Murder of a Snob Read Online Free PDF Page A

money making. When I read in the paper that he’d set himself up as a lord, I knew something ’ud happen. You can laugh at me, but I had a feeling in my bones this morning that it was going to happen today.”
    â€œI shan’t laugh,” Crisp assured her. “I’ve known many cases of that sort of thing.”
    â€œWell, so I had a bite o’ lunch at home then came along here with my knitting and a few sandwiches, meaning to wait about quietly, in case he should go for a stroll in the garden. You couldn’t call that molesting him. And even if I was wrong about something bad going to happen, I thought maybe he’d like us to spend our old age together and live simply and comfortably, as soon as he’s tired of playing at being a lord. Why, he doesn’t even know what the gentry eat!”
    With the last words, she turned towards him. Crisp observed that the large eyes suggested not only vigour but also intelligence. Yet she had rambled on in the manner of a person who has no sense of proportion. She had not even asked him the usual irritating questions as to whether it were a case of murder and if so who was the murderer.
    â€œI’ve told you all about Sam and me because I didn’t want you ferreting about and getting it all wrong. He gave me much more money than he need have done. All the same, he spoilt my life as well as his own, and now he’s gone it won’t really make any difference. He didn’t want me, whatever you say. For one thing, I ought to have told myself he’d get a shock at seeing me an old woman.”
    Crisp made a leap in the dark.
    â€œ Was it a shock to him when he saw you, Mrs. Cornboise?”
    â€œI don’t care for that kind of question!” She drew herself up primly, as if he had made an obscene remark. “If I’d seen him I’d have mentioned it. If you ask me in a straightforward way what you want to know, I’ll give you a straightforward answer.”
    â€œThank you, Mrs. Cornboise.” Crisp contrived to look like a penitent schoolboy. “Here’s a very straightforward question. What time did you get here this afternoon?”
    â€œAbout ten past two. I could see the time from the stable clock—let alone it keeps on striking. I found this nice seat where I can see two sides of the house and anybody coming up from this side of the garden, though I will say these awful shapes gave me the creeps at first.”
    â€œYou must have seen a good deal in that long time?”
    â€œThere was nothing to see until you came. Unless you mean the other people in the house. And I’m one to mind my own business.”
    â€œCome, Mrs. Cornboise!” Crisp was changing tone. “I think you know as well as I do that this is your own business.”
    â€œI’m sure I’ve got nothing to hide, except from the newspapers. Well then, a bit after it had struck half past two, I saw that window open—look down this alley—one of those big windows, I mean.” She indicated the library. “And a young lady came out. And that young man you say is my nephew by marriage came after her. It looked to me as if they were having a tiff and she was in the wrong, because she put her hand on his arm and he shook it off; then she put it there again and he let it stay and they walked across over there, only it wasn’t any good. They must have had a good long quarrel. And she was unlucky, by the look of it.”
    â€œDid you hear what they said, then?”
    â€œNo. But more’n a couple of hours later she came back without him. And she walked right past me without seeing me and went into the house.”
    â€œWhat time did she go into the house?”
    â€œFive, as near as makes no matter.”
    According to the doctor, Watlington had died between five and five thirty.
    â€œWhat about young Cornboise?” asked Crisp.
    â€œHe gave her a good start. It was a good ten past