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

when you got home?’
    ‘That's what I was going to tell you about,’ Peter said as they continued up the cliff side. ‘We got back to Amory's place without any sign of her, then Amory dropped me off at the front door and drove the car on to the garage. You know, that sort of wing that sticks out from the side of the house that looks like stables. I suppose it was stables once, but now it's garages. Well, he drove off to them, and as soon as he did so, that woman, Rachel Rayne, came out of the little summerhouse in the garden. Did you notice it yesterday?’
    ‘Vaguely,’ Andrew said. ‘It's in a clump of hollies, isn't it?’
    ‘That's right. It's where Amory works. It's really a very pleasant little place, made all of wood, with just a desk and a chair in it and a bookcase and a sofa on which I suppose he can go to sleep when inspiration fails. And there's a rather handsome rug on the floor, which I sup-pose is Persian, though I don't know much about that sort of thing. Amory was in there when I came out this morning. I gathered the rule is that when he's in there no one must disturb him. Anyway, yesterday evening, as I was waiting for him to come back from the garage and let me into the house, Rachel suddenly came out of the summer-house and ran, really ran, as fast as she could, as if some-thing terribly important depended on it, to the back of the house, where there's a door into the garden. It was obvious she didn't want to be seen. There was no light on in the summerhouse, though I'd a feeling that there had been when we first turned in at the gate. And when Amory and I got into the house she was sitting in one of the easy chairs in the drawing-room, looking as if she'd been waiting there for us patiently for a good while. So what had she been up to, do you think?’
    ‘Did you tell her you'd seen her?’ Andrew asked.
    ‘Of course not. I didn't want to get involved in whatever she might have been doing.’
    ‘And you haven't told Amory either about seeing her?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘What did she say about having disappeared from the Pegasus without telling anyone she wanted to walk home?’
    ‘Oh, she apologized. Said she was halfway home before it occurred to her she ought to have told Amory what she was going to do, but anyway he was so surrounded by people she probably couldn't have got through to him. And she decided on getting away and walking homebecause crowds always got on her nerves and she'd the beginning of a headache. An awfully unconvincing head-ache, it seemed to me. But as I said, what do you think she was up to?’
    They were near the top of the cliff where the ground levelled off and a path ran near to the edge of it. The sea looked a long way below them.
    ‘Except that she wanted to have a good look round Amory's study when he was safely out of the way, I've no idea,’ Andrew said. ‘We can't tell if she was looking for something special or just wanting to take a look at how genius organizes itself. It just might have something to do with her sister.’
    ‘But she's been dead for years,’ Peter said.
    ‘Yes, but the sort of thing I was thinking of…’ Andrew hesitated. ‘Well, suppose Rachel thought her sister had given Amory something which she felt really belonged to her, and she wanted to get hold of it. No, don't take any notice of that. I'm just saying the first thing that's come into my head. Almost certainly totally wrong. But that reminds me, I was thinking last night I really must get hold of a copy of this book of Amory's.’
    There was a thoughtful, faraway look on Peter's face.
    ‘D'you think she could have stolen something from Amory's desk?’ he asked. 'Some paper, possibly, or even some oddment of jewellery that had come to her sister perhaps from their mother and which, as you said, she felt belonged to her. She didn't
look
as if she'd stolen anything when we found her in the house. I mean, she didn't look excited, or furtive, or scared, or anything.’ He paused.