A Fragment of Fear Read Online Free PDF Page B

Compton, naturally not, except perhaps to point out that to meddle in matters in which the police of this country are already engaged, either now or even in the future, can perhaps lead to trouble, and even pain for innocent people.”
    He was on his feet, too, now, and moving to the door to open it for me. He said:
    “Real life people are real life people, and story-book people are story-book people. Better and easier to keep the two apart, is it not?”
    His voice suddenly dropped, and he spoke softly and persuasively, and none can do this better than the Italians:
    “Better to allow this poor English lady to rest at peace. Her life has run its course, Mr. Compton, with all its trials and tribulations. Her soul has departed, and her body sleeps in our Italian soil which she loved so dearly. Do not create from her sad ghost some distorted character for a book. Agreed?”
    He was hammering it up, of course, though to some effect. I hesitated. But he couldn’t leave well alone. As he opened the door he added:
    “Let her be, Mr. Compton, let her be! If not for her sake then for your own, for sometimes the dead can hit back!”
    It was the cheap threat in those corny words about the dead hitting back which destroyed the earlier effect of his words. As I went out, I said:
    “While she was alive her affairs were her own. But now the manner of her death has made her, in some measure, the concern and even the property of us all.”
    As a rejoinder it was pretty corny, too, though at the moment, as an off-the-cuff retort, it seemed a nicely rounded phrase.
    But like Bardoni, I could not leave well alone. The temptation was too much and I had to have another crack at him.
    “I took some flowers to the grave yesterday. The wreath from the hotel staff and guests must have faded, and been removed, since it was not there.”
    He stood by the door, soft persuasiveness gone, his entire face now looking as though it had been carved out of wood, not just his eye sockets.
    “None of our flowers left on the grave?” he said. “How sad. How unfortunate the sun has been so hot.”
    “There was one wreath, from England, from some people called the Stepping Stones,” I murmured indifferently. “And now I will go and pay your bill.”
    He bowed. I bade him good night. He did not respond. I did not care. I didn’t like him enough to care. In fact, I cordially disliked him for the way he had reproved me about the room. In fact, for two pins I would have had a damned good row with him.

    If I had been listening acutely, I might now have heard the first faint rustle in the undergrowth, even caught the first glint of green eyes. But I wasn’t. I ascribed his attempt to dissuade me from taking an interest in Lucy Dawson to some vague idea of circumventing bad publicity for his hotel. I was, if anything, more determined than ever to find out further details about the woman, and even to write an article or two as soon as possible, mentioning his hotel in a disparaging though non libellous way.
    So the peasant quickened his steps, poor optimistic ignoramus, and within a few days of my return to England I went down to Burlington, Sussex.

    There is nothing unusual about the Bower Hotel, Burlington-on-Sea. It stands as it has stood for eighty years, gazing mournfully at the Channel across the narrow promenade.
    To the right and left of it other grey buildings were dripping in the rain when I went down there. Some of them were small and did not aspire to the title of hotel. All of them, with one or two exceptions, provided a bed and food of a sort for those who wished to live or stay at Burlington. There was a surprising number of such people. Some came voluntarily there to spend their holidays, because it had a strip of sand for children, at least when the tide was low, and a short pier, a few cinemas and two dance halls.
    Others, elderly people, lived in the hotels and boarding houses for as long during the year as they were permitted to do so.