Such Is Death Read Online Free PDF

things, always with a certain elegance for which he was famous. He jumped out of aeroplanes with a parachute and actually killed a couple of men with his Commando knife which, he supposed ingenuously, had been issued to him for that purpose.
    He was slim, dapper, rather pale and he dressed too well for a schoolmaster. He was not a good disciplinarian as the headmaster understood the word, because he simply could not be bothered with discipline, being far too interested in his subject. If there were stupid boys who did not feel this interest and preferred to sit at the back of his class and eat revolting sweets and hold whispered conversations on county cricket, then he let them, continuing to talk to the few who listened. He was popular but considered a little odd. His dressiness and passionate interest in both history and crime were his best-known characteristics in the school, though among the staff his large private income was a matter for some invidious comment.
    The boys were apt to take advantage of his known interest in crime both ancient and modern. A master with a hobby-horse is easily led away from the tiresome lesson in hand into the realms of his fancy. He may or may not realize this as the end of the school period comes and he finds that he has talked for three-quarters of an hour onhis favourite subject and forgotten what he was supposed to be teaching.
    Carolus Deene was very well aware of his weakness but he regarded his twin interests of crime and history as almost indistinguishable. The history of men is the history of their crimes, he said. Crippen and Richard III, Nero and the latest murderer to be given headlines in newspapers were all one to him, as his pupils delightedly discovered.
    Carolus lived in a small Queen Anne house hidden, with its charming walled garden, in the old part of the town. He was looked after by a married couple named Stick who had been with him for a good many years and threatened to leave him every time he became involved in what Mrs Stick called ‘nasty police cases’. She was a formidable little woman, an inspired cook and housekeeper, but so stiff with respectability that she suffered every time Carolus had a caller of whom she disapproved.
    When John Moore reached the house that December evening she recognized him at once.
    â€œMr Deene’s out,” she said curtly.
    â€œAt the school?”
    â€œI couldn’t say, I’m sure,” said Mrs Stick, peering at Moore closely through her steel-rimmed spectacles.
    â€œI’d better go over there,” suggested Moore.
    â€œYou’d better do nothing of the sort. Mr Deene mustn’t be disturbed while he’s teaching.”
    â€œOh, that will be all right, Mrs Stick. He knows me.”
    â€œI daresay he does, but it’s not to say he wants policemen running round under his feet when he’s giving his lessons.”
    â€œShall I wait for him then?”
    Mrs Stick was torn between unpleasant alternatives but at last said, “I suppose you’d better.” She stood aside for him. “You wipe your feet though and don’t bring all that mud into my clean hall.”
    When Moore was sitting by the fire she brought him a tray of drinks.
    â€œIt wouldn’t be a policeman if he didn’t want these,”she reflected aloud. “I hope you’re not going to start dragging Mr Deene into any more cases, are you? We had quite enough after that last one.”
    â€œNo. I’ve just come to talk over something and hear his views.”
    â€œYou know what that will mean. Off he’ll go again and we shan’t know from day to day what murders he may be mixed up in. I was only saying to Stick …”
    They heard the front door and in a moment Carolus was with them and greeting Moore.
    â€œI’m glad to see Mrs Stick has been looking after you,” he said with some amusement while the little woman was still in the room.
    â€œIt was only to stop him