Rehearsals for Murder Read Online Free PDF Page B

and chance. She was not very tall; her hair was black—thick, heavy hair which she wore in elaborate curls.
    She said, lifting a cigarette she held in her hand with a gesture demanding a light from someone: “Well, why, please?”
    Toby took out a matchbox. “I don’t know,” he said.
    â€œOh, please. You were just going to tell the inspector.”
    â€œNo,” said Toby. “I was just telling the inspector that for some reason Lou didn’t want to meet you. For some reason. She wouldn’t tell me what the reason was.”
    She smiled at him. If there was a fault in her appearance it was that when she smiled it made little difference to her face.
    â€œYou tried to make her tell you the reason, of course?”
    â€œYes, I tried to make her tell me.”
    â€œAnd she was just hysterical, evasive and muddled up?”
    Vanner broke in: “Then you know yourself, Miss Merton, why she didn’t want to go back to your flat?”
    â€œNo,” she answered composedly, “Lou was always getting into states of mind I didn’t understand at all.”
    â€œWell,” said Toby to Vanner, “shall I go on?”
    Vanner grunted.
    Toby continued: “She wouldn’t go back to her flat and she was very anxious not to go to a hotel.”
    â€œWhy?” said Vanner. “Hadn’t she the money?”
    Druna explained: “She’d been brought up to believe that if she stayed a night alone in a hotel she’d be abducted. Besides”—and she gave her unexpressive smile—“she was rather fond of putting herself in compromising situations and then behaving platonically. She got some sort of thrill from it. Poor Lou, she was terribly undeveloped. I think I know what Mr Dyke is leading up to telling you: it’s that although he allowed Lou to spend the night at his flat it was all perfectly innocent. You can believe him; it almost certainly was.”
    A smothered sound came from Roger Clare. Toby glanced at him. Clare was looking at Druna with intense dislike on his face.
    Vanner addressed Druna: “Miss Merton, have you ever seen this cardigan here?”
    Druna looked at it distastefully. “No,” she said.
    â€œDidn’t it belong to Miss Capell?”
    â€œIt did not.”
    Vanner looked at Toby. “Well?” he said.
    Toby shrugged. “She’d a very bad cold; perhaps she’d borrowed it from someone to keep her warm. All I know is she left it behind. She was gone in the morning by the time we got up, and there the thing was, over the end of the bed where she’d slept.”
    â€œSo you thought you’d return it to her, eh?” said Vanner. “How nice. Thought you’d return it to her just the same evening as she goes and gets herself murdered—very nice, very nice indeed.”
    â€œYes,” said Toby woodenly, “I thought I’d return it to her. George and I had nothing special to do, and it was a lovely summer evening, so we thought we’d combine a run in the country on George’s motorcycle with returning the cardigan. We came down here and then we heard this news——”
    â€œHeard it how?” barked Vanner.
    Toby’s face showed a bland sort of surprise. “Mr Clare here told us all about it.”
    â€œOh, Mr Clare told you, did he? At the garden gate, I suppose?”
    â€œYes,” said Toby, “at the garden gate.”
    â€œ And how ” said Vanner fiercely, swinging round on Roger Clare, “ did you know anything about it? ”
    A slight catch of the breath sounded close to Toby. It was Eve Clare, who, since her first exclamation when her husband came into the room, had not addressed a single word to him; only, from time to time, she had let her eyes dwell upon him, their expression lifeless. But that lifelessness was so inappropriate to her vivid face that it had revealed how deliberately she found she had to