The Devil in Disguise Read Online Free PDF

well ask Inge to serve as we talk. Agreed, everyone? Splendid. Are you sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin.’
    Chapter 3
    As the clock in the corner struck eight, Matthew Cullinan leaned back in his chair and said, ‘If you want my opinion, she is a greedy, mischievous, dishonest, scheming bitch.’
    For a few moments, there was a hush. Harry thought that he could hear a faint snoring from the card players downstairs. Then Roy sniggered and said, ‘You really must stop beating about the bush, Matthew. Come right out with it. Why don’t you speak your mind?’
    Tim Aldred cleared his throat. As usual, his demeanour was so hesitant that Harry found it hard to believe that his role on the board was to represent the performing arts. The average church mouse was a foul-mouthed dissident by comparison. ‘But can we be absolutely sure you are right, Matthew? I only met Vera Blackhurst once, but she struck me as genuinely fond of Charles.’
    Matthew expelled a sigh worthy of a long-suffering schoolmaster confronted by the irrational stubbornness of the classroom dunce. ‘Oh really, Tim.’
    Tim went pink but said doggedly, ‘I realise this is inconvenient for us, but perhaps Vera swept Charles off his feet.’
    â€˜But what did she see in him ?’ Roy asked.
    â€˜Money,’ Frances said drily.
    Roy feigned amazement. ‘You’re suggesting it wasn’t a love-match?’
    â€˜Surely her motives don’t matter,’ Tim said. ‘If he left the money to her, then there is very little that we can or should do about it.’
    â€˜I think you are missing the point,’ Matthew said. ‘It is not just a question of money. With all due respect, Tim, a matter of principle is involved here.’
    Tim bowed his head, his resistance crushed. Frances contented herself with studying the papers in front of her. Roy Milburn glanced in Harry’s direction and winked.
    â€˜Careful, Matthew. This must be music to Harry’s ears. When clients start talking about the importance of principles, I guess Crusoe and Devlin’s bank manager starts to sleep a little more easily.’
    Frances said, ‘Well, Harry, how do you see things?’
    He wiped his brow with his palm. The room was as stuffy as Frances’s office but that wasn’t the reason he was sweating. It was one thing to advise a recidivist in a remand centre; offering words of wisdom to trustees in a tight corner was more of a challenge. He remembered, too, that Luke believed that one of the people round the table was deceiving him. But who - and why?
    â€˜First,’ he began carefully, ‘we need to remember the kind of man Charles Kavanaugh was.’
    Matthew grunted and Roy chortled. ‘Exactly,’ Harry said in his briskest tone. ‘No-one could deny that Charles was an eccentric. And I suspect that none of us shared his taste in objets d’art ...’
    â€˜You can say that again,’ Roy broke in. ‘Forget about never speaking ill of the dead. Now we aren’t beholden to him, let’s call a spade a spade. He knew less about art than this chair I’m sitting on. And as for his so-called treasures - let’s face it, they are utter crap.’
    There was a short embarrassed silence. Harry reflected that Roy had done nothing more than voice the opinion shared privately by all the trustees. Charles Kavanaugh had fancied himself as something of a connoisseur of the arts; he described the substantial Victorian villa in which he lived as his studio and had not only collected pictures and antiques, but also tried his own hand at sketching and painting. Everyone who had ever seen his collection dismissed it as worthless stuff which would give bric-à-brac a bad name. His own pictures were especially deplorable: splodgy landscapes and misshapen nudes composed with a lack of skill that was truly breathtaking. Yet there had always been a tacit