A Fine Summer's Day Read Online Free PDF Page B

climbed higher, bright and warm, the sea a deep and blinding blue as far as the eye could see, only a light breeze touched his face as Rutledge walked out of the hotel and went to find the local police station.
    Inspector Farraday was in, sitting at his desk in a back room, poring over the statements his constables had collected, when Rutledge walked in.
    â€œAnd who are you?” Farraday demanded, looking him up and down.
    â€œScotland Yard,” Rutledge replied, and gave his name.
    â€œAre you indeed?” Farraday frowned. “We’ve had a dozen or more strangers in Moresby these past few days. I’ve tracked most of themdown. I was hoping you were another of them, and I could tick you off my list.”
    â€œA stranger, nevertheless,” Rutledge said pleasantly and took the chair in front of the desk. “Tell me what’s happened here. Could it have been suicide?”
    â€œHe couldn’t have managed it himself. Not just there. Didn’t the Yard show you the report sent in by the Chief Constable?”
    â€œIt did. But I usually find that what the local people tell me is more helpful.”
    Farraday grunted. “We don’t have much in the way of trouble. The occasional drunken seaman from one of the ships that put in. The occasional drunken landsman, celebrating something or drowning his sorrows. Fisticuffs on market day, petty theft, the random wife-beating, and sometimes housebreaking. Occasionally visitors come to see the abbey ruins are set upon and robbed. The last murder was four years ago. A wife killed her husband for philandering, then she marched into my office and turned herself in.”
    â€œHow likely is that in the present case?” Rutledge asked, striving for patience.
    â€œDamned unlikely, sad to say. Ben Clayton was an unremarkable man. Fifty-six years old. A widower. Minded his own business. No enemies that anyone knew about. As a rule, ordinary people seldom have them. Not the sort that resort to killing them, at any rate. He’s owned a prosperous shop on Abbey Street for many years. Survived by two sons and a daughter. They can account for their whereabouts, all three of them, and there are witnesses as well who verify their stories. But someone came into the house late in the evening and hanged Clayton from the turning at the top of the stairs.”
    â€œWhat manner of shop? How successful is it? Did he owe anyone money?”
    â€œFurniture making. The older son, Peter, says not. The firm is on a sound footing. Has been for years. We spoke to the staff. They areall respectable, respected men, employed there for a long time. What’s more, they can prove they were at home when the murder took place. If they held any grudge against their employer, they were careful never to let it show, but the consensus is that he was a fair and generous man to work for. I myself never heard any complaint against him.”
    â€œWives do lie for their husbands, sometimes. Clayton was a widower, you say? Any other women in his life?”
    â€œNot that the daughter knows of. Annie. She was her father’s housekeeper, and says he kept regular hours. That’s not to say that a few women in the town didn’t wish it otherwise. Miss Sanderson and Mrs. Albertson among them.”
    â€œWhere was the daughter when the murder occurred?”
    â€œShe spent the night at Peter’s house. His wife is expecting and wasn’t feeling well. She served her father’s dinner, turned down his bed, put the cat out, and left him sitting in the parlor reading a Dickens novel. He was fond of Dickens. As a young man, his father had heard the writer speak. Made quite an impression apparently. There was a glass of warm milk at his elbow, Annie Clayton says, and it was still sitting on the table, half full. His spectacles were beside it, and the book, closed, lay on the floor by the chair. No sign of a struggle. Nothing stolen, the house wasn’t