A Fête Worse Than Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

reasonably active could wriggle underneath.’
    â€˜They could,’ agreed Ashley. ‘They’d have to be quick, though, and there’s the risk they’d be spotted. I think someone saw Mr Boscombe go in and took a shot through the tent walls. They can’t have done it from the back of the booth because of the angle of the bullet.’
    â€˜Isn’t that awfully chancy?’ asked Haldean, filling his pipe. ‘I mean, with Greg and me standing round the corner?’
    Ashley shrugged. ‘A murderer’s got to take some chances, otherwise they couldn’t do it at all. And really, what would you see? A man peering into a tent. The gun would be concealed by his body and the odds are you wouldn’t remember it especially. What I can’t understand is why you didn’t hear anything.’
    Haldean laughed. ‘Hear anything? In that racket? You don’t know what you’re asking. The place was like Bedlam. There were children shrieking on the swings, the rifle range cracking away, people shouting through megaphones, a band thumping out selections from Jerome Kern and what sounded like a heavy artillery barrage from the trap-shooting. If someone had decided to take a machine gun to Boscombe then a faint susurration of sound might have reached us, but a .22? Absolutely not.’
    â€˜Nevertheless,’ persisted Ashley, ‘I think the murderer was taking a pretty big risk. Are you sure you didn’t hear the crack of a shot while you were standing outside?’
    â€˜Not a thing. Greg? How about you?’
    Rivers shook his head regretfully. ‘I only wish I had,’ he said. ‘To think of us standing there chatting while the man was murdered . . . I mean, it makes you feel a bit feeble, doesn’t it? I actually looked in the tent and saw Boscombe.’
    â€˜You said he looked “dead to the world”, as I remember. And I, God help me, felt pleased about it because it meant he was out of our hair for the time being. As I mentioned in my statement, Mr Ashley, Boscombe had been an unmitigated pest that afternoon and I’d tried to avoid him. But . . .’ He paused. He wanted to phrase this correctly. Greg was quite right. He was itching to be involved with the case, and although the Superintendent seemed friendly enough, he might freeze up if he thought he was being pumped. ‘You said you didn’t find the gun. Did you – er – find anything significant?’ Ashley frowned slightly and Haldean hurried on. ‘The trouble was that I, detective story writer or not’ (it wouldn’t hurt to remind him of this admittedly thin reason for being taken into his confidence) ‘was, considered as an eyewitness, about as much use as a chocolate fire-screen.’ That made him laugh. Haldean had hoped it would. ‘I did manage to keep everyone out of the tent.’
    â€˜And believe me, Major Haldean, I appreciated that.’
    Haldean gave him a quick smile. ‘Thanks. Mrs Verrity was a great help where that was concerned. But I had my hands full with Mrs Griffin and a little girl who had taken a shine to me.’ He nodded to Isabelle. ‘Belle helped of course, and so did Greg, but it did mean I couldn’t have a dekko on my own account.’
    Ashley returned the smile. ‘The little girl – is that Sally Mills of 17, Landsdown Cottages?’ Haldean nodded. ‘The thing she was chiefly concerned about was that she’d got a new doll to replace the one she’d lost. I gather you provided that for her.’
    â€˜Absolutely, I did. It was the only way to keep her quiet. After the doctor and the police arrived I took little Sally off to get a doll and my cousins took Mrs Griffin to the tea tent.’ Was the Superintendent going to count him in?
    â€˜She told us that she’d had an awful foreboding all day that something was going to go wrong,’ said Isabelle. ‘She was