And So To Murder Read Online Free PDF

would reveal? I do not ask out of idle curiosity. I ask because I am getting nervous. Ever since I came in here, you have been sitting and looking at me with an expression: I don’t know how to describe it: a sort of concentrated sick loathing, which (to be frank about it, madam) is getting me down.’
    ‘How interesting.’
    ‘All right; isn’t it true?’
    ‘You must excuse me,’ said Monica, arranging her skirt over her exceedingly shapely legs with a disdain that would have done credit to Eve D’Aubray herself. ‘I don’t care to discuss the subject any further.’
    ‘Yes, but I do. Hang it all!’ shouted Cartwright, vol-planing down into honest speech. ‘Why can’t you be reasonable? I’ve apologized, haven’t I? What else can I do? – Not that I take back any of my opinions, mind!’
    Monica began to shiver.
    ‘Really?’ she said. ‘How extremely kind of you. How terribly, terribly generous of you.’
    ‘Yes. And I can quite understand how you feel. I can make every allowance for your wounded vanity –’
    Monica, merely stupefied, sat back in her chair and stared at him. But she could not see him. She saw only a dim outline through a floating, luminous mist of hatred which had accumulated in her brain like smoke out of a genie-bottle. Completely unknown to herself, her skirt slipped up over her knees. She did not observe Cartwright’s expression of gloomy, cynical satisfaction, which was nevertheless mixed with angry surprise.
    ‘Every allowance,’ he repeated, holding up his hand pontifically, ‘for your wounded vanity. But (don’t you see?) there’s got to be such a thing as an artistic conscience.’
    ‘Indeed?’
    ‘Yes. I am sorry to say it, but your novel is eye-wash. It is the product of an immature mind exclusively concerned with one subject. Such people as your Eve D’Aubray and your Captain Whoozis do not exist and never could exist.’
    Monica sprang up.
    ‘And I suppose,’ she blazed at him, ‘your silly little murders could exist?’
    ‘My dear young lady, let us not argue about that. Such things are based on scientific principles, and are altogether different.’
    ‘They are nasty, footling little tricks that would never work in a thousand years. And they’re so badly written that they make me sick.’
    ‘My dear young lady,’ said Cartwright, in a gentle and world-weary tone, ‘aren’t we merely being childish now?’
    Monica got a grip on herself. She was Eve D’Aubray again.
    ‘I dare say we are. Please, before I say something I shall regret, will you be good enough to take me wherever it is you’re going to take me? That is, if you really meant it?’
    ‘Are you going to tell me,’ said Cartwright stubbornly, ‘why you hate my guts?’
    ‘Really, Mr Cartwright!’
    ‘Oh, come off it.’
    ‘You dare!’
    ‘But you do hate ’em, don’t you?’ he demanded, thrusting out the red beard.
    ‘Dear, dear,’ murmured Monica. ‘Don’t you flatter yourself, rather? I really hadn’t given it much consideration. If you ask me whether I feel a mild dislike of you and your manners and your bea – I mean, of everything about you, why, I’m afraid I must say Yes.’
    ‘Well, I don’t dislike you.’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘I said, I don’t dislike you,’ roared Cartwright.
    ‘How interesting,’ said Monica.
    It was unfortunate that she detested him so much. Before an hour had elapsed, in the evil forces that were gathering round Pineham Studios, she had to thank him for saving her life from the first attempt of a murderer.

III
The Puzzling Uneasiness of a Film Studio
    1
    E VEN before that hour had elapsed, Monica herself was beginning to regret that she detested him so much. If she had not known better, she might have been deceived into thinking him courteous and considerate. Also, he smoked a curved pipe of the Sherlock Homes variety; an abomination.
    ‘But why do we have to work down here?’ she wanted to know. ‘Why aren’t we up in that big