Rehearsals for Murder Read Online Free PDF

replied heavily: “This man’s name is Dyke, madam, Toby Dyke.”
    She turned swiftly to her husband. “The man you’ve talked about?”
    Vanner also turned swiftly on Roger Clare. His voice was suddenly charged with brutality. “Oh, you know this man, do you? You brought him, did you?”
    Roger Clare gave a slight shake of his head. All his gestures were slight and quiet. There was a controlled underemphasis about him that was faintly repellent, it seemed to speak such certainty of himself.
    â€œMr Dyke and I know each other slightly. He edited a True Cr i me Story collection for me last year. But when we met tonight it was a complete surprise to us both.”
    â€œWhere did you meet him?” said Vanner.
    Toby replied: “At the garden gate.”
    His remark pointedly addressed to Clare, Vanner repeated: “Where did you meet him?”
    But Roger Clare had suddenly started across the room to straighten a picture that was hanging faintly crooked. He did not attempt to reply until he was certain that it was hanging correctly. Then he repeated Toby’s words: “At the garden gate.”
    Vanner turned back to the cardigan. “Where did she leave this with you, Dyke? Where did you see her?”
    Toby’s face became solemn. “You’ve got to get this right, Vanner. You’re not to go reading into what I tell you a lot of things that weren’t there. I’ve got George here as a witness to corroborate what I say. The story may not strike you, with your evil mind, as a particularly likely one, but——”
    â€œYour stories always strike me the same way, Dyke,” said Vanner. “Get on with this one.”
    â€œWell, what happened last night was this. Lou Capell turned up at my flat at about a quarter to twelve. She came because she wanted to borrow fifteen pounds.”
    â€œFifteen pounds?” Vanner shot the words at him sharply; there was a sudden brightening in his face.
    Toby nodded. “Fifteen pounds,” he said, and Vanner relaxed in his chair with a keener look of attentiveness.
    â€œShe wouldn’t tell me what she wanted it for,” said Toby. “She got me a bit worried, she was so obviously frightened and worked up. I tried to make her tell me, but she stuck to it that she’d promised not to tell anyone, and I couldn’t get a word out of her. Then she asked if she could stay there the night. For some reason she didn’t want to meet the girl, Druna Merton, she shares a flat with——”
    Eve interrupted: “But Druna wasn’t there last night—she was here. Still, perhaps Lou didn’t know that; I only rang Druna up in the morning and she got down here about seven in the evening. But why didn’t Lou want to meet Druna?”
    â€œYes,” said a new voice from the doorway, “why didn’t Lou want to meet Druna? I should like to be told that.”
    Heads turned. Vanner muttered to himself while the girl in the doorway came a few steps into the room. She said to Vanner: “I think I might be allowed to hear why Lou didn’t want to meet me.”
    There was a momentary silence. With a shrug of his shoulders, Vanner looked at Toby. Toby looked thoughtfully at Druna Merton. Certainly, as Lou had told him, the girl possessed beauty. She was one of those rare people whose whole person is an exceptional achievement in composition. It was not only her face that held the eye, though her face, small and pale, with straight features of delicate severity yet with sensuousness and subtlety in the curves of nostrils and mouth, would have been enough to merit attention. But her slim, long legs, her narrow yet rounded hips, her high breasts, her supple shoulders, were moulded with such fineness and completeness that one might think the deity for once had had the enthusiasm to finish this job of work himself instead of leaving the final polish to be added by environment