Shallow Grave by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Read Free Book Online

activity there was, she wormed her way into it. Socially ambitious, you see – the worst type. I think she viewed this house as the local manor, and myself as lord of it, so she was always eager to ingratiate herself. She couldn’t get anywhere with me, so she attached herself to Frances.’
    ‘Would you say she and your daughter were friends?’
    His lip curled. ‘Frances hasn’t the knack of making
friends.
Never had. She and Jennifer Andrews had acquaintances in common and sat on the same committees. And, of course, the husband did quite a few jobs for us. You took him away, I see.’ He nodded towards the windows that looked out on the street. ‘Poor devil. Driven to it by that frightful woman. The man should be decorated for performing a public service, not hanged.’
    ‘We’re not allowed to hang anyone nowadays,’ Slider reminded him.
    ‘More’s the pity.’
    ‘You seem to be very sure it was Andrews who killed her.’
    ‘Oh, please, Inspector, play your parlour games with someone else! The body turns up in a hole in my terrace, which by complete chance was dug by the victim’s husband – with whom she was on famously bad terms! It’s hardly a challenge to the intellect!’
    ‘Why were they on bad terms?’
    Dacre seemed to lose interest quite abruptly. ‘I have no idea,’ he said, and turned his face away with a stony expression. ‘I don’t interest myself in other people’s domestic affairs.’
    ‘Do you remember when you last saw Mrs Andrews?’
    He seemed to consider not answering, and then said, ‘OnSunday morning. She called on Frances briefly. Something about arranging the flowers for the church, I believe. I didn’t see her – Frances went out to her, in the hall. She didn’t stay long.’
    ‘Did she come to see her husband here, while he was working?’
    ‘I sincerely doubt it. But how would I know? I can’t see the terrace from here.’
    ‘Do you always sit in this room, then? I noticed there is a desk and typewriter in the other room, which looks out on the terrace and garden. Is that where you write?’
    ‘I don’t write any more,’ he said irritably. ‘In case it has escaped your notice, I am a dying man.’
    ‘I’m sorry, sir. I do have to ask questions—’
    ‘About the protagonists in this sordid affair, perhaps. You do not have the right to interrogate me about my own activities!’ He put a hand rather theatrically to his forehead. ‘I must ask you to leave me now. I tire easily these days.’
    Slider stood up patiently. ‘I shall probably want to ask you some more questions later.’
    Dacre snorted. ‘If you insist on wasting my time in this way, you must take the consequences. However, since Jennifer Andrews was obviously
not
killed on these premises, you would be better advised to find out where she died and how she was brought here. Why don’t you try to find out who put her body into the hole?’
    Slider felt his hackles rising. ‘Thank you for the valuable advice. I would never have thought of that for myself.’
    Dacre’s face darkened. ‘How dare you display your insolence to me! You are a public servant! I pay your wages!’
    ‘And my parents paid yours!’ Slider went cold all over as he heard himself say it. In the brief silence that followed Dacre’s eyes opened very wide; and then, surprisingly, his face cleared and he began to chuckle.
    ‘Yes, I dare say they did! I am justly rebuked. You must forgive me my occasional self-indulgence, Inspector. At my time of life, being rude to people is the only kind of bad behaviour one is still capable of.’

CHAPTER THREE
Char Grilled
     
    To the right of the Old Rectory, beyond the gravel parking space and hard by the overweening hedge, was St Michael House, which had presumably been named by someone who had never shopped at Marks and Spencer. It was one of those 1920s joke Tudor houses, stucco above and herringbone brick below, with so many pitch-covered beams, horizontal and vertical, it looked as