A Blunt Instrument Read Online Free PDF

Helen cried. "He absolutely rescued me from it! I can't tell you how divine he was. He said everything would be all right, and I wasn't to worry any more, but just be a good child for the future."
    "Snake!" said Sally hotly.
    "Yes, only - it didn't seem like that. He had such a way with him! He got hold of those ghastly IOUs, and at first I was so thankful!"
    "Then he blackmailed you!"
    "N - no, he didn't. Not quite. I can't tell you about that, but it wasn't exactly as you imagine. Of course, he did use the IOUs as a weapon, but perhaps he didn't really mean it! It was all done so - so laughingly, and he was very much in love with me. I expect I lost my head a bit, didn't handle him properly. But I got frightened, and I couldn't sleep for thinking of my IOUs in Ernie's possession. That's why I told Neville. I thought he might be able to do something."
    "Neville?" said Miss Drew, in accents of withering contempt. "You might as well have applied to a village idiot!"
    "I know, but there wasn't anyone else. And he is clever, in spite of being so hopeless."
    "As judged by village standards?" inquired Neville, mildly interested.
    "He may have a kind of brain, but I've yet to hear of him putting himself out for anyone, or behaving like an ordinarily nice person. I can't think how you ever succeeded in persuading him to take it on."
    "The dripping of water on a stone," murmured Neville.
    "Well having taken it on, I do think you might have put your back into it. Did you even try?"
    "Yes, it was a most painful scene."
    "Why? Was Ernie furious?"
    "Not so much furious as astonished. So was I. You ought to have seen me giving my impersonation of a Nordic public-school man with a reverence for good form and the done-thing. I wouldn't like to swear I didn't beg him to play the game. Ernie ended up by being nauseated, and I'm sure I'm not surprised."
    "You know, you're not hard-hearted, you're just soulless," Sally informed him. She glanced at her sister. "Was I invited to stay to be a chaperon?"
    "Yes, in a way. Besides, I wanted you."
    "Thanks a lot. What happened tonight?"
    "Oh, nothing, Sally, nothing! It was silly of me, but I thought if only I could talk quietly to Ernie, and - and throw myself on his generosity, everything would be all right. You were busy with your book, so I got my cloak, and just slipped round by the back way to Greystones, on the off chance of finding Ernie in his study."
    "It looks to me as though it wasn't the first time you've called on Ernie like that," interpolated Sally shrewdly.
    Helen coloured. "Well, no, I - I have been once or twice before, but not after I realised he had fallen in love with me. Honestly, I used to look on him as an exciting sort of uncle."
    "More fool you. Carry on! When did you set out on this silly expedition?"
    "At half-past nine, when I knew you'd had time to get absorbed in your silly book," retorted Helen, with a flash of spirit. "And I knew that Ernie was in his study, because when I turned up into Maple Grove from the Arden Road, I saw a man come out of the Greystones side gate, and walk off towards Vale Avenue."
    "Abraham," said Neville. "Well, that settles him, at all events. Pity: the name had possibilities."
    "I don't know what you're talking about. I let myself into the garden, and walked up the path to Ernie's study. Ernie was there, but I soon saw I'd made a mistake to come. He was - almost horrid - as horrid as a person with charm like his could be."
    "That's what comes of getting me to become a pukka sahib," said Neville. "You can't blame Ernie."
    "How long did you stay with him?" demanded Sally. "Think! it's probably important."
    "I don't have to think: I know," said Helen. "Ernie said something about my being found with him at a compromising hour, and I looked at the clock, and said if he thought a quarter to ten a compromising hour he must be actually a Victorian, though I'd thought him merely Edwardian."
    "Good!" approved Sally.
    "Yes, I was in a rage," admitted