A Pinch of Snuff by Reginald Hill Read Free Book Online Page A

now drawn open. Pascoe pulled at the old bell-toggle and the distant clang was followed by an equally distant opening and shutting of doors and the slow approach of hard shoes on bare boards. It was like a Goon-show sound track, he thought. Eventually the door opened and a venerably white-haired head slowly emerged. Timid, bird-like eyes scanned them.
    'Miss Andover?' said Pascoe.
    The head slowly retreated.
    'Annabelle!' cried a surprisingly strong voice. 'There are callers enquiring if you are at home.'
    'Tradesmen?' responded a distant voice.
    'I thought you said they were deaf,' murmured Pascoe.
    'They are. They switch their aids off at night,' answered Wield.
    The head re-emerged, accompanied by a hand which fitted a pair of pince-nez to the little nose, and proceeded to scan the two policemen. When it came to Wield's turn, the head jerked in what might have been recognition or shock and withdrew once more.
    'Mr Wield is one of them, Annabelle.'
    'Then admit them, admit them, you fool.'
    The door swung full open and they stepped into the past.
    Nothing in here had changed for two generations, thought Pascoe looking round the dark panelled hall. Except the woman who stood before him, smiling. She must have been young and pretty and full of hope when the men delivered that elephant's foot umbrella stand. Now the folds of skin on her neck were almost as grey and wrinkled as those on the huge foot which had been raised for the last time on some Indian plain and set down (no doubt to the ghostly beast's great amazement) here in darkest Yorkshire.
    'Miss Andover will be down presently,' announced the woman, her eyes darting nervously from one to the other.
    'Thank you, Miss Alice,' said Wield.
    'Miss Alice Andover?' said Pascoe.
    Wield smiled.
    'Then you too are Miss Andover,' Pascoe stated brightly.
    'Oh no,' said the woman, shocked. 'I am Miss Alice Andover. This is Miss Andover.'
    She indicated the figure of (Pascoe presumed) her elder sister descending the gloomy staircase.
    The sisters were dressed alike in long flowered skirts which might have been antiques or the latest thing off C & A's racks. From the starched fronts of their plain white blouses depended the receivers of two rather old-fashioned hearing aids. Annabelle, however, was several inches the taller and wore her even whiter hair in a simple page-boy cut while her sister had hers pulled back into a severe bun. Her face had probably never been as pretty as her sister's, but she had an alert intelligent expression missing from the younger woman's.
    'My dear,' said Alice, 'this is Mr Wield, as you know, but I'm afraid the other gentleman has not been presented.'
    'My fault entirely,' said Pascoe, entering into the spirit of the thing. 'Perhaps I may be allowed to break with convention and present myself?'
    'Whoever you are,' said Miss Annabelle, 'there's no need to treat us both like half-wits even if m'sister asks for it. Alice, stop being a stupid cow, will you, dear? She saw Greer Garson in Pride and Prejudice on the box the other week and she's not been the same since. Let's go in here.'
    She led the way into a bright Habitat-furnished sitting-room with the largest colour television set Pascoe had ever seen lowering from one corner.
    'Well?' said Miss Andover impatiently, taking up a stance in front of the fireplace and lighting a Park Drive. 'As you're with the sergeant, I presume you're a cop, and from the way he's hanging back behind you, you must have some rank. Unless you're a princess and he's just married you.'
    The quip amused her so much that she laughed till she coughed.
    Pascoe waited till she'd finished both activities and introduced himself in a brusque twentieth- century fashion.
    'The house next door, Dr Haggard's house, was broken into last night and a deal of damage done. I wondered if either of you heard anything?'
    Miss Alice gasped in fright and seemed to shrink into herself but her sister just whistled in surprise, then shook her head,