More Deaths Than One by Marjorie Eccles Read Free Book Online

difficulty from the clutches of the leather chair, he stood up.
    He thought, from his assessment of her, that Georgina Fleming wouldn’t shrink from identifying the body, but with the scene of carnage in the car still fresh in his memory, he decided he wouldn’t inflict that on her unless he had to. Was there anyone else, any other close relative, who could undertake this and spare her the ordeal? he asked. She told him there was no one except Fleming’s elderly parents. She would identify him herself, she said coolly, as soon as he wished.
    â€œThat’s up to you, Mrs. Fleming. I do realize it’s very late, and we can leave it until tomorrow –”
    â€œI have a very heavy day tomorrow,” she interrupted crisply. “I’d prefer to get it all over with tonight.”
    Did she, too, he wondered, weep glass tears?
    But when she looked down at the body of her husband stretched on the mortuary slab, she reacted after all very much as anyone else might. Since there was nothing left of Rupert Fleming’s features to identify, she couldn’t look at his face and say this was him, this was my husband, but as Susan Salisbury had said, you don’t know a person by his face only. Especially a husband.
    As she looked down at the body, her face took on a greenish pallor, beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. He thought she might be going to faint and took her elbow. She tried to speak and found herself momentarily incapable of doing so, a classic symptom of profound shock.
    â€œMrs. Fleming, is that your husband, Rupert Fleming?”
    Her nod and the barely uttered yes which she managed sufficed. “Are these his possessions?”
    â€œYes.” She found her voice. “I gave him the watch for Christmas.” He guided her from the building and they drove her home in silence. Mayo spoke to her as they drew up once more to the flats, telling her that the following day would do very well to go through her husband’s effects. “Who’s your doctor? We’ll get him to give you something to make you sleep tonight.”
    â€œI already have sleeping pills, thank you,” she told him in a crisp, controlled voice. She appeared to have recovered her composure as completely as though she had never for a moment lost it. “And I’d prefer to carry on tonight. I’ve told you, I shan’t be available most of tomorrow.”
    â€œIt’s your decision,” he answered, regretting the kindly impulse that had caused him to offer to postpone the search. Certainly, it would be better from his point of view to get things moving tonight. He didn’t expect it to take long, anyway.
    She told them where to look when they were once more in the flat, picked up a pen and the papers she’d been reading when they rang, and let them get on with it.
    There were two bedrooms, but only one was in use, a large one, with a double bed. The wardrobes were a set of mirror-faced built-in cupboards, her section of it crammed with expensive clothes and shoes, silk shirts and smart, executive-style business suits, while his contained a very few clothes which were much more casual.
    â€œNothing but the best, though,” said Jenny Platt.
    And since, apart from the clothes and some toilet things in the bathroom, there appeared to be nothing else belonging to Fleming, they returned to the living room for an examination of his papers, which were housed in a small desk in the corner of the room.
    â€œYou won’t find many, though,” Mrs. Fleming said. “He believed in travelling light. He kept what he was working on in his briefcase and carried it around with him.”
    Where was his briefcase now? It hadn’t been in his car. Nor had his portable typewriter, which she also said he carried around with him. Nor had his keys. “I can’t help you,” she said indifferently. But the strain was telling. He fancied she was even paler than her