The Price of Murder Read Online Free PDF

to do with a loss of time, or some missed appointment. No, it was her mad fear of death—which is to say, her quite unreasoning revulsion from corpses in any condition. I assured her that Maggie Plummer’s body and face had in no wise been ruined by her overnight sojourn in the Thames—all to no avail. It developed that it was not the condition of the body that disturbed her so mightily, but rather the mere fact of death. To be thus reminded of the fate that awaits us all was for her an experience utterly intolerable—or so she convinced me. Yet, tolerable or intolerable, she would nevertheless experience it when we did reach our destination, Mr. Donnelly’s surgery.
    When we did, we found the waiting room relatively empty. Only one, a woman of thirty or so, waited. Clearly a lady of quality, she sat high in her chair and attempted to take no notice of Katy Tiddle when we two came storming in from the hall. Yet she, on whom I kept my tight hold, was impossible to ignore. As near as I could tell, ’twas the peculiar red of Katy’s hair that so fascinated the lady with whom we shared Mr. Donnelly’s waiting room. Sitting across from her, it was quite impossible to miss the darting glances that she threw in our direction. Each one, it seemed, was aimed at the tangled mop of vermilion atop Katy’s head. How had she managed such a color?
    Without notice, the door to Mr. Donnelly’s examination room opened, and out came a man of advanced age, wherewith the lady bounced quickly to her feet and stepped smartly to the hall door. Mr. Donnelly followed him out, murmuring something about the chemist’s shop below. As the ill-matched couple left, the wife could not resist throwing one last look across the room. Katy Tiddle was waiting for her. She stuck out her tongue most impudently, surprising us all and propelling the gentleman and his lady out the door. Once they were safely gone, Mr. Donnelly could not withhold a chuckle or two.
    “Who is she?” said he to me.
    “Katy Tiddle is the name,” said she before I could respond. “And if it was up to me, I’d be anywhere but here.”
    “She’s come to identify the body,” said I.
    “Ah,” said Mr. Donnelly, clearly a bit confused. “Not the mother, surely.”
    “The neighbor next door.”
    “Well, come along then.”
    He led the way back to the little apartment of rooms he kept behind the examination room. What we presumed to be the body of Maggie Plummer lay upon a table in the first of the two. A sheet covered her from head to toe. I glanced over at Katy Tiddle and saw that she had her eyes tight shut.
    “What will you, Katy?” said I, chastising. “You must open your eyes for this.”
    “I’ve no wish to do it.”
    “Well, you must, my girl,” said Mr. Donnelly. “And there’ll be no foolishness about it.”
    So saying, he threw back the sheet, exposing the face and shoulders of the child.
    “There, Katy,” said I, “open your eyes and take a look. Tell us if the body upon the table is that of Maggie Plummer.”
    Still she held her eyes shut. Mr. Donnelly watched her with increasing exasperation. Knowing that it could not continue thus for much longer, I simply did what had to be done: I picked the plumpest part of her upper arm, grasped near an inch of skin, and pinched for all I was worth.
    “OW!” said she, a loud cry that must have resounded through every room. But her eyes popped open in surprise, and because she had held her head down in an unconscious gesture of rejection, her eyes fell quite immediately upon that which she had so diligently refused, till that moment, to see.
    “Oh, my God, Maggie, it is you, ain’t it? Forgive me!” She screamed it, eyes wide open, wailing out great moans of sorrow. For minutes, it seemed, she could not be quietened. Who would have guessed that this was the sly creature who had declared that a mother had the right to sell her child? Only after Mr. Donnelly had covered over the face of the child did she at