Choice of Evils by E.X. Ferrars Read Free Book Online Page A

that sometime later in the day he would go into Mina Todhunter's bookshop and buy a copy of Death Come Quickly. But first he thought that even if Peter did not telephone, as he had promised, he would go for a brisk walk along the esplanade, across the bridge over the little estuary of the Gall and up on to the cliff beyond it. He had slept very well and although the bishop of Rum-ti-Foo was still bothering him, he felt refreshed and pleased to be on holiday. When he considered it, he thought that in its way the evening yesterday had been quite entertaining. He was glad that he had been to hear Peter speak.
    Before he had got as far as making up his mind to set out for his walk, the telephone rang and it was Peter.
    ‘How are things?’ he asked. 'The evening wasn't too much for you?’
    ‘Well, I must confess the wild excitement of it was a bit of a strain,’ Andrew replied, ‘but I feel reasonably recovered.’
    ‘No, I mean really,’ Peter said. ‘It kept you out pretty late.’
    ‘Peter, just how old do you think I am?’ Andrew asked. ‘I'm not yet eighty. I hope I've still several years of such dissipation ahead of me.’
    ‘That's fine then,’ Peter said. ‘How would you feel about a walk?’
    T was just thinking of setting out for one. It's a beautiful morning.’
    'Suppose I join you?’
    ‘That would be very pleasant. But are you sure your host doesn't want some of your company?’
    ‘Oh, he's busy working. I'm free to do as I like. To tell you the truth, Andrew, I think he wishes I could find a good excuse for leaving to go home. He thoughtlessly invited me down here for the weekend, and now that our performance is over, he doesn't know what to do with me, except, of course, that we're going to
The Duchess of Malfi
this evening, or that's what I thought the plan was yesterday, but now it seems a little uncertain. Anyway, shall we go for a walk?’
    ‘Delighted,’ Andrew said. ‘Are you coming to pick me up here?’
    ‘I'll be along in a few minutes.’
    Andrew put the telephone down and attended to putting on his shoes. If Simon Amory no longer wanted to go to
The Duchess of Malfi,'
the reason, he thought, was fairly obvious. Amory and Magda Braile had certainly once been lovers, but had parted with venom on both sides. She had done her best the evening before to enrage him, and he had reacted with the bitter anger that she had tried to evoke. Andrew found it very difficult to imagine the woman who had made that scene with Amory in the part of the Duchess. Was she enough of an actress to assume the tragic dignity that the role required? Or was it yester day that she had been acting? In any case, Andrewthought, he would probably go to the play that evening.
    He was waiting in the lounge downstairs when Peter arrived in his Mercedes. He was looking bright and cheerful and like Andrew, claimed to have slept well. They set off down the short roadway that took them on to the esplanade. The people who strolled along it, sat in the little shelters along the way, or in some cases were pushed along in wheelchairs, were nearly all elderly, taking their holidays in the pleasant quiet when the pressure of the season was over. The little waves, breaking on the beach, made a soft slurring sound as they spread coils of surf over the pebbles. There was the wonderful freshness in the air that comes only close to the sea.
    Andrew and Peter walked the length of the esplanade, reaching the bridge that crossed the little river at the end of it, and began to climb the cliff that rose beyond it. Andrew was inclined to take it slowly, while Peter, without thinking, was soon some way ahead of him. Then he stood still and waited for Andrew to catch up with him.
    ‘I haven't told you,’ he said, as Andrew, a little out of breath, reached the point where he was waiting, 'Something a bit odd happened last night. I don't know what to think of it.’
    ‘That reminds me,’ Andrew said, ‘did you find that young woman there