Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains Read Online Free PDF

tea and cleared his throat in a final-sounding way. ‘The day is upon us. I always said it would come.’
    ‘I’m not sure I understand.’
    ‘A shutdown,’ he said. All news was bad news with Hugh and his fears of an uprising were so oft expressed that I had ceased taking any notice of them. He had, for instance, continued to mutter darkly about Lenin even after he was dead and gone. This, however, sounded more definite than usual.
    ‘Shutdown of what?’ I asked.
    ‘Everything,’ Hugh told me with a thrill of angry pleasure. ‘The whole country held to ransom, Dandy. No food in the shops, gasworks stopped, electricity dried up, hospitals in darkness, fires raging with no firemen to put them out, no teachers in the schools, factories silent . . .’
    ‘But they can’t do that,’ I said. ‘There must be laws.’
    ‘Laws!’ said Hugh, with a very dry laugh. ‘The overthrow of the rule of law is the whole point, my dear. That’s what they want and they’ve been champing for a chance to get started on it. The miners are just the excuse they’ve been waiting for.’
    ‘But that sounds like . . .’
    ‘A revolution,’ he thundered. ‘Which is exactly what it is. A workers’ revolt.’
    ‘Stop it,’ I said, feeling genuinely scared now. ‘That could never happen. Not here.’
    ‘They’re voting this afternoon,’ said Hugh, tapping a finger on the newspaper where he had read it. I let my breath go in a great rush and shook my head at him.
    ‘Well, exactly!’ I said. ‘They’re voting on it. They’ll never do it, Hugh; you’re a fearful dramatist sometimes.’
    ‘I shall remind you that you said so,’ he said, much on his dignity, and with that the conversation was at its close.
    ‘Grant,’ I said, sidling into my bedroom again after breakfast. Grant started violently, and she and I both winced as her knuckles rapped against the inside of the drawer where she was carefully laying out newly ironed underclothes.
    ‘Nothing wrong is there?’ she said. ‘Madam. Why aren’t you out on your walk?’ She glanced out of the window where the weather was as fine as could be hoped for, for May in Perthshire, that is, chilly and gusty but, for the moment, almost dry. I felt a small slump at the thought of my predictability, but I rallied myself before she could see it and set a bright smile on my face.
    ‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘What are your plans for the day?’ Grant frowned at me, more perplexed than ever.
    ‘My plans?’ she said. ‘I was going to start on changing over your wardrobe, laying away your winter things and seeing if any of your summer frocks from last year are worth airing out again.’
    ‘I see. Well, I’m going to have to ask you to leave all that, I’m afraid, while I bend you to my will.’ I smiled even wider; Grant frowned even deeper. ‘I – I – I don’t quite know, Grant, how much of what I do,’ – I took a deep breath – ‘professionally, I mean, has come to your attention in the last while.’
    ‘You mean Gilver and Osborne Investigations?’ My mouth dropped open. ‘I thought you must be starting on a new case when I saw those shoes you dyed. How can I help you?’
    ‘I see. Yes. So you do know about it then?’ The name of Gilver and Osborne was pure servants’ hall fantasy of course (although it had a ring to it) and I could not imagine how the newly black shoes, hidden in my sitting room while they dried and smuggled up to an attic the previous evening upon Miss Rossiter’s return, had been rumbled but there was no question that Grant was fully informed.
    ‘Oh yes, madam,’ she said. ‘We were all very proud of you downstairs over that last business. Even Mr Pallister, now that the master knows all about it and has given it his blessing.’ Grant delivered all of this in her usual blithe tone, then finished it off with a belated and unconvincing: ‘If you’ll excuse the liberty.’
    ‘Right, well, good,’ I said. ‘In that case, what