Death of a Mystery Writer Read Online Free PDF

contacts.”
    â€œBella doesn’t know one end of a daffodil from the other,” said Oliver Fairleigh. “And her only contacts would be with other young devils in a similar state of ignorance.”
    â€œHow did she look?”
    â€œBeautiful as usual,” said Oliver Fairleigh, smiling benignly. He looked sunnily around the lawns and hedges and flower beds that comprised his domain, and positively oozed self-satisfaction. “We did a good job there, my dear,” he said.
    Eleanor Fairleigh-Stubbs was rather surprised at the concession to her embodied in the “we.”
    â€œSuch a dangerous name to choose,” she said. “Lovely that it turned out right. Is she really liking the job?”
    â€œSays she is.” Her husband’s mood seemed to cloud over slightly. “Just waiting to get on those damn-fool color supplements, I imagine. And sleeping around with that end in view.”
    â€œNow, Oliver, I’m sure you don’t know she’s been doing anything of the kind.”
    â€œI’ve never known a girl that good-looking who wasn’t sleeping around,” said Oliver Fairleigh, grandly general. “That being so, I suppose she might as well do it with an end in view.” He added, as he often did when talking about the affairs of his children: “She can’t expect anything more from me.”
    Eleanor Fairleigh knew that if there was one person who could wheedle cash out of her husband, it was Bella, but she didnot say so. “She’ll be coming to the birthday dinner anyway, won’t she?” she asked.
    â€œOh, yes, she’s coming.”
    â€œPerhaps we can talk about it then.”
    â€œAbout what? Who she’s sleeping with?”
    â€œNo—of course not. Just how she’s doing, and so on—who her friends are. Girls will tell things to their mother that they wouldn’t tell anyone else.”
    It struck Oliver Fairleigh that his wife had a genius for hitting on generalizations that were the exact opposite of the truth, but he was used to her combination of woolly thinking and unjustified optimism, and he seldom bit her head off more than three or four times a day, so he left her in her comfortable delusion.
    â€œWell, I’m glad boys don’t do the same to their fathers,” he grunted. “I couldn’t bear to be made the recipient of Mark’s confessions.”
    The name of that particular son was always a danger signal in conversations with Oliver Fairleigh. His wife, no wiser now than ever, weighed in with an appeal: “But you will be nice to him on Saturday, won’t you, Oliver?” As she said it, she felt sure she was only making things worse.
    Oliver Fairleigh left an eloquent pause.
    â€œYes,” he said.
    Eleanor Fairleigh was so surprised that she stopped in her tracks and looked with earnest inquiry into her husband’s face.
    â€œWhat’s the matter, woman? You asked me a question and I gave you an answer.” He continued on his way, with a sort of mock-aggrieved grumbling: “It was a truthful answer, too. That’s the trouble with women. They’ll believe any amount of comfortable lies, but you tell them the truth and you haven’t a hope of being believed.”
    Lady Fairleigh-Stubbs put her arm through her husband’s, and they continued their walk.
    â€œWell, that will be nice,” she said. “If you can. Because he’s not a bad boy. And he’s very good-natured.”
    â€œHe is a bad boy, and he is not good-natured,” said OliverFairleigh. He added, with a rare honesty: “Not that I’d like him any better if he was good-natured.”
    Eleanor Fairleigh was puzzled by his attitude. “Just so long as you try to like him,” she said, smiling vaguely at a rhododendron bush and gripping his arm a little closer.
    â€œI am most certainly not trying to like him,” said Oliver Fairleigh, irritated by