Death Knocks Three Times by Anthony Gilbert Read Free Book Online

months, and now, when at last I have taken her advice, you’re trying to dissuade me.”
    John caught the balustrade and shook it gently. “These balconies were made for appearance rather than use—at all events, this part of them. You tell Aunt Clara she ought to get her man to come and have a look at this. Oh, I know you don’t weigh much more than a bouncing ball, but there’s no sense taking unnecessary risks.”
    “I don’t think that will be necessary, dear,” returned Isabel cosily, “Anyway, I never go near the edge.”
    He shrugged, turning back toward the lighted room. “You must do whatever you wish, of course, but if you come to a disastrous end, remember you were warned.”
    Really, he reflected an instant later, she was almost too sensitive. At his words the light died out of her eyes; her face was white.
    “What made you say that, dear? You shouldn’t. It’s not lucky. A disastrous end, indeedl” Then, for the second time, she recovered herself. “You see what a silly old woman I’m getting? Quite superstitious. My second childhood, Clara calls it. Now, John, you are to promise me you won’t go frightening your Aunt Clara with stories about this balcony not being safe. She would only try to stop me from sitting here, and really I do need a little privacy.”
    “So long as you remember to be careful,” agreed John, and he returned to town the next day.

5
    I T REALLY was very odd. He hadn’t been back forty-eight hours when he got a telegram recalling him at once.
     
    Serious accident Aunt Isabel
     
    Just as, six months later, he was to learn of his uncle’s sudden death within twenty-four hours of leaving the old man’s house.
    He showed Clara’s telegram to his landlady, the worthy Mrs. Pringle. “I do hope it’s nothing to do with the balcony,” he said. “I should feel quite responsible. I believe I ought to have mentioned it to Aunt Clara, after all.”
    The landlady, who was proud of her lodger and was helping him to pack a bag, said comfortingly that probably it was one of these road accidents, and, in any case, she was sure he hadn’t anything to blame himself for. But John felt anxious all the way down to Brakemouth.
    A taxi driver, who recognized him as Miss Bond’s nephew and not, as John would have preferred, as a well-known novelist, confirmed his suspicion that the balcony was the cause of the accident. A shocking thing, he said, poor lady. At Seaview he found Locket looking as grim as grief would allow her—she really had been devoted to Isabel, he remembered—and Clara as rigid as one of those wooden dolls dear to an Edwardian childhood. When she saw him she said: “I suppose you have heard what has happened? The whole neighborhood appears to be buzzing with the news. When I was a young woman there was a quality called reticence. You didn’t, if you were a gentlewoman, concern yourself with other people’s business.”
    John repressed a desire to say that such a Golden Age had never existed, and laid himself out to be sympathetic. He asked how it had happened and who had discovered it.
    “It happened presumably because Isabel leaned too far over the balcony and part of the woodwork gave way. I discovered it. It was most harrowing. Your aunt had not come down to dinner, so I went up to her room, which was in darkness. However, I knew she sat a good deal on the balcony, day-dreaming, I suppose, so I went out there. Of course it was obvious at once what had occurred.”
    John said hesitantly. “The—the body? It’s been recovered?”
    “Some fishermen picked it up from the rocks this morning.”
    “And—were there—of course there must have been—injuries, I mean?”
    “There was a wound in the head, but the doctor considers that may well be due to her striking her head on the rocks when she fell.”
    John drew a deep breath. “A regrettable accident,” he murmured.
    Miss Bond took him up sharply. “Accident? Of course it was an accident. I hope you