2 Murder Most Fowl Read Online Free PDF Page A

his money worries caused his heart attack. Would he still be here if there had been no secrets between us? Was there anything I could’ve done differently? Something I could have said?”
    I rubbed at the bridge of my nose and then fumbled through my purse to search for my aspirin. The headache was now in full swing, beating a dull throbbing rhythm across my forehead. I was overwhelmed with sympathy for Cressida. “You mustn’t think like that.”
    Cressida simply shrugged. “This murder - as sorry as I am for Martin Bosworth, I’m worried it will affect my income. What if I lose all my boarders?” Her voice caught as she said it.
    “Did you say boarders ?”
    I jumped, and looked up into the face of one such boarder, Alec Steel.
    “Hello, Alec,” Cressida said, without enthusiasm.
    “May I join you?”
    While I was thinking of a reason why he couldn’t, he pulled out a chair and sat down, much to my dismay. Alec was one of the younger academic philosophers staying at Cressida’s, and he had taken quite a liking to me. I hasten to add that it was not a mutual attraction.
    My mother used to say that you have to kiss a lot of toads to find your prince, which meant that there were more toads than princes. To me, Alec was about as toady as it got.
    I supposed that Alec Steel didn't look all that bad in a physical sense. He had an athletic build, and was tall, with short and well kept hair, and always wore obviously over priced and freshly pressed collared shirts.
    It was his personality that was slimy. That's the first word that always came to mind. He had a way of looking at me that made me want to check for a wardrobe malfunction. He made no attempt to hide his attraction to me, nor did he hide the fact that I should be flattered and pleased at his attention. His favorite topic of conversation, apart from Socrates, was how his previous dates had not met his high standards.
    Cressida and I exchanged looks.
    “Imagine that,” he said, after ordering a prune juice, of all things. “Martin Bosworth, world renowned Socratic scholar, murdered by hemlock.” He rubbed his hands together with something akin to glee. “It’s all over town.”
    “It’s hardly anything to smile about,” I said. “A man has been murdered.”
    Alec shrugged off my remark. “No one liked him. He was highly unpopular. I mean, I’m only a visiting scholar, and I’ve already heard about that from just about everyone. Anyway, it’ll throw the whole Socrates conference into confusion. Who will give his public lecture now? I hope it’s on file, so someone else can read it. It’s only a simple paper of course, as the unlearned will be attending.” He looked pointedly at me when he said that.
    “I won’t be attending,” I said.
    Alec ignored me and pressed on. “His paper is for the masses; it’s on the reaction among contemporary Athenians to Socrates. Now, Plato represents the Pythagoreans as looking to Socrates as their most authoritative exponent, but-”
    I cut him off. “Oh, look at the time! Cressida, we must rush. I’m late for an appointment.”
    With that, I ushered a relieved Cressida from the café. We had to catch a taxi back to the boarding house. I had agreed to have another coffee with Cressida, even though I was already buzzing horribly from caffeine overload. She was awfully distraught.
    As we walked from the parking area to the boarding house, we saw Colin Palmer in the lavender garden talking to David Bilderbeck, the gardener, who looked quite stressed.
    I suppressed a chuckle. “Look, Cressida. Colin Palmer has that poor gardener bailed up. I bet he’s going on about Socrates to him.”
    Colin Palmer’s face was red and he was waving his hands around. “Who cares that Xenophon was banished from Athens in 399 B.C.E. for having participated in Cyrus’s expedition?” he said in a loud voice. “We only have Dio Chrysostom’s word for that! Besides, Xenophon had plenty of opportunity to associate with