Murder Begets Murder by Roderic Jeffries Read Free Book Online

know.’
    ‘He’s slipping,’ said Diana scornfully.
    Crutchley smiled, a little uncertainly. ‘As I said to Vi­ — didn’t I, dear? — it really is too tragic for words. Bill dies after a long illness and then she dies so soon afterwards with no one knowing. Really tragic.’
    ‘Do stop rolling out the platitudes,’ snapped Diana.
    ‘There’s nothing more tragic about dying and lying around the place for a month than just dying. And a couple who die soon after each other are a damn sight luckier and less tragic than a survivor who goes on year after year, alone.’ Crutchley stared at her and seemed to be about to say something, but in the end he merely made a gobbling sound. Nonconformity, in thought or action, always disturbed him.
    ‘I’ll have to ask you to drink up,’ said Diana. ‘I’m sorry to rush things, but we’re just on our way out.’ He looked astonished. Not even one refill?
    The heat of the afternoon had eased by the time Alvarez awoke. For a while he remained motionless, sprawled out in the chair, then with a grunt of resigned annoyance he opened his eyes. He stood up and crossed to the shutters to open them. When the harsh sunlight streamed in he had to blink rapidly to ease his eyes. He looked down at the street in which the only living thing at that moment was a dozing cat and he yawned, envying the cat.
    He walked from the post to the square, where a large number of tourists were sitting out at the tables, and threaded his way through the narrow streets to the solicitor’s office. The receptionist said Señor Vives was out seeing a client, but would be back at any moment. Alvarez slumped down in a chair, which squeaked at the weight of his thickset body, and thought about nothing in particular.
    When Vives arrived, looking very smart in a light-weight suit, he greeted Alvarez warmly, led him into his office, and pulled round a comfortable chair in front of his large desk which was covered with files, books, and · papers.
    ‘Now, then, Enrique, what’s brought you here? Some body not paying one of the new taxes the government keeps introducing?’ He laughed. The stupidity of men in far-off Madrid who seemed to think they could rule the lives of the fiercely independent islanders was a constant source of amusement.
    ‘I’m trying to check up on the Englishwoman who’s been found dead in Ca’n Ibore. Were you her solicitor?’ Vives’s very mobile face became solemn. ‘Poor Señorita Stevenage. Yes, I acted for her and Señor Heron, before he died.’
    ‘It seems she must have died about a month ago. How come she wasn’t discovered before now?’
    ‘It’s easily explained, Enrique.’ He spoke about the trouble there had been with the landlord, Sanchez. ‘She told him what she’d done with the keys and on the Wednesday afternoon after she was supposed to have left the island he was in here, pleading with me to let him have them — only so that he could go inside and see everything was all right: promised on the honour of his mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, that he’d do no more than that.’ Vives chuckled. ‘If I’d given him the keys there would have been new tenants in the house just as soon as he could find them. And paying four times a reasonable rent.’
    ‘There’s a fool born every minute.’
    ‘When it comes to foreigners on this island, the birth rate’s obviously even higher than that. Listen to what happened this morning! An English señor comes in here in a terrible state, begging me to help him. He came to the island in Easter for a week’s holiday — remember how lovely Easter was?- and falls in love with everywhere. So he decides to buy a house down in the Port. An odd-job man says he knows a beautiful house for sale, a perfect bargain at only two and a half million. Does the English­man seek advice from a lawyer, as he would have done in his own country? No! He paid without asking a single question. And now he’s discovered that the