Mad About the Boy? by Dolores Gordon-Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

about that.’
    Haldean nodded. ‘So his mood wasn’t depressed. How did he strike you, Arthur?’
    Stanton shrugged. ‘About the same, I suppose. I hardly spoke to him.’
    â€˜I spoke to him,’ said Haldean, lighting a cigarette. ‘I had quite a long conversation with him. He didn’t strike me as remotely depressed. He was impatient and annoyed with Lyvenden – as you say, Fennimore, cheesed off – but not depressed. Now that was at the start of the evening, I grant you, but not so very long afterwards we’re meant to believe that he became so desperate he scribbled a note, picked up a gun and shot himself. He’d have had to be a bit more than cheesed off to do that, no matter how many errands Lord Lyvenden had sent him on.’
    Smith-Fennimore sat down on the arm of the chair and rested his chin in his hand. Haldean could see the thought take root in his mind. ‘His note said he was worried about money,’ he said slowly. ‘He’d never said anything to me, but I’d wondered a couple of times if he was all right. I tried to speak to him seriously once or twice but he laughed it off.’ He looked at Haldean. ‘I’d like to know if he was stuck for money.’
    Stanton stirred uneasily. ‘He was.’
    Both Haldean and Smith-Fennimore looked at him. ‘I know he was,’ said Stanton. ‘He was up against the wall. What he said in that note was true. He came to see me about a fortnight ago. You said he struck you as down in the mouth, Smith-Fennimore. When he turned up at my flat he was in a hell of a state. He’d run through his allowance and his salary and was up to his ears in debt. He owed about three hundred pounds altogether.’
    Haldean whistled involuntarily. ‘My God! What did you tell him to do?’
    â€˜I told him to stop running round with the Brooklands crowd. And . . .’ He shrugged. ‘I lent him the money. I didn’t expect to get it back.’
    Haldean’s eyebrows rose. ‘You gave Tim Preston three hundred quid?’
    Stanton put his hands wide. ‘What else could I do? He said it was either that or the river and, God help me, Jack, I honestly thought he meant it. He was grateful, I’ll say that for him.’
    â€˜I should damn well think he was,’ muttered Haldean. He shook his head thoughtfully ‘Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he did top himself.’
    â€˜Why?’ said Smith-Fennimore in a strained voice. ‘If Stanton gave him the money, why should he kill himself? After all, even if he got into trouble again he must have known I’d have helped him. I wish he’d talked to me.’ He looked at Stanton. ‘Why did he go to you? I’d have made it all right for him. I thought he trusted me.’
    Haldean shifted, moved to sympathy for the big fair-haired man in front of him, but it was Stanton who spoke.
    â€˜He told me why He thought a great deal too much of you to tell you what a fool he’d been.’
    Smith-Fennimore drew a deep breath. ‘Idiot,’ he murmured. ‘I couldn’t have given a damn.’ He shook himself and stood up. ‘Does that change things, Haldean?’
    Haldean let out a deep breath. ‘I don’t know. Knowing that Tim really was stuck makes a difference.’
    â€˜Does it?’ Smith-Fennimore stood up restlessly. ‘Does it really? What made you think of murder in the first place? His sudden change of mood?’
    â€˜That’s it,’ said Haldean.
    â€˜But that’s still as valid as before.’ He walked to the window and, standing with his back to them, stuck his hands in his pockets. His shoulders were rigid with tension. ‘Do we tell the police?’
    Haldean shook his head. ‘I’d like to, but we need something a bit more definite to tell them. You see, now General Flint has decided it’s suicide, we’ll have to have something more