The Thin Woman Read Online Free PDF Page A

fighting to be clear of London before dark.
    “Comfortable, my dear?” He had small, very white teeth. One overlapped slightly, emphasizing the evenness of the others.
    “Frozen.”
    “Tuck that other rug round you. My problem is I find this weather bracing. I forget others may not share my enthusiasm for nature in the raw.”
    “The train would be too hot, no doubt?”
    “Stifling.”
    Was this how I would make my sweeping entrance down the carriageway at Merlin’s Court? Unable to pry my icy fingers free from this ridiculous umbrella? Prematurely aged with my snow-white hair? Men! To think I had hankered after one all these years.
    “Try to keep moving,” he said, eyes fixed steadily on the road.
    “Great! I’ll get up and jog around the back seat. Don’t stop if I topple overboard. I really do prefer a quick hit-and-run to dying of frostbite by inches.”
    “I meant wiggle your toe, flap your hands about—not the one with the umbrella.” He winced. “I need both eyes for this drive—visibility is getting poor.”
    “You noticed?” I closed my eyes and my lids immediately became heavy. It was snow that weighed them down, not sleep. Huddled under my blankets I could not reach the large bar of hazelnut chocolate hidden in my bag that was beginning to call to me in a plaintive voice.
    “Can a person,” I asked, “contract rigor mortis while still alive?”
    He snorted irritably, then added quite mildly, “It might help if we talked.”
    Was the iceberg melting?
    “To be convincing,” he continued, “I need to know something about who’s who at the country estate. Is this a mansion we are visiting?”
    “More like a castle. Not the bona fide kind, of course,” I added hastily as I saw his eyebrows escalate. “A miniature reproduction, built well over a hundred years ago by Uncle Merlin’s grandfather. Family legend claims that he was senile when the plans were drawn. Only a person in the throes of second childhood would possess that sort of imagination. The house is straight out of a fairy tale—turrets galore, ivy-crusted walls, a moat no bigger than a goldfish pond, and even a teeny portcullis guarding the front door, though they keep that open now.”
    “Sleeping Beauty revisited?”
    “Exactly. The castle even has an official curse. Though, for a change of pace, we have a wizard instead of a witch.”
    “Let me guess, Uncle Merlin himself?”
    “Naturally! His wickedness lies in what he has done to the place, or rather not done. He’s allowed it to moulder away. Strictly speaking, he isn’t an uncle—more of a cousin several times removed—but my mother was a practical lady. She insisted on keeping up the connection with our one wealthy relative. As a child I was forced to knit bedsocks for him each Christmas and only twice got invited for a visit. Both times I was sent packing within the week. He said I was eating him out of house and home and he’d be on bread and margarine for a year making up for it.”
    “I sincerely hope those won’t be our rations for theweekend.” Bentley Haskell guided the car around a slick curve. We were approaching the outskirts of London. I changed umbrella arms and sank as far as possible into my blanket cocoon. My companion unfortunately showed no signs of frosting up.
    “What other fascinating characters may I expect to meet?”
    “All kinds.” I shivered. “A wife-swapping foursome from the East End, a witch doctor who recently had his licence revoked for …”
    “If you are going to be silly,” said Mr. Haskell through his nose, “I’ll merely concentrate on driving.”
    Effectively squashed, I sat looking like a big round jelly shivering on its plate. Magnanimously he proffered an olive branch.
    “Just family, I suppose?”
    “We have Uncle Maurice,” I parroted like a child reciting. “He’s a stockbroker in his fifties—paunchy and not very tall, wears what hair he has left glued down with heavily scented hair cream. One can