Read Death at the Bar for Free Online Page B

of meaning, Seb. What’s in the air? You can rest a minute, if you like.”
    Parish moved off the boulder where he had been sitting, stretched himself elaborately, and joined Cubitt. He gazed solemnly at his own portrait. It was a large canvas. The figure in the dull red sweater was three-quarter life-size. It was presented as a dark form against the lighter background which was the sea and the sky. The sky appeared as a series of paling arches, the sea as a simple plane, broken by formalized waves. A glint of sunlight had found the cheek and jaw-bone on the right side of the face.
    “Marvellous, old boy,” said Parish. “Marvellous!”
    Cubitt, who disliked being called “old boy,” grunted.
    “Did you say you’d show it in this year’s Academy?” asked Parish.
    “I didn’t, Seb, but I will. I’ll stifle my aesthetic conscience, prostitute my undoubted genius, and send your portrait to join the annual assembly of cadavers. Do you prefer ‘Portrait of an Actor,’ ‘Sebastian Parish, Esq.,’ or simply ‘Sebastian Parish’?”
    “I think I would like my name,” said Parish seriously. “Not, I mean, that everybody wouldn’t know—”
    “Thank you. But I see your point. Your press agent would agree. What were you going to say about Luke? His generosity, you know, and his apparently liking me so much?”
    “I don’t think I ought to tell you, really.”
    “But of course you are going to tell me.”
    “He didn’t actually say it was in confidence,” said Parish. Cubitt waited with a slight smile.
    “You’d be amazed if you knew,” continued Parish.
    “Yes.”
    “Yes. Oh, rather. At least I imagine you would be. I was. I never expected anything of the sort, and after all I
am
his nearest relation. His next of kin.”
    Cubitt turned and looked at him in real astonishment.
    “Are you by any chance,” he asked, “talking about Luke’s will?”
    “How did you guess?”
    “My dear, good Seb—”
    “All right, all right. I suppose I did give it away. You may as well hear the whole thing. Luke told me the other day that he was leaving his money between us.”
    “Good Lord!”
    “I know. I happened to look him up after the show one evening, and I found him browsing over an official-looking document. I said something, chaffingly, you know, about it, and he said: ‘Well, Seb, you’ll find it out some day, so you may as well know now.’ And then he told me.”
    “Extraordinarily nice of him,” said Cubitt uncomfortably, and he added: “Damn! I wish you hadn’t told me.”
    “Why, on earth?”
    “I don’t know. I enjoy discussing Luke and now I’ll feel he’s sort of sacrosanct. Oh well, he’ll probably outlive both of us.”
    “He’s a good bit older than I am,” said Parish. “Not, I mean, that I don’t hope with all my heart he will. I mean — as far as I’m concerned—”
    “Don’t labour it, Seb,” said Cubitt kindly. “I should think Luke will certainly survive me. He’s strong as a horse and I’m not. You’ll probably come in for the packet.”
    “I hate talking about it like that.”
    Parish knocked his pipe out on a stone. Cubitt noticed that he was rather red in the face.
    “As a matter of fact,” he muttered, “it’s rather awkward.”
    “Why?”
    “Well, I’m plaguily hard up at the moment and I’d been wondering—”
    “If Luke would come to the rescue?”
    Parish was silent.
    “And in the light of this revelation,” Cubitt added, “you don’t quite like to ask. Poor Seb! But what the devil do you do with your money? You ought to be rolling. You’re always in work. This play you’re in now is a record run, isn’t it, and your salary must be superb.”
    “That’s all jolly fine, old man, but you don’t know what it’s like in the business. My expenses are simply ghastly.”
    “Why?”
    “Why, because you’ve got to keep up a standard. Look at my house. It’s ruinous, but I’ve got to be able to ask the people that count to a place