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

She found a group of eight of them, sitting round an old table, in what had been the tack room, and preparing a supper of potatoes and beans. The room had the rough and ready look of a Girl Guides camp. There were storm lanterns hanging from the roof beams, and clothes drying on a web of lines rigged round the little pot-bellied stove that had kept the stable boys from freezing in winter. A Ministry poster, showing a laughing, healthy young woman tossing a corn-sheaf on to a bright green lorry, and saying ‘Lend a hand on the land’, had been pasted on the wall opposite the door, and beside it a home-made one said: ‘God speed the plough, and the woman that drives it.’
    ‘Can I come in for a moment?’ Harriet asked.
    A tough-looking red-head responded. ‘Cor, look what the cat’s brought in!’
    But a blonde girl reading a newspaper at the table put it down, and said, ‘Don’t be rude, Rita. It’s Lady Peter, isn’t it? Take a seat.’
    Harriet pulled out a chair and sat down. She glanced, willy-nilly, at the newspaper headline: NEW SOVIET ATTACK FORCES FINNS BACK.
    ‘Oh, gosh, how posh!’ Rita was saying. ‘Lady Petaaa! We are honoured.’
    ‘I’m not posh,’ said Harriet crisply. ‘I married above myself. I’m the local doctor’s daughter. I’ve brought you a cake.’ She took the lid off the tin. The cake was still warm, and a wonderful fruity fragrance began to disperse from it. Harriet caught herself hoping that Mrs Trapp had baked another for home consumption as well as this one.
    ‘Now, look here, Rita,’ said a third young woman, with a distinct upper cut to her voice, ‘don’t you say anything – anything! – that imperils our chances of getting at that cake. Understand?’
    Harriet laughed. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘The cake is an unconditional gift in appreciation of your hard work in the fields.’
    ‘You just won me over, heart and body,’ said Rita. ‘Did you hear that clunk? That was the sound of the chip falling off my shoulder.’
    ‘Just the same, timeo Danaos , and all that,’ said the blonde girl. ‘You must want something.’
    ‘You do brown me off, Muriel,’ said Rita. ‘What was that about tim something or other?’
    ‘Beware of the Greeks when they bring gifts,’ said Muriel. ‘The cake is a Trojan Horse. It’s not hard to work out. Lady Peter’s husband is a famous detective. A friend of ours has just been murdered. Result – cake.’
    ‘I don’t know how you can be so flippant, both of you,’ said a dark girl from the other end of the table.
    An uneasy silence fell. ‘You’re right. Sorry,’ said Rita.
    ‘Murder is always a serious matter,’ said Harriet quietly. ‘A life is lost; here we have a young life lost, and others are then at risk.’
    ‘I’m truly sorry,’ said Muriel. ‘But the fact is, with all that mayhem across the Channel, and all the young men we know, and all the citizens of southern England in danger of violent death, it seems less outrageous than it would in peace-time.’
    ‘Not that that’s logical,’ observed Rita. ‘The truth is, it hasn’t sunk in yet, Lady what’s-your-name.’
    ‘Call me Harriet. I’ve come to ask you, semi-officially, whether any of you know any reason why it was Wendy who was attacked.’
    ‘What difference does it make, now she’s dead?’ someone asked – a stringy-looking girl sitting at the far end of the table.
    ‘That’s our barrack-room lawyer,’ said Rita. ‘Always has a question.’
    ‘It might make a very great difference,’ said Harriet. ‘If it was a private quarrel of some sort, then most likely, having settled his score – or her score, of course – the murderer will not act against anyone else. Or, alternatively, he might be a threat to any and every one of us. So, the simplest question is, do any of you know of anyone who had a grudge against Wendy? Did she have enemies?’
    ‘She annoyed people,’ said Rita, ‘but . . .’
    ‘How?’ asked