hand at it myself, before I discovered that nature never intended me for a poet); but he calls his stuff poetry, and I don’t.”
    “What do you call it, then, Mr. Sheringham?”
    “Tripe. Also the fellow wears a beard, which no decent, self-respecting modern poet ought to do. In fact, Moresby, I won’t disguise from you the fact that the man is a poisonous creature, although, I fear, hopelessly harmless. The one thing I’d swear in his favour is that he couldn’t kill a fellow-creature to save his own life. No, I wish he was our man, but he can’t be, not possibly. He’s a son of Lord Beverley, of course.”
    “Um!” observed Chief Inspector Moresby. “And this other one you know, Gerald Newsome?”
    “Jerry Newsome? Oh, he used to be a great friend of mine. We were at school together, and then Oxford. Yes, I remember he came from Dorsetshire. Oh; Jerry’s out the question. A charming fellow, without a kink in his length or breadth. He got a half-blue for tennis, I remember. Smote a very vicious ball indeed.”
    “Ah!” said Moresby, with an expressionless face. “Strong sort of chap?”
    “Very wiry, yes; not particularly big, but— Oh, I see. No, Moresby, I don’t think you need worry about Jerry. He’s even more out of the question than Beverley.”
    “Then that seems to leave only George Dunning.” said the Chief Inspector, consulting the lists.
    “Then George Dunning it is, whoever he may be,” replied Roger with complete conviction. “We concentrate on George Dunning, Moresby.”
    “Um!” said Chief Inspector Moresby, and reached for
Who’s Who
.
    Of the three suspects only Beverley figured in
Who’s Who,
but beyond the fact that the poet had been educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and had published two volumes of verse and one of plays, that omniscient volume added little to their knowledge. As to Newsome, Roger had fallen out of touch with him of recent years, but had an idea that he had retired to look after his estate in Dorsetshire on the death of his father. A slip of paper despatched by Moresby to some unknown destination brought the information in a very short time that this was the case, and the place in question was found to be within ten miles of Little Monckton. The same slip also brought the information, a few minutes