Eight Murders In the Suburbs by Roy Vickers Read Free Book Online Page A

sitting with her hands folded in her lap. The book was not in evidence.
    â€œYou’ve come to talk about Madge, haven’t you?”
    â€œAnd about you and me, Aunt Agnes. It’s sheer tragedy that you have to go and live somewhere else. We made a perfect little circle, the three of us. I can safely say that, these last two years, I have been as happy as any man can hope to be.”
    â€œYes! … Yes, I’ve noticed that you have.”
    The remark seemed out of focus. Also, Aunt Agnes looked amused, instead of impressed. He reminded himself that he was to be firm as well as fair.
    â€œI have to live near London, of course. That puts Madge in a terrible position. I would not for one moment dispute your claim to a sacrifice on her part—”
    â€œâ€˜Sacrifice’!” Mrs. Blagrove laughed somewhat loudly. “Let’s see if I’ve got it the right way round. It would be a sacrifice on her part to leave you and resume her life with me ? Sacrifice of what, Arthur?”
    While he was groping for a retort, she added:
    â€œThere are some things that women cannot conceal from each other, however hard they try.”
    â€œWhat has Madge to conceal from you?” he blustered. “Do I stint her allowance? Do I ask too much of her in return?”
    â€œYou ask too little. So that the little you do ask becomes a soul-destroying chore!”
    Within him was rising a strange kind of fear, which he did not know to be fear of himself.
    â€œTo me, that doesn’t make sense. But perhaps it’s my fault. Perhaps I have some blind spot—some—taint—of which I am unaware.”
    â€œIt’s nothing so interesting as a taint, Arthur.” She was leaning forward on the settee. Her elbows were bent, quivering a little. She seemed to him like a spider about to pounce. “Poor boy!” She was smiling now. “Your egotism protects you from all unpleasant truths—protects you, even, from the hunger for companionship and shared emotion. I’m afraid I must tell you something about yourself—something that’s not a bit mystical or dramatic.”
    â€œDon’t!”
    There was an antecedent state of mind, unsuspected by the judge, which made Penfold see in her smile the sneer which he had dreaded to see on the face of his friends, the sneer at the man who cannot hold his woman.
    â€œYour first marriage—” she was saying, though her words now were lost to him “—like your second, failed because you don’t want a wife—you want a puppet that can only say ‘yes.’”
    He had no purpose except that of compelling her to silence, lest she shatter that little world in which he lived so happily with a wife who mirrored his picture of himself. He seized her by the throat—his grip grew in strength while his mind’s eye was re-reading Julie’s letter: ‘I am terribly sorry and utterly ashamed of myself, but I can’t stick it any longer.’ Madge would leave him, too—and again he would be pitied as the man without a woman of his own. If he had been of a different social type, he might have described his ecstasy as ‘seeing red and then getting a blackout.’ He certainly went through a process comparable with that of regaining consciousness, though he was unsurprised when he found that Mrs. Blagrove was dead.
    He lurched into the chintz-covered armchair.
    â€œLook what you’ve done to us now , Aunt Agnes!” He whimpered like a child. He was too profoundly shocked to feel fear for himself. This would be the biggest scandal Crosswater had ever known. There was little he could do to avert it, but that little must be done.
    With his handkerchief he wiped the chintz of the armchair. In the hall he wiped the hatstand and the peg on which he had hung his coat. He put on his coat and hat—and his gloves—unlatched the front door, stepped outside and shut it behind