The Origin of Evil Read Online Free PDF Page B

moment her eyes slanted to the sun and they sparkled in a mineral way. But her features were without guile. The next instant she was eyeless again.
    â€˜You’re honest, Mrs. Priam. Brutally so.’
    â€˜I’ve had a rather broad education in brutality, Mr. Queen.’
    So there was that, too. Ellery sighed.
    â€˜I’ll be even franker,’ she went on. ‘I don’t know whether Laurel told you specifically … Did she say what kind of invalid my husband is?’
    â€˜She said he’s partly paralyzed.’
    â€˜She didn’t say what part?’
    â€˜What part?’ said Ellery.
    â€˜Then she didn’t. Why, Mr. Queen, my husband is paralyzed,’ said Delia Priam with a smile, ‘from the waist down.’
    You had to admire the way she said that. The brave smile. The smile that said Don’t pity me .
    â€˜I’m very sorry,’ he said.
    â€˜I’ve had fifteen years of it.’
    Ellery was silent. She rested her head against the back of the chair. Her eyes were almost closed and her throat was strong and defenceless.
    â€˜You’re wondering why I told you that.’
    Ellery nodded.
    â€˜I told you because you can’t understand why I’ve come to you unless you understand that first. Weren’t you wondering?’
    â€˜All right. Why have you come to me?’
    â€˜For appearance’s sake.’
    Ellery stared. ‘You ask me to investigate a possible threat against your husband’s life, Mrs. Priam, for appearance’s sake?’
    â€˜You don’t believe me.’
    â€˜I do believe you. Nobody would invent such a reason!’ Seating himself beside her, he took one of her hands. It was cool and secretive, and it remained perfectly lax in his. ‘You haven’t had much of a life.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜You’ve never done any work with these hands.’
    â€˜Is that bad?’
    â€˜It could be.’ Ellery put her hand back in her lap. ‘A woman like you has no right to remain tied to a man who’s half-dead. If he were some saintly character, if there were love between you, I’d understand it. But I gather he’s a brute and that you loathe him. Then why haven’t you done something with your life? Why haven’t you divorced him? Is there a religious reason?’
    â€˜There might have been when I was young. Now …’ She shook her head. ‘Now it’s the way it would look. You see, I’m stripping myself quite bare.’
    Ellery looked pained.
    â€˜You’re very gallant to an old woman.’ She laughed. ‘No, I’m serious, Mr. Queen. I come from one of the old California families. Formal upbringing. Convent-trained. Duennas in the old fashion. A pride of caste and tradition. I could never take it as seriously as they did …
    â€˜My mother had married a heretic from New England. They ostracized her, and it killed her when I was a little girl. I’d have got away from them completely, except that when my mother died they talked my father into giving me into their custody. I was brought up by an aunt who wore a mantilla . I married the first man who came along just to get away from them. He wasn’t their choice — he was an “American,” like my father. I didn’t love him, but he had money, we were very poor, and I wanted to escape. It cut me off from my family, my church, and my world. I have a ninety-year-old grandmother who lives only three miles from this spot. I haven’t seen her for eighteen years. She considers me dead.’
    Her head rolled. ‘Harvey died when we’d been married three years, leaving me with a child. Then I met Roger Priam. I couldn’t go back to my mother’s family, my father was off on one of his jaunts, and Roger attracted me. I would have followed him to hell.’ She laughed again. ‘And that’s exactly where he led me.
    â€˜When I found out