Thou Shell of Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

detect the trace of a woman’s hand.’
    ‘Mine, I should think. I like fussing about with flowers and things. Beneath me beard, I’m an elderly maiden lady. So I couldn’t have another one about the place . Too much competition. Arthur does most of the chores.’
    ‘But don’t you have any staff? Did Arthur cook that admirable dinner?’
    O’Brien grinned. ‘The sleuth getting down to it already! No, I have a cook. Mrs Grant. Your aunt recommended her. She has warts, but otherwise she’s a paragon. And there’s a gorm of a girl comes up from the village every morning when we’ve visitors to do the cleaning. Judging from her appearance, she deposits more dirt than she takes away. The gardener’s a local, too. You’ll have to look elsewhere for suspects.’
    ‘You’ve not had any more letters, I suppose?’
    ‘I have not. The fella’s saving himself up for the Feast of Stephen, I expect.’
    ‘Just how seriously do you take these letters?’
    The cloud came and went in O’Brien’s eyes. He entwined his fingers in an oddly girlish gesture. ‘I don’t know, shure. I really don’t know. I have had that kind of thing before, often enough. But there’s something about the way this fella expresses himself—’ He cocked his head quizzically at Nigel. ‘Y’know, if I was going to kill someone, I’ve a feeling I’d write to him just that way. The usual dotty threatening letter-writer gets his hate off his chest by the mere writing of the letter. He’s a physical coward. And he has no sense of humour. Mark me words, he has
no sense of humour
. Now it’s only when you’re in dead earnest that you can afford to joke about it. We Cartholics are the only people that jokes about our religion. Y’see the implication?’
    ‘Yes, the same thing occurred to me when I read that last letter.’ Nigel put down his glass on the floor, and moved over to lean on the mantelpiece. In the circle of lamplight O’Brien’s white face and black beard jutted out sharply from the shadows, like the head of a king on a coin. The thought came suddenly to Nigel: ‘How vulnerable he looks, and yet how calm—as if everything was over—like a poet composing his own epitaph with Death looking over his shoulder.’ O’Brien’s withdrawn expression seemed that of one who has already signed the contract with death, sewn the shroud, ordered the coffin, made all funeral arrangements, and awaits the act of dying as something irrelevant—an unimportant detail in the whole huge scheme. Nigel shook himself out of these fantastic musings and turned to business.
    ‘You told my uncle you had some vague suspicions you didn’t care to put down on paper.’
    There was a long silence. At last O’Brien shifted in his chair and sighed: ‘I don’t know if I should have said that.’ He spoke slowly, picking his words. ‘It’s not as if they could be any use to you … Ah, well … Here’s one thing. Did you notice that in the third letter he said he wouldn’t want to kill me till the festive party was over? Now I had this party arranged a week before I got the letter. I’ll tell you why I arranged it in a minute. The point is, I never have been one for house-parties. I likes keepin’ meself to meself, as Mrs Grant would say. And how could the unknown ill-wisher know I was going to have one if he hadn’t been one of the people I’d invited?’
    ‘Or a friend of one of them.’
    ‘Yes. It narrows it down, y’see. Now I can’t believe it could be one of my guests. They’re all friends of mine. But I’m not trusting anyone, just now. I don’t hanker after dying before me time.’ A steely glint appeared in his eyes, making him look momentarily much more like the ruthless airman of legend than the spinsterish recluse. ‘So I says to meself, after the second letter came, “Fergus, you’re a rich man, and you’ve made a will, and them that’s mentioned in the will know they are.” So, after that joker sent his second letter