A Question of Proof Read Online Free PDF

untidily crumpled, with pieces of straw still clinging to its clothing, lay the body of Algernon Wyvern-Wemyss. He was not a pretty sight. The manner of his death had robbed him of that last consolation. Michael turned away, feeling sick. Sims was staring fascinated at the body. The foreman of the labourers walked heavily up to Michael, touching his hat:
    ‘Tur’ble business, this, sur. Looks like he been murdered. Bill, here, he lifts up stook on fork. “Gor,” he says, “one of they boys has left his coat underneath here.” We lifts two more stooks, and there he was, sur. “Gor,” says Bill, “it’s a carpse.” Gave us a fair turn, I can tell ’ee, sur; ar, that it did.’
    ‘Yes, it must have done,’ said Michael inadequately. ‘By the way, did you move it at all?’
    ‘No, sur. Bill, he says, “Us had better shift the poor young gentleman and make him more comfortable like.” “Bill,” I says, “thou’rt a bloody chump. Leave un alone. Police woa’nt have ’ee meddlin’ with murdered carpses.” So I sent him in to tell Reverend Vale as how one of his boys was in hayfield. Ar, that was the size o’ the matter.’
    ‘Quite right. I should think it would probably be best if you sent your men back to the village. They can do no good for the present, and the police will want to search the field as it is. If you and – er – Bill could wait till they come –?’
    The foreman gave the necessary directions and his small party broke up. Wrench came half running out of the school. Michael surprised a curious look on his face as he approached. Ruminating on it later, the best analysis he could come to was that it presented a kind of alternation of relief and fear. He had no time for analysis at the moment, as Wrench, after one brief glance at the contents of the stack, retired a few paces and began to retch. He felt himself being drawn aside by Sims.
    ‘I say, Evans do you know anything about this sort of thing? I mean, he looks as if he’d been dead – for quite a long time, somehow.’
    Michael had got the same impression, though he could not say why. Wemyss did look so very dead. Sims’s remark must have reached Wrench’s ear, for the latter turned and said in a high tense voice:
    ‘Well? What of it? What are you getting at?’
    ‘Well, you see, I’ve just remembered that Griffin was out in the field over there this evening till we began the search, and he would have seen if – if it had happened then. And before that was the sports. So the only time left is between lunch and two-thirty – that is, if he
was
at lunch.’ Sims concluded his involved argument with a mildly triumphant look.
    ‘Well?’ snapped Wrench.
    ‘What I’m getting at is that I suppose we’ll all be asked where we were then. Alibis, you know,’ he added brightly.
    The other two were silent for rather a long time, each thinking his own thoughts. Then Wrench spoke in a vicious tone.
    ‘Are you one of the secret police, or what? All this panic about alibis just because you have had a verbal inspiration, I suppose it must be, that he has been dead a long time. No doubt you’ve a perfect alibi yourself?’
    ‘As a matter of fact, now I come to think of it, I don’t think I have got a very good one,’ Sims replied more slowly.
    ‘Ah, well, cheer up,’ said Michael with forced heartiness, ‘the real murderer always has a perfect alibi. It’s us innocent ones who are never able to cook one up.’
    All the same, he thought to himself, it would not be funny at all if Sims is right. He saw his objection to the body being found on his and Hero’s rendezvous, which had before been merely aesthetic, assuming a very different significance. Uneasy speculation was interrupted by the arrival of Griffin with Dr. Maddox. The school doctor was a round, bouncing little man, exuding urbanity and antisepsis. Michael might have been amused at another time by the delicate way his patent-leather-shod feet pranced through the dewy