Deadly Petard

Deadly Petard Read Online Free PDF

Book: Deadly Petard Read Online Free PDF
Author: Roderic Jeffries
different bedrooms for a while now. She’s not a good sleeper.’
    She hated herself for knowing a moment’s pleasure at the knowledge that they had slept in different bedrooms.
    ‘The bed’s not far from the door and so although there wasn’t a light on in the room, the light from the passage reached the bed. She was lying on her back, facing the ceiling and I decided she was fast asleep. I was just about to close the door again when I realized her face was shiny in a way I’d never seen before. So I went right in and when I got close I saw . . . I saw that there was a plastic bag right over her head.’
    ‘Oh my God!’
    ‘I tore it off and tried to hear her heart. I thought I could. I started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. When that didn’t do any good, I phoned the doctor. When he came, he said she was dead.’
    ‘Oh, Keir,’ she whispered, wishing there were some sacrifice she could make that would ease his sorrow.
    He suddenly stood, crossed to the window, and stared out at the winter-sodden garden. ‘The doctor told me she’d been dead some time before I got back. We found a note. She said she knew she was dying from cancer of the womb and couldn’t bear to face the agony, so she was taking some of her sleeping pills and then killing herself with a plastic bag . . . But she didn’t have cancer of the womb: the doctor tried to assure her of that a couple of weeks ago. But she wouldn’t believe him or the gynae specialist. If only I’d realized just how terrified she’d become. But she’d so often believed she was suffering from something that I’d reached the point where I didn’t take nearly as much notice as I should . . . She was always seeing the doctor with new pains. One day he asked her if her marriage was unhappy. The bastard!’ He swung round. ‘Of course, she told him it was perfectly happy. No one could have been happier than we were.’
    He walked back to the nearest chair and slumped down on it. I thought it was the end of the world. Nothing could be more terrible. And yet . . .’
    ‘What, Keir?’
    His voice became harsh. ‘You know Mavis?’
    Just for a moment she couldn’t think who Mavis was. Then she remembered the 63-year-old battle-axe of a woman who’d first worked at Middle Manor as a scullery maid between the wars, immediately after leaving an orphanage. ‘What about her?’
    ‘She accused me of murdering Babs.’
    ‘That’s impossible!’
    ‘When she turned up at half past eight I told her what had happened and she almost fainted. So I helped her into the kitchen. The next thing was, she was shouting that I’d murdered Babs.’
    ‘She was hysterical.’
    ‘She meant it. She really believed I’d murdered Babs. She told the police that.’
    ‘Oh my God!’ She tried to find the words which would enable him to understand how this had probably happened. ‘Keir, you’ve got to remember that she went straight from the orphanage to Middle Manor so the place became a kind of home to her: and Barbara’s mother, so someone told me, was wonderfully kind to her. In a way, she must have felt herself part of the family—it’s the kind of relationship which just can’t happen these days. Barbara was the last member of that family, so when Mavis heard she’d just died it must have felt almost like having a daughter die.’
    ‘All right, so she had a shock. But why start shouting to the police that I murdered her when she must have known that I wouldn’t touch a hair of Babs’s head?’
    Obviously, he hadn’t begun to understand what she’d been trying to tell him, but perhaps in the circumstances it was ridiculous to have expected him to do so. ‘When she gets over the shock, she’ll realize she’s been stupid.’
    ‘That’s all very fine, but in the meantime I’ve got the police asking questions.’
    ‘How d’you mean?’
    ‘They’re trying to discover if maybe I did murder Babs.’
    ‘But you can’t have done. You said she left a note saying she was
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