Death in High Heels by Christianna Brand Read Free Book Online

well—I—” The moment had passed.
    Cecil’s face cleared and he sat collecting his wits, looking down at his nervous hands. “I put it down the huh-hah,” he declared at last in a shaking voice.
    “The lavatory, sir,” interpreted Bedd, without a smile.
    “Yes, that’s right,” said Cecil, eagerly. “I went down with Mrs. Harris as soon as she had swept the powder up and I put it all down the huh-hah.”
    “You went straight down with her?” asked Charlesworth, and, receiving a nod in reply: “Have you any idea how much it was? A tablespoonful? A teaspoonful?”
    “Not more than a teaspoonful, I don’t think.”
    “Well, that disposes of that. You realize, of course, that Miss Doon died from taking a similar poison and we’re trying to find out whether it can have been any of this lot.”
    “Oh, I don’t think it can, Inspector. She couldn’t have got any—it wasn’t left lying about at all, at least I don’t think so.”
    “You don’t think she might have taken some on purpose, do you?”
    The uneasy look crept back into the brown eyes; the colour began to ebb again. He said, with rising hysteria: “No, no, of course not. Why should she have wanted to kill herself? It’s a dreadful idea.”
    “Or that she might have had it deliberately given to her by somebody else.”
    Cecil gave a girlish little scream at such a grisly thought and protested that it was more than unlikely: “She was not a very nice girl, Inspector, rather a cruel girl, but who could have wanted to kill her? Oh, I don’t think that’s quite likely!” He fluttered his lashes and flapped his hands and finally bowed himself out. Charlesworth turned with an explosion of laughter to Bedd: “This is the rummiest case I ever was on in all my life; God bless our home, whatever are we coming to next! And for heaven’s sake, Sergeant, explain to me if you can, why they should be so damn delighted when I suggest that the girl was murdered. There’s something behind all this.”
    “It’s a long way be’ind as far as I’m concerned, Mr. Charlesworth,” said Sergeant Bedd, with a worried shake of his head.
    3
    The morning wore away and most of the afternoon, and Charlesworth thought that he had never before beheld such a galaxy of feminine beauty. Irene followed Cecil, a tiny brunette, agitated and in tears. She confirmed her part of the history of the luncheon hour; she had been with a customer from one to two, and then had rushed off with Cecil to the Ritz Hotel where a peeress was waiting impatiently for the famous grey model. She was terribly cross, said Irene, with a wealth of irrelevant detail; she had kept them pinning and ironing and fussing, although the model had only that moment been finished by the workroom, and they had not got back to Christophe’s until after four o’clock. By that time poor Doon had been taken off to hospital; it was all too awful, sobbed Irene, and crept away to summon Rachel.
    Rachel looked white and strained, but was under a stern control. She gave her name and address composedly; she was married and had one child; she was in the process of divorcing her husband, having obtained her decree nisi three months previously, with the custody of her daughter. She was twenty-nine. “Anything else you want to know?” her attitude seemed to demand, contemptuously. Charlesworth made it clear that there was.
    Rachel described her part in the purchase of the poison and in the events of the morning. Doon had been taken ill about three o’clock. Yes, of course she had been surprised. Mr. Bevan had sent her to the hospital after Doon, and the doctor there had asked her whether it was possible for Doon to have taken any corrosive poison; she had told him about the oxalic acid, of course, but she didn’t see how Doon could have taken any of that. She had reported it to Mr. Bevan and Mr. Bevan had made all sorts of inquiries as to whether it had been left lying about. After they left the shop at six