Heads You Lose Read Online Free PDF Page B

Farewell to his Troops”; and he was known to Torrington and in all its surrounding villages as Cockie. He was widely advertised as having a heart of gold beneath his irascible exterior; but there were those who said bitterly that the heart was so infinitesimal and you had to dig so deep down to get to it, that it was hardly worth the trouble. The fingers of his right hand were so stained with nicotine as to appear to be tipped with wood.
    He looked very much shocked when he saw the poor body lying so crookedly in the ditch at the bottom of Pigeonsford drive. He had known Grace Morland since her girlhood. Her father had united him (after a little speech which had subsequently proved to have been over-optimistic) to his wife; had buried her when, worn out with the struggle of producing one rather underweight child, she had incontinently died; had buried the child when shortly afterwards it too had died, and with it all his hope and much of his faith and charity. Grace had set her cap at him in after years, but half heartedly, for he was not to be considered her equal in breeding or education; he thought of her, without rancour, as a sentimental goat. But what an end for her to have come to, poor creature! And her head—he gingerly took hold of it by the hair…
    Lady Hart and the girls were huddled up on sofas in the drawing-room when, in the early hours of the morning, he came wearily up to the house. Venetia had Henry beside her to hold her hand; but Fran, from very excess of would-be comforters, sat by herself, with Aziz asleep in her lap. An agitated maid handed round strong black coffee.
    Cockrill accepted a cup. “And perhaps you’d send some down to my men in the garden, Mr. Pendock? Sorry about all this; it’s a shock for you.” His bright eyes flickered from face to face. He thought: “One young lady hasn’t been too much shocked to remember to put on her make-up; or else she never took it off. I wonder…”
    Pendock said diffidently: “What about Miss Morland’s house, Inspector? She’s got an elderly maid—well, of course you’ll know her—old Trotty, and I’m afraid this will be a dreadful thing for her. Have you thought about letting her know?”
    Cockrill gave him a quizzical glance. “Oh yes, I’ve thought about it.”
    “I’m sorry,” said Pendock, flushing. “I don’t want to seem officious.”
    Cockrill smiled at him. “Oh, that’s all right. But I’ll see to everything; you can safely leave it to me. Now, about this business? Any of you people know anything?”
    “My dear Cockie, how could we possibly?” said Fran; she and Venetia had known him from their childhood.
    He looked at her squarely, and then, producing a paper and tobacco, rolled himself an untidy cigarette. “Mr. Pendock, what about your butler? What was he doing coming home at twelve o’clock?”
    “He went over to see his sister at Tenfold,” said Venetia.
    “That’s right, Inspector. I gave him permission to go over after dinner. She’s been ill, and he had a phone call to say that she was worse. He told me, while we were waiting for you, that he found her very bad and had to get hold of Dr. Newsome, from Torrington; he knew I wouldn’t mind his getting back late. He’s been with me for years and does more or less what he likes.”
    “And can you confirm that his sister is, in fact, ill at Tenfold?”
    Pendock was taken aback. “Good heavens, yes; what are you suggesting? I saw her myself, two or three days ago. Anyway, Newsome’ll tell you.”
    “All right, all right, all right; just asking,” said Cockie equably. “So the butler found the poor lady and informed you, Lady Hart; is that right?”
    Lady Hart was by now sufficiently recovered to throw a little drama into her account of the awakening by Bunsen. “… so I went at once to Mr. Pendock’s room and told him what had happened and then, I’m afraid, I collapsed.”
    “I rushed down to the drive,” said Pendock, sitting up on the sofa and