Dead or Alive by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page B

hand on his arm, the other on his wrist. Where her fingers touched his skin he could feel how cold they were.
    â€œBill, I’m sorry—I was a beast—but it came over me. That woman—I saw her—with Robin—twice. He wouldn’t tell me who she was, but other people did. She calls herself an actress. I believe she’s sometimes been in the chorus of a revue—I don’t know. I told you I was going to divorce Robin. That was what I wanted to see Uncle Henry about. Why do you want to know about her?”
    He hesitated. The hand on his wrist tightened.
    â€œWas it because you’d seen her with Robin too?” Her eyes implored him. In the half light of the taxi they looked larger and darker than they were. “Did you see her with Robin, Bill— did you?”
    Bill nodded, and at once her grasp relaxed. There was a feeling of relief from strain. It was only the old trouble, not a new one. She leaned back in her corner with a sigh. The taxi had come to a stop. There was a block of cars in front of them. Neither spoke until the block broke up. Then Meg said,
    â€œWhen did you see them?”
    â€œPlease , Meg.”
    â€œI want to know.”
    Well, it was better to tell her. No good letting her imagine things. He said,
    â€œWell, that’s the whole point, my dear—I saw Robin in a taxi with a woman at midnight on the fourth of October last year.”
    â€œThe fourth!” said Meg in a startled voice. And then, “But, Bill—that was after—he disappeared—”
    â€œYes, I know.”
    â€œHe was with Della Delorne?”
    â€œWell, that’s what I don’t know, but I think so. When I told Garratt—”
    â€œYou told Colonel Garratt?”
    â€œYes, of course I did. Well, when I told him, I said I wouldn’t know her again, but just now in the dining-room as soon as I saw that woman, something went click in my brain. I couldn’t have sworn to her features, or her face, or anything. I only just had an impression of her beyond Robin in the taxi, but there was something that made me put her down for—well, for the sort of woman she is. I couldn’t get hold of it when I was talking to Garratt, and I told him I wouldn’t know her again, but when I saw her at the Luxe it came back and I remembered what it was.”
    They were held up again at a cross road. The traffic streamed by in a blur of sound. Against this blur Meg said clearly,
    â€œWhat was it?”
    â€œHer lipstick. Did you notice it? A beastly sort of unnatural pink.”
    â€œYes, it is, isn’t it?” Her voice was warm and eager.
    â€œWell, that was what did the trick. So I had to find out who it was, because of course I must let Garratt know.”
    The traffic ceased to flow past them. They moved again.
    â€œYou saw her with Robin four days after he—disappeared!” Meg leaned forward suddenly. There was a note of terror in her voice. “Bill — where — is — Robin?”
    The taxi drew up smoothly at the kerb. Bill put his hand on her shoulder for a moment.
    â€œRobin’s dead,” he said. “Garratt is quite sure he’s dead.”
    The driver got down from his seat and opened the door.

VI
    The play flowed by very much as the traffic had flowed by, in a blur of sound. The people who went about the stage and spoke their words made as little impression on Meg O’Hara; the inner current of her thoughts moved in too full and bitter a tide. Once she looked at a woman who wept on the stage, and wondered what it was all about, and once it came to her that the play must have been going on for hours, and then she found that it was only nine o’clock. She had thought that she and Bill would have to sit there side by side in a hating, angry silence, but it wasn’t like that at all. Bill didn’t hate her. She had been horrid to him, and he had been kind and patient. But it all felt a