Heads You Lose Read Online Free PDF

commonly known as the “’Ouse.” Its single constable could by no means be got to understand that Miss Morland had been murdered and her body left in Mr. Pendock’s drive. Henry Gold contented himself with instructions that the constable should come round immediately, and himself rang up the station at Torrington fifteen miles away. Inspector Cockrill replied without excitement that he would be over in half an hour.
    Fran meanwhile had insisted upon waking James. She leant over his bed, shaking him out of a deep and tuneful sleep. “James, do wake up. Do wake up.”
    “Wassamarrer?” said James, heaving the bed-clothes back over his shoulders.
    “James, come on, wake up. Something dreadful’s happened. Do wake up!”
    Lady Hart went to the wash-basin and liberally wetted a sponge. “Try this; I never knew it to fail.”
    Fran mercifully wrung out some of the water, and applied the sponge gingerly to James’s face. He sprang upright and sat blinking at them from under his tousled hair. “Here, what’s going on? What the hell are you doing?”
    “If you say ‘Is it an air raid?’ I shall scream,” said Lady Hart.
    “Something dreadful’s happened,” said Fran again. “Miss Morland’s been killed, out in the garden.”
    “Grace Morland?” said James, dumbfounded.
    “Yes, she’s been killed, poor thing, and the police will be here asking us a lot of questions, and they’ll want to know whether we’ve all been in bed all night and things like that; of course we have, but we thought we’d better wake you up and tell you what was happening…
    A very faint grin appeared upon James’s face.
    They were sitting in solemn conclave when Henry came back. “Well, I’ve rung up the police; I. had a frightful time getting hold of anyone with sense, but I finally asked for Cockie and he’s coming over right away.” He stood before them, excitement struggling with conventional regret. “How was it discovered?”
    “It was me,” said Lady Hart, shivering. “At least it wasn’t me that actually found Miss Morland, of course, but Bunsen, and he told me and I told Pen. I heard a noise, and there was Bunsen out on the terrace, throwing stones at Pen’s window, the one next to mine. I asked him what he was doing, and he said that there was a girl, or a woman—he actually said ‘a young lady’ I believe—lying in the garden, down by the drive, near the gate. He was terribly upset, poor old Bunsen, and panting like anything from running across the lawns to get Pen.”
    “Why the devil didn’t he go straight to Pen’s room?”
    “The front door would be locked and it’s miles round by the back; it was the obvious thing to do—don’t interrupt, Henry. Go on, Gran!”
    “I said to him, ‘Who is the woman?’ and he said he didn’t know. Her hair was all over her face; but she had on Miss Fran’s hat.”
    “My hat ?” cried Fran.
    “Well, that’s what Bunsen said, and he’d seen you with it at tea-time. I expect he was wrong, because what would Miss Morland be doing with your hat? But of course immediately I thought it was you and that’s why I—that’s why I went and called Pen,” finished Lady Hart, rather lamely.
    Nobody noticed it. “Oh, Bunsen must be wrong,” said Fran, flushed and excited. “It couldn’t be my hat. Anyway, it’s still on the table in the hall—I can soon find out.” She ran to the stairs and looked over the banisters to where the box stood, open and empty, its lid on the chair beside the hall-stand, a trail of tissue paper littering the table. Henry came to her side and looked over also. “I’m afraid it’s gone,” he said.
    Inspector Cockrill was a little brown man who seemed much older than he actually was, with deep-set eyes beneath a fine broad brow, an aquiline nose and a mop of fluffy white hair fringing a magnificent head. He wore his soft felt hat set sideways, as though he would at any moment break out into an amateur rendering of “Napoleon’s