Died in the Wool by Ngaio Marsh Read Free Book Online Page B

the firelight.
    â€˜There’s this difference,’ he said. ‘If I know anything of police routine you were continually stopped by questions. At the moment I don’t want to nail you down to an interrogation. I want you, if you can manage to do so, to talk about this tragedy as if you spoke of it for the first time. You realize, don’t you, that I’ve not come here, primarily, to arrest a murderer. I’ve been sent to try and discover if this particular crime has anything to do with unlawful behaviour in time of war.’
    â€˜Exactly,’ said Douglas Grace. ‘Exactly, sir. And in my humble opinion,’ he added, stroking the back of his head, ‘it most undoubtedly has. However!’
    â€˜All in good time,’ said Alleyn. ‘Now, Miss Harme, you’ve given us a clear picture of a rather isolated little community up to, let us say, something over a year ago. At the close of 1941 Mrs Rubrick is much occupied by her public duties, with Miss Lynne as her secretary. Captain Grace is a cadet on this sheep station. Mr Losse is recuperating and has begun, with Captain Grace’s help, to do some very specialized work. Mr Rubrick is a confirmed invalid. You are all fed by Mrs Duck, the cook, and attended by Markins, the houseman. What are you doing?’
    â€˜Me?’ Ursula shook her head impatiently. ‘I’m nothing in particular. Auntie Florence called me her ADC. I helped wherever I could and did my VAD training in between. It was fun—something going to happen all the time. I adore that,’ cried Ursula. ‘To have events waiting for me like little presents in a treasure-hunt. She made everything exciting, all her events were tied up in gala wrappings with red ribbon. It was Heaven.’
    â€˜Like the party that was to be held in the wool-shed?’ asked Fabian dryly.
    â€˜Oh dear!’ said Ursula, catching her breath. ‘Yes. Like that one. I remember—’

    The picture of that warm summer evening of fifteen months ago grew as she spoke of it. Alleyn, remembering his view through the dining-room window of a darkling garden, saw the shadowy company move along a lavender path and assemble on the lawn. The light dresses of the women glimmered in the dusk. Lancelike flames burned steadily as they lit cigarettes. They drew deck-chairs together. One of the women threw a coat of some thin texture over the back of her chair. A tall personable young man leant over the back in an attitude of somewhat studied gallantry. The smell of tobacco mingled with that of night-scented stocks and of earth and tussock that had not yet lost all warmth of the sun. It was the hour when sounds take on a significant clearness and the senses are sharpened to receive them. The voices of the party drifted vaguely yet profoundly across the dusk. Ursula could remember it very clearly.
    â€˜You must be tired, Aunt Florence,’ she had said.
    â€˜I don’t let myself be tired,’ answered that brave voice. ‘One mustn’t think about fatigue, Ursy, one must nurse a secret store of energy.’ And she spoke of Indian ascetics and their mastery of fatigue and of munition workers in England and of air-raid wardens. ‘If they can do so much surely I, with my humdrum old routine, can jog along at a decent trot.’ She stretched out her bare arms and strong hands to the girls on each side of her: ‘And with my Second Brain and my kind little ADC to back me up,’ she cried cheerfully, ‘what can I not do?’
    Ursula slipped down to the warm dry grass and leant her cheek against her guardian’s knee. Her guardian’s vigorous fingers caressed rather thoroughly the hair which Ursula had been at some expense to have set on a three days’ visit down-country.
    â€˜Let’s make a plan,’ said Aunt Florence.
    It was a phrase Ursula loved. It was the prelude to adventure. It didn’t matter that the plan was concerned