Buried for Pleasure Read Online Free PDF

trousers tucked into large black gumboots. And he was moving in a crouched, furtive manner, like one who tries to evade pursuit.
    On reaching the edge of the pond, however, he straightened up and glanced quickly about him; then produced from the pocket of his coat a large, antique service revolver which seemed to be attached by a length of string to his braces. This he levelled at a wizened sapling which was growing by the hedge.
    â€˜Bang,’ he said. ‘Bang, bang, bang.’
    Now a look of satisfaction appeared on his face, and, turning, he suddenly hurled the revolver, still attached to its string, into the centre of the pond. After a moment’s pause he hauled it out again, like a fish on the end of a line, removed the string both from it and from his braces, wrapped this string in a piece of newspaper, crammed it into his pocket and, leaving the revolver where it lay, hurried across to the sapling, where with much difficulty he shouldered an imaginary burden and tottered with it in Fen’s direction. The duck, which had ambled into his path, gave him one look and then fled away before him, quacking angrily, like a leaf driven by an autumn gale.
    It was clear that the man had not yet become aware of Fen’s presence. He staggered almost as far as the gate, lowered his invisible load to the ground with a sigh of relief, pulled off his coat, removed the paper-wrapped length of string from its pocket, turned the coat delicately right side out, and with much groaning and effort began putting it on to whatever it was he imagined was lying at his feet.
    He was thus engaged when, becoming abruptly conscious that he was not alone, he looked up and caught Fen’s fascinated eye.
    He stood upright, slowly, and expelled his breath in a long gasp of dismay.
    â€˜A – aaaaaah,’ he said.
    They gazed rigidly at one another for a moment longer. Then the man, recovering the power of articulate speech, remarked: ‘I’m not mad.’
    This discouraging social gambit touched Fen. He said kindly: ‘Of course you’re not mad.’
    The man became frantic. ‘I’m really not mad, I mean,’ he said.
    â€˜I quite believe you,’ said Fen. ‘You needn’t imagine I’m just trying to humour you.’
    â€˜You see,’ the man nervously explained, ‘there’s a lunatic at large, and I was afraid that you, being a stranger, might assume – –’
    â€˜No, no,’ Fen assured him. ‘I never had any doubt about what you were doing. But I imagine few detective novelists can be as scrupulous.’
    The man relaxed suddenly, and began wiping his forehead with a brightly coloured handkerchief. He picked up the reefer jacket and put it on.
    â€˜One’s plots are necessarily improbable ,’ he said a trifle didactically, ‘but I believe in making sure that they are not impossible .’ His utterance was prim and selfconscious, like himself. ‘Short of murder itself, I try everything out before finally adopting it for a book, and really, you would be surprised at the number of flaws and difficulties which are revealed in the process.’
    Fen put his elbows on the top bar of the gate and leaned there comfortably.
    â€˜And of course’, he said, ‘it must enable you to get to some extent inside the mind of the murderer.’
    An expression of mild repugnance appeared on the man’s face. ‘No,’ he said, ‘no, it doesn’t do that.’ The subject seemed painful to him, and Fen felt that he had committed an indiscretion. ‘The fact is,’ the man went on, ‘that I have no interest in the minds of murderers, or for that matter,’ he added rather wildly, ‘in the minds of anyone else. Characterization seems to me a very overrated element in fiction. I can never see why one should be obliged to have any of it at all, if one doesn’t want to. It limits the form so.’
    Fen agreed,