Funeral By The Sea Read Online Free PDF Page A

permeated the air in the vicinity of the cantina.
    Beyond, the street of hard-packed sand rose slightly, to curve across the front of the big house and its outbuildings which were erected on an elevated area and offset at a more acute angle than the other structures aligned along the arc of the cove’s cliff.
    It was two storeys high with enough windows in the frame facade to suggest at least twenty rooms. It had a broad stoop from end to end and three chimneys atop its high pitch roof. Every window filtered light through lace curtains and all the chimneys wisped smoke. A player piano was tinkling a melancholy melody from somewhere inside.
    The outbuildings comprised a large stable, a storage barn, a summerhouse and a solarium.
    The whole piece of property looked like it should have been situated far to the east and with all the lights on and the fires lit, needing the sounds of loud talk, laughter, clinking glass and a cheerful tune from the player piano to complete the impression of a party in progress.
    But as Gold and Eve Delroy started up the slight incline toward the parked wagon, there was just the mournful music and the regular breaking of combers on the sand. Until the batwings creaked and the men and some sluttish-looking women filed out from the cantina. To gather into a stationary group on the street and watch and wait.
    ‘If you got a God you believe in, son, best you start to pray to Him.’
    The woman had signaled a halt at the foot of the four steps that led up to the stoop. And as Seth Harrow whispered awesomely from aboard the wagon behind them, she hugged the stranger’s arm tighter to her side.
    Barnaby Gold waited with impassive patience for what was to happen next. And looked on without the slightest change of expression or tensing in his easy stance as the double doors of the house were folded inwards and Hal Delroy stepped across the threshold. Aimed an old .36 Navy Colt down the steps at him. Asked,
    ‘Step aside, if you will, Eve. I rather over-indulged in the after-dinner brandy and may not be able to hold this weapon’s kick to the right.’
    The men from the cantina seemed to be almost all out of the same mould as the sentries in the ravine and on the ledge. Rugged-featured, mean-eyed men spanning an age range from mid-twenties to mid-forties and dressed western-style.
    Their leader was not like this at all. He was a match for the house. Short and plump, impeccably attired in black suit and starched shirt for the dinner he had recently eaten. About fifty, with black hair turning grey, neatly cut and slicked down across his head. A round, smooth-skinned face decorated with a thick moustache that was entirely grey. Small dark eyes and a snub nose. A full-lipped mouth that provided the sole obvious family resemblance to his sister. Double chins and a short, thick neck.
    His face was beaded with sweat and Gold could smell the scents and powders and pomade he had applied to his body before he dressed for dinner.
    He spoke with the same cultured accent as Eve. Only the gun in his right hand gave him a look of evil.
    ‘No, Hal!’ the woman snapped. And disengaged her arm to stand in front of Gold. ‘I want him!’
    The old-timer aboard the wagon caught his breath. Some doors of the adobe houses were slammed closed. A young child complained in his native tongue. The men and the whores out front of the cantina remained indifferently silent. The player piano ran out of power and faltered to a stop.
    Delroy was as deadpan as the young man he was ready to kill. ‘You know who he is?’
    ‘His name is Barnaby Gold and his horse went lame. He came here to buy a new one.’
    ‘I told the boy it was the wrong place to come to, Mr. Delroy,’ Harrow said quickly.
    ‘Did you bring the new dress for my sister, Seth?’
    ‘Yessir, I sure enough did.’
    ‘Than you already have a birthday gift, Eve.’
    ‘I want him, too.’
    ‘How far out you pick him up, Seth?’
    ‘Late afternoon, Mr.