Such Is Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

racing round the school showing everyone what company you keep,” said Mrs Stick. “What would the headmaster say, I’d like to know, if he found a policeman come to get you?”
    â€œHe hasn’t come to get me, Mrs Stick. Only—unless I’m mistaken?—to have a little chat about Selby-on-Sea.”
    â€œSo that’s it! I read about it in the paper. As soon as I saw it my heart jumped into my mouth. I said to Stick, I said, ‘It’s to be hoped Mr Deene doesn’t get himself mixed up in this,’ I said, ‘or who’s to say
he
won’t have someone after him with a coal-hammer, same as that poor fellow did.’ If I’d known that’s what this was about I’d never have let him over the threshold.”
    â€œStay and have something to eat, John? What have we, Mrs Stick?”
    â€œI don’t know whether there’ll be enough. I’m not saying I couldn’t do a little extra of the eggs if it comes to it. It’s the thought of you sitting here talking about all this nastiness.”
    â€œI’m sure you can manage it.”
    â€œI suppose I shall have to. There’s oafs arler die able and patty der gibyer, if you want to know. And I’ve got up a bottle of the Montrashy. But how I’ll be able to cook, knowing what I do, I can’t bear to think.”
    â€œOeufs à la diable,
devilled eggs and
pâté de gibier,
game pie,” translated Carolus. “Very nice and very appropriate, Mrs Stick.”
    Her face showed no appreciation of this praise as she left the two men.
    â€œNow, John, tell us all about it,” said Carolus.
    â€œIt’s a bastard, this one,” began Moore. “Nothing to get hold of at all.”
    â€œNo motive?”
    â€œBags of motive. But nothing to connect any of those who had motive with the crime.” Carolus waited. “This man Ernest Rafter who was killed had only arrived in Selby that afternoon. He’d been staying in a lodging-house near King’s Cross station. He was a pretty bad hat, I gather.”
    â€œIn what way?”
    â€œCollaborator,” said Moore.
    For both of them this was sufficient, for they belonged to a generation of men among whom these things were not forgotten.
    â€œJaps?”
    â€œYes. It’s an old story and I’ve been through the MI 5 files. He was so useful to the Japanese that they took the trouble to protect him from his fellow-prisoners who would certainly have knocked him off. So the Japs gave out that he had been shot trying to escape and moved him to another camp under another name. He was reported missing believed killed and in due course his family got him officially presumed dead.”
    â€œI see. And his family live in Selby-on-Sea?”
    â€œMost of them, yes. It’s a large family.”
    â€œMoney involved?”
    â€œYes. Some. The father died soon after the war and left a few thousands, divided equally among his three sons and two daughters. The murdered man’s share has long since gone to the others.”
    â€œSo that if he had turned up alive?”
    â€œHe would have had no legal claim, I gather, but a very strong moral one. Besides it would have been an infernal nuisance to them all. One of the brothers is asolicitor and none of them was likely to welcome this Ernest.”
    â€œYou say a moral obligation. Are they the kind of people who would have recognized that?”
    â€œI should say certainly. They’re supposed to be a bit close, I believe, but quite honourable.”
    â€œThen hardly the kind of people to have killed him with a hammer?”
    â€œWell, no. But, as we both know, there is no ‘kind of people’ for murder. These are the only ones known to have a motive of any sort and most of them, perhaps all of them, were in the town that night.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œWe’ve traced Rafter’s movements. The name he took when he was in