A sudden, fearful death Read Online Free PDF Page A

Albert?"
    "He was in good spirits the
last time I saw him," Monk replied without a flicker. "But that was
some little time ago. I was passing in this area, and since he spoke so kindly
of you, I took the liberty of calling."
    "No doubt my wife has offered
you tea? I saw it set out in the withdrawing room."
    "Thank you." Monk accepted
because it would have called for considerable explanation to leave without it
now, and half an hour or so in their company might give him a better feel for
the family and its relationships.
    However, when he did leave some
forty-five minutes later he had neither altered nor added to his original
impression, nor his misgivings.
    * * * * *
    "What troubles you?"
Callandra Daviot asked over supper in her cool green dining room. She sat back
in her chair regarding Monk curiously. She was middle-aged, and not even her
dearest friend would have called her beautiful. Her face was full of character;
her nose was too long, her hair obviously beyond the ability of her maid to
dress satisfactorily, let alone fashionably, but her eyes were wide, clear,
and of remarkable intelligence. Her gown was a most pleasing shade of dark
green, though of a cut neither one thing nor another, as though an unskilled
dressmaker had tried to update it Monk regarded her with total affection. She
was candid, courageous, inquisitive, and opinionated in the best possible way.
Her sense of humor never failed her. She was everything he liked in a friend,
and she was also generous enough to have engaged him as a business partner,
sustaining him during those times when his cases were too few or too paltry to
provide an adequate income. In return she required to know all he was able to
tell her of each affair in which he involved himself. Which was what he was
doing this evening in the dining room, over an excellent supper of cold pickled
eel and fresh summer vegetables. He knew, because she had told him, that there
was plum pie and cream to follow, and a fine Stilton cheese.
    "It is totally
unprovable," he answered her question. "There is nothing whatever
except Marianne's word for it that the whole event ever took place at all, let
alone that it took place as she described it."
    "Do you doubt her?" she
said curiously, but there was no offense in her voice.
    He hesitated several moments,
unsure, now that she asked, whether he did or not. She did not interrupt his
silence, nor draw the obvious conclusion, but went on eating her fish.
    "Some of what she says is the
truth," he said finally. "But I think she is also concealing
something of importance."
    "That she was willing?" She
looked up at him, watching his face.
    "No—no I don't think so."
    "Then what?"
    "I don't know."
    "And what do they intend to do
if you should discover who it is?" she asked with raised eyebrows.
"After all, who could it be? Total strangers do not vault over suburban
garden walls in the hope of finding some maiden alone in the summerhouse whom
they can ravish, sufficiently quietly not to rouse the gardener or servants,
and then leap back again and disappear."
    "You make it sound
absurd," he said dryly, taking a little more of the eel. It really was
excellent.
    "Life is often absurd,"
she replied, passing him the sauce. "But this is also unlikely, don't you
agree?"
    "Yes I do." He spooned
sauce onto his plate liberally. "What is most unlikely is that it is
really someone who was a complete stranger to her. If it was someone she knew,
who came through the house, and therefore was aware that there was no one
within earshot, and that his mere presence would not alarm her, as a stranger
would, then it becomes much less unlikely."
    "What concerns me far
more," Callandra went on thoughtfully, "is what they intend to do
when you tell them who it is—if you do."
    It was something which had troubled
him also.
    Callandra grunted. "Sounds
like a private revenge. I think perhaps you should consider very carefully what