A Medal For Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

Jamieson’s talent as a director is to know what to cut and what to play.’
    ‘Oh and what did she cut?’
    Meriel and I were the last to leave the theatre. She had to make sure nothing had been left in the dressing rooms. She thanked the doorman effusively, as we followed him to the stage door, saying she would never forget all his small kindnesses.
    ‘A tip wouldn’t go amiss,’ she whispered to me. ‘With all the junk in this bag, I can’t find my purse.’
    The instant we left the theatre and stepped into the little back street, great drops of warm summer rain turned to stair rods. I hurried into the nearest shop doorway, diving into my overfull bag. ‘I’ve an umbrella here somewhere.’
    Meriel pulled a hood over her head. ‘You’ll have to let me carry the brolly. I’m taller.’
    My heel touched something. I looked down, stepping back with a sudden gasp, fearing I had trodden on some sleeping tramp.
    ‘Is he drunk?’ Meriel took the umbrella from my hand, opening it with a swish.
    Bending, I touched the man’s warm cheek. He had lost his hat. Light reddish-blond hair fell onto his forehead. His jacket was undone, and missing a button. Later, I wondered how I could have focused on suchsmall details. Perhaps something in me wanted not to look at the hilt of a dagger that protruded from his chest. By the glow of the alley gas lamp, I noticed a streak of blood, trespassing onto the starched white dress shirt.
    I stared blankly, wondering for a moment whether this was some tom-fool stage trick with a retracting dagger. The figure might leap at us and start to laugh. He did not. In the soft shadowy light, the features came into focus. The jut of the jaw, the broad nose. It was a handsome face, frozen in a look of angry surprise, as if his lips had not expected to be deprived so soon of their cigar.
    ‘It’s that fellow . . . the one who sat next to me. He’s dead.’
    Meriel shrieked. ‘Not my Mr Wheatley!’
    Pushing my bag into Meriel’s hands, I felt for a pulse on the man’s neck, knowing the gesture to be futile.
    Meriel backed away, fear in her voice. ‘It’s Lawrence Milner.’ I stood up and as we faced each other, I saw terror in her eyes. She said quickly, ‘That’s his motor, just on the Parade there.’ She hurried to look, as though what we saw in the doorway might be some trick of the light and the real Mr Milner would be alive and sitting at the wheel.
    ‘Somebody has slashed the tyres,’ she called.
    But that would no longer concern Mr Milner.
    I waited for her to walk back up the alley. ‘Ghastly, ghastly,’ was all she could say. The body lay behind me. Meriel blocked my way. For a long moment, I felt paralysed.
    One of us had to do something. Meriel seemed to have lost her grip.
    ‘Stay here, Meriel. I’ll get the doorman to call the police.’
    At that, she turned, and ran back towards the stage door, calling, ‘I’ll tell him.’
    She had taken the umbrella. I had the choice of standing in the lashing rain, back to the window, or sharing the doorway with the dead man. I chose the lashing rain.

  
     
    Lucy Wolfendale had triumphed in the part of Anna Tellwright. The applause made her feel as if she were floating. She felt her spirit inhabit the entire theatre, reaching out to everyone there, buoyed up on their applause. Afterwards, she wanted to drink champagne, and dance in some magnificent ballroom. Instead, she had made do with a glass of sherry in the theatre bar, while warding off the sick-making attentions of Rodney Milner’s lecherous old goat of a father. Ugh.
    If it were not for her good friends, she would have gone mad.
    Now here she was at close on midnight, on the back of a bicycle. Droplets of rain hit the back of her neck and trickled down her spine.
    ‘I didn’t imagine it would pelt it down for my big adventure.’ Lucy leaned into Dylan’s back. ‘I can’t bear being on a bicycle in the rain.’
    Dylan did not answer straight away. He pedalled