Not to be Taken by Anthony Berkeley Read Free Book Online Page B

perfectly trained a maid.
    ‘Excuse me, madam, may I speak to you a moment?’
    ‘Yes, Pritchard,’ Angela replied petulantly. ‘What is it?’
    ‘The sexton is here, madam. He wishes to know if it will be convenient for him to fill in the grave tomorrow.’
    ‘Convenient?’ Angela looked bewildered. ‘How can I know whether it’s convenient for him?’
    ‘I think he means after your telegram, madam.’
    ‘Telegram? What telegram?’ As usual Angela appealed to the nearest person. ‘What does she mean, Douglas?’
    A sudden feeling of uneasiness invaded me. ‘Would you like me to go and speak to him, Angela?’
    ‘Oh, would you? Thank you so much, Douglas.’
    I went out. The sexton, who combined that post with those of village carpenter, joiner and undertaker, and only became a sexton when duty commanded, was waiting at the back door.
    ‘Yes, Blake?’ I said non-committally.
    The old man touched his cap. ‘I only wanted to know if Mrs Waterhouse would like me to fill the grave in tomorrow, sir, or shall I put it off any longer? By rights it ought to have been done today, but when she sent me that telegram…’
    ‘Yes, of course. By the way, have you the telegram on you?’
    ‘Yes sir, I believe I got it in me pocket. Let’s see now.’ He dragged out an enormous collection of very dirty pieces of paper and began to sort them through with maddening slowness. Of course Blake knew just as well as I did that Angela had sent him no telegram, but the decencies had to be preserved; and for sheer instinctive tact, commend me to any West Anglian countryman.
    At last the telegram was found, and I read it through quickly. It ran:
    DO NOT FILL IN GRAVE PENDING INSTRUCTIONS FROM ME. WATERHOUSE.
     
    It was addressed to ‘The Sexton, Anneypenny, Dorset,’ and it had been handed in at ten twenty-seven that morning in London.
    I gave it back to the old man.
    ‘I think, Blake,’ I said, ‘that I shouldn’t bother Mrs Waterhouse this evening. I’ll see that she sends you the instructions tomorrow.’
    3
     
    I thus took a dislike to Cyril Waterhouse before I had even met him.
    This dislike was confirmed during dinner. The man’s appearance I have already described: his manner was unpleasing in the extreme. Toward Frances and myself he was coldly civil but let us see plainly that he considered us inconvenient interlopers; toward his sister-in-law he was cold and curt to the verge of rudeness, and over it. Dinner that evening was not a happy meal.
    When the two women had withdrawn and Pritchard had served us with our coffee, Waterhouse broke through the laboured small talk with which I was trying to ease the situation and said abruptly:
    ‘I’m not at all satisfied about my brother’s death. I understand that you and your wife saw as much of his illness as anyone. Please give me some account of it.’
    I complied, of course, with as good a grace as I could muster. The illness had followed the usual course of summer diarrhoea, I told him, and death had been due to collapse following the intense physical strain. Everything, so far as I understood, had been perfectly normal.
    ‘He had been expected to die?’ Waterhouse asked.
    I answered no, his death had been a surprise and a terrible shock to all of us.
    Waterhouse began to peel a peach from one of the Gable glasshouses in a scientific way, as if he were dissecting a fact.
    ‘I don’t understand,’ he remarked. ‘Why was no second doctor called in? Can you tell me that?’
    ‘I suppose Doctor Brougham saw no necessity.’
    ‘He did not consider my brother’s condition dangerous?’
    ‘So far as I know, he didn’t. Serious perhaps, but not dangerous… Though this sort of question,’ I added, a little stiffly, for I was becoming nettled by this examination, ‘would surely be better addressed to him.’
    He took no notice of my intended snub. ‘And why was no professional nurse sent for?’
    ‘Miss Brougham very kindly undertook the nursing. She is a