Death Likes It Hot Read Online Free PDF Page B

except, fortunately, Mary Western Lung who said the sun “simply poached her skin.” She got herself up in poisonous yellow slacks with harlequin dark glasses and a bandanna about her head.
    Mrs. Veering was the only one who didn’t change. Like all people who have houses by the sea she wasn’t one for sun-bathing or swimming.
    “Water’s too cold for me,” she said, beckoning me into the alcove off the drawing room.
    She was all business. I thought longingly of the beach and the surf. I could hear the sound of the others splashing about.
    “I hope you weren’t disturbed last night,” she said, sittingdown at a handsome Queen Anne desk while I lounged in an armchair.
    “It was unexpected,” I admitted. “What happened?”
    “Poor Mildred.” She sighed. “I think she has persecution-mania. It’s been terrible this last year.
I
don’t understand any of it. There’s never been anything like it in our family, ever. Her mother, my sister, was the sanest woman that ever drew breath and her father was all right too. I suppose it’s the result of marrying an artist. They
can
be a trial. They’re different, you know, not like us.”
    She developed that theme a little; it was a favorite one with her. Then: “Ever since her breakdown last winter she’s been positive her husband wants to kill her. A more
devoted
husband, by the way, you’ll never find.”
    The memory of that ugly bruise crossed my mind uneasily. “Why doesn’t she leave him?”
    Mrs. Veering shrugged. “Where would she go? Besides, she’s irrational now and I think she knows it. She apologized last night when … when it happened.”
    “What happened?”
    “They had a row … just a married persons’ quarrel, nothing serious. Then she started to scream and I went downstairs … their bedroom’s on the first floor. She apologized immediately and so did he but of course by then she’d managed to wake up the whole house.”
    “I should think her place was in a rest home or something.”
    Mrs. Veering sighed. “It may come to that. I pray not. But now here’s the guest list for the party. I’ll want you to make a press list for me and.…”
    Our business took about an hour; she had the situation well in hand and, though I didn’t dare say so, she was quite capable of being her own press agent. She had a shrewd grip on all the problems of publicity. My job, I gathered, was to be her front. It was just as well. We decided then on my fee, which was large, and she typed out an agreement between us with the speed and finesse of an old-time stenographer.“I studied typing,” she said simply, noticing my awe. “It was one of the ways I used to help my late husband. I did everything for him.”
    We each signed our copy of the agreement and I was dismissed to frolic on the beach; the last I saw of Mrs. Veering was her moving resolutely toward the console which held, in ever-readiness, ice and whisky and glasses.
    On the beach, the others were gathered.
    The sun was fiercely white and the day was perfect with just enough breeze off the water to keep you cool.
    I looked at my fellow house guests with interest: it’s always interesting to see people you know only dressed without any clothes on, or not much that is.
    Both Allie and Mrs. Brexton had good figures. Allie’s especially; she looked just about the way she had the night before when I had mentally examined her … the only flaw perhaps was that she was a little short in the legs; otherwise, she was a good-looking woman, prettier in the sun wearing a two-piece bathing suit than in her usual dull clothes. She was stretched out on a blanket next to her brother who was a solid-looking buck with a chest which had only just begun to settle around the pelvis.
    Mrs. Brexton was sitting on the edge of a bright Navajo blanket in the center of which, holding a ridiculous parasol, was Miss Lung, sweating under all her clothes while Brexton, burlier than I’d thought, did handstands