Daggers and Men's Smiles Read Online Free PDF Page A

cigarette.
    â€œI apologize for my husband’s rudeness, Inspector. It’s — nothing personal. It’s the way he is,” said Sydney Tremaine when they reached the door of the suite.
    â€œSorry to hear that, Mrs. Ensor.” Sydney Tremaine’s green eyes widened, but she made no response. “About this business with the dummies and the costumes — can you think of anything that has happened on the set, during the making of the film, anything at all, that could help us establish a link between that incident and this — or anything at all for that matter?”
    Sydney Tremaine threw back her head and laughed. It was a hearty laugh that made the red curls bounce about her lightly freckled shoulders.
    â€œAny number of things happen on a film set, Inspector, that make any number of people want to throttle someone or other — or throw daggers at them. But no, nothing specific, nothing that seems to connect with the attack on Gil — if that’s what it was.”
    â€œA coincidence then — is that what you’re saying?”
    â€œNo.” The laughter was gone now. “I think not. I don’t really believe in that kind of coincidence. I wish I did.” A shadow crossed her face, and Moretti had the feeling she had been about to say something else, but had changed her mind.
    â€œHas anything like this happened before? Your husband has a volatile approach to life.”
    â€œHow kind of you to put it like that! Fights and fisticuffs, yes. But no, nothing to do with daggers. Not even knives.”
    â€œWell, if you think of anything, let us know immediately.”
    Outside in the car, Moretti and Liz Falla sat for a moment without speaking.
    â€œTalk about Beauty and the Beast, eh, Guv? Felt me up when I came before — very slick. I’m sure his wife didn’t see a thing. What a bastard!”
    â€œA talented, successful, and therefore indulged bastard,” said Moretti, deciding not to comment on Ensor’s liberty-taking with his colleague. She seemed more than capable of looking after herself, and he hoped this wasn’t yet another hazard of having a female as his partner. “If it weren’t for the incident at the Manor I’d say it was some idiot teenager messing about out on the cliff path. We could be dealing with a personal problem, whatever his wife says. I had a feeling she nearly told us something else, but changed her mind for some reason.”
    â€œCould be any number of things with that creep.”
    â€œToo true. Let’s go back to the station, Constable. I should put in an appearance to reassure Chief Officer Hanley.”
    * * *
    The green Triumph negotiated its way out of the police station, bypassing the winding streets of the town, making for St. Julian’s Avenue. Climbing the road past the eighteenth-century elegance of Regency architect John Wilson’s St. James Church — now used as a concert and assembly hall — and the same architect’s less felicitous drab Gothic pile, his own alma mater, Elizabeth College, Ed Moretti drove the familiar route, deep in thought.
    His education had been like the curate’s egg — good in parts, and one of the good parts had been an extraordinary English teacher, the other a history teacher with a fondness for Aristotelian logic. A quotation from the Nichomachean ethics had been a favourite of the history teacher, and it had stayed with the pupil: Every art and every investigation, and likewise every practical pursuit and undertaking, seems to aim at some good: hence it has been well said that the Good is that at which all things aim.
    Between the three of them — the English teacher, the history teacher, and the philosopher — he had become a policeman. Not what his parents had in mind for him when he won the scholarship, but still. And, in becoming a policeman, he found himself dealing with members of the human species whose behaviour