A Presumption of Death by Dorothy L. Sayers, Jill Paton Walsh Read Free Book Online

around for me?’
    Harriet thought about it. ‘I could try. But not if it involves pretending that it wasn’t official. I would be open about who had asked me to ferret around.’
    ‘You wouldn’t like to be an undercover copper’s nark, Lady Peter? Well, I can understand that.’
    ‘Peter himself would never dissemble about that sort of thing,’ said Harriet firmly.
    ‘No,’ said Mr Kirk, ‘I don’t suppose he would. And you really have no idea when he will get back?’
    ‘Honestly none.’
    ‘That must be uncommon hard on you, I think.’
    ‘It isn’t easy,’ said Harriet, grateful for his flash of sympathy. ‘Standing in for Peter in various ways is what I seem to be for, at the moment. But I’d much rather he were here to play his roles for himself.’
    ‘And all these kiddies what you have under your wing?’ Superintendent Kirk was gazing out of the window at the riotous game being played on the lawn.
    ‘That’s my son Bredon, trying to hold the bat – he’s just three, and my second son Paul sitting watching in the push-chair. The others are my sister-in-law’s three: a boy and two girls. Charlie is quite a little grown-up at ten, and the other two are his sister Polly and his baby sister Harriet, my god-daughter.’
    ‘Have I seen that young Charlie at the Boy Scouts in Great Pagford? I was there the other day giving a police talk to help out the scout-master.’
    ‘You might well have done. He goes to Scouts with Sam Bateson, the neighbour’s little boy. We get them over there when we can, but we don’t always manage it.’
    ‘You must have your hands full; perhaps I shouldn’t have asked you . . .’
    ‘Rubbish, Mr Kirk, you shouldn’t worry on that account. I have a cook and a house-maid, and a nursery-maid, and all these children are in the family, more or less. The women in the village who are coping with the children of perfect strangers without a hand to help them are the ones we should be concerned about.’
    ‘You’re only too right there,’ he said. ‘The war gets into everything, doesn’t it? Change and decay in all around we see. You know, Lady Peter, we are fighting for freedom, as I understand it, and yet I’m expected to make sure that Aggie Twitterton doesn’t buy herself an egg while she is keeping them hens. I’ve become such a bully as I hardly recognise myself. Funny sort of freedom, if you ask me.’
    ‘It’s a very different kind of war this time,’ Harriet said. ‘It isn’t somewhere over there – the soldiers marching away, and coming back victorious or defeated from elsewhere. This time we’re all in it together. And cheer up, not all the news is bad. The news this morning says a whole squadron of the Canadian Air Force have arrived to help us.’
    The Superintendent had picked up his hat, and was preparing to leave.
    ‘You’re a good trooper, Lady Peter,’ he said.
    Harriet wondered where to start. She supposed, thinking about the land-girls, working hard all day getting hungry as hunters and far from home, that a cake might improve her welcome, so she wandered into the kitchen to see if Mrs Trapp could rustle something up. Mrs Ruddle’s voice at high volume drifted down the hall towards her.
    ‘I suppose, Mrs Trapp, this is the kind of thing we must expect,’ Mrs Ruddle was saying.
    ‘Good morning, Mrs Ruddle,’ said Harriet. ‘What kind of thing must we expect?’ Mrs Ruddle had been employed as a charlady when the Wimseys first moved into the house, and had never quite resigned the right to come and go there. She was seldom needed now, although very willing when she was wanted. She was now comfortably ensconced on the Windsor chair at the end of kitchen table nearest the fire, with a cup of tea in her hand. Mrs Trapp was kneading bread, turning and slapping the dough rhythmically on the other end of the table. Not for her a tea-break to keep her visitor company.
    ‘Getting murdered in our beds, Lady Peter!’ said Mrs