Adders on the Heath by Gladys Mitchell Read Free Book Online

Somewhere a clock struck the half-hour. Richardson took the book to his room, and, putting it on the bedside table, went off for a bath before dinner.
    After dinner, the mixed feeling of being, at the same time, in a trap and at a loose end, assailed him again, but a joyful surprise was in store. He was loitering in the front hall, trying to decide between the respective attractions of The Luck of the Vails and the television lounge, when the front door opened and in came the porter with a couple of suitcases. He was followed by a slender, tall young man with thick brown hair and wide-apart grey eyes. The young man was carrying a violin case in one hand and a flute, cased in leather, in the other.
    'Oh, Lord!' exclaimed Richardson, joyfully. 'Uncle Francis Vail in person! Well, well, well!'
    The newcomer apparently understood the reference.
    'Oh, Geoffrey,' he said reproachfully, naming one of the heroes in the book, 'I did so hope that people would mistake it for a telescope. Then it would seem as though I'd been in the Navy. It's a terribly good thing to have been in, and I should be much respected if people thought I'd ever belonged to it. Are you sure it doesn't look like a telescope? It's really meant to look like one, you know.' He put the flute in its case to his eye.
    'Quite sure, Scab, you lunatic. Come and sign the book. Which is his room, Barney? I've forgotten.'
    'Number twenty-two, sir. I'll get the key.'
    'And is our escutcheon still unsullied, or have you been up to something?' asked Denis, in his disconcerting way.
    'I've been up to something,' said Richardson. 'Are you hungry, or shall I a tale unfold?'
    'I dined in Winchester with a bloke I know. Is there a bar here?'
    'There is. Let me lead you to it.'
    'Right. I'll dump my kit and then I'll join you.'
    'I'll put the car away while you're dumping. Somehow I don't think we're going to need it tomorrow.'
    They met in the bar a quarter of an hour later.
    'Tell me why we shan't need the car,' said Denis, over a pint of bitter. 'I thought you were going to walk your legs off while you were alone, and that we were to ride in the stately limousine as soon as I turned up. Incidentally, I'm sorry for the delay, but I got let in for playing polo.'
    'You mean you preferred playing polo to getting down here when you said you would? Then it serves you right that you've missed all the fun of being my fellow gaolbird.'
    'You don't say!'
    'I do say. I've been scared out of my wits until now, but I don't seem to care quite so much now you've turned up.'
    'Absolutely the right spirit. Tell me all. I can see you've lost weight since last we met.'
    Richardson told him all. It was a straightforward narrative but, as Denis remarked at the end of it, fraught with unusual interest.
    'There's only one thing to do,' he said.
    'Confess, and get myself hanged?'
    'That would be going too far and is, in any case, unnecessary. No, what you need, at this crisis in a young man's affairs, is the advice and assistance of my great-aunt.'
    'Not Lady Selina?'
    'Perish the thought! I refer to the one and only Dame Beatrice. Your corpses will be meat and drink to her.'
    'Dame Beatrice? But?-Oh, she wouldn't take me on, would she? I mean, I've never even met her!'
    'The loss is hers and can soon be remedied.'
    'You'll really ask her?'
    'Yes, of course, and I know she'll come. You must tell her everything, you know, just as you've told it to me. No hedging or ditching. She can't be expected to work with blinkers on. Your two rows with Colnbrook must be exposed with all their low-life implications and you'll have to confess that you saw these two birds on the heath, so that you knew they were in the neighbourhood. And if I were you,' continued Denis earnestly, 'I'd come clean to the Superintendent, too. He's bound to dig it all out sooner or later-the police do, you know-and you'll be in a far stronger position if the information comes from you in the first place.'
    'Well, I don't know about that,'