The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House Read Online Free PDF Page B

to my cousin had caused such terrible excitement in the family, Mrs Alexander Bray.
    She breathed in sharply when she saw me. She was not as tall as I had expected, and had a pale, pinched face with an expression akin to a squeezed lemon. A pattern of spots dimpled her forehead. Her hair was shortish and dark, and hung in two lank folds either side of her scalp. She was wearing a jade-green gown in some floating material, with furred cuffs, and she wrapped it about herself now with nails painted the colour of blood.
    I held out my hand. ‘I’m so glad to meet you at last. Robert Carver, Alec’s cousin.’
    She looked down at my hand as if I were offering her a dead fish. ‘I know who you are, Mr Carver,’ she said in an ice pick of a voice.
    ‘Oh, good,’ I said, grinning foolishly. I let my handdrop. Behind her, I caught a glimpse of a beautiful blue-and-gold drawing room, a huge gilt mirror leaning at an angle above the fireplace.
    She pulled the door shut tightly against her back. ‘You’re the poor relation who’s come to sponge off my husband for the summer.’
    I stared at her. ‘I … I assure you that I’m not … that I wouldn’t …’
    She raised a palm. ‘Please. I really couldn’t care less what your motives are. However, if my dear, darling father-in-law has sent you to spy on this house, then you can tell him from me that if that’s the price of my husband’s allowance, he can fuck himself up the arse with it. Thank you.’
    And with that she glided past me and continued towards the stairs.
    I gaped at the space she had left, a steady heat rising from my chest to my neck. I gripped the edge of the banister to steady myself. Horribly, I felt tears prick the insides of my eyes and blinked them quickly away. I swallowed and then, from below me, I heard Alec’s voice and walked down the stairs, holding on to the rail as I went.
    ‘You’re here!’ He was in the hallway, grinning up at me. ‘Shall we … I say …’
    I walked straight past him. I pulled open the front door, headed down the steps and marched along the path, out through the gate and across the road to the railings that held the cliff back from the sea.
    ‘Robert! Robert, what’s the matter?’
    I heard Alec behind me. My breath was very hot and very fast. My knuckles were white on the rail. He landedbeside me, his face half-amused, half-concerned. ‘You marched out of there as if you had a hand grenade up your backside.’
    Unwittingly, this brought forth the image Mrs Bray had evoked with her foul mouth, and I grimaced. ‘I can’t stay. I’m sorry, but I shall have to get the first train back tomorrow.’
    ‘Why on earth … ?’ His open face crumpled into a frown. ‘Oh, no. Tell me she didn’t. Tell me my wife hasn’t said anything to you.’
    ‘She … er …’ I coughed with the force of the emotion. My lungs were stuck fast: the old problem, always recurring when I was under extreme stress. I felt the cool metal of the railing and used that to calm my breaths, in and out, in and out. Finally, I said, ‘She accused me firstly of being a … well, a sponger, and secondly of spying on behalf of your father.’
    ‘Oh, Lord.’ Alec put his elbows on the railings and his hands over his eyes. Eventually he said, ‘I’m so sorry, Robert.’
    I shook my head, wanting to say it was quite all right but unable to find the words. ‘If it had even occurred to me you might think I was … well, I would never …’
    ‘Don’t pay her any attention. She was only saying it to upset you. I mean, talk about hypocrisy. The woman’s the biggest parasite I’ve ever met.’ He looked up at me. ‘I’m sorry to say this, Robert, but the cliché holds true. Marry in haste, et cetera, et cetera.’
    I remembered once, long ago, going out with Grandfather to shoot rabbits and coming across one, its eyes stitched wide into its face as it looked down the barrel ofmy rifle. I felt like that rabbit now. ‘I’m afraid I don’t