The House Of The Bears by John Creasey Read Free Book Online

fact that he was working on Halsted’s body.
    He himself certainly was. His thoughts went back to their early days – to Guy’s, to Halsted’s puckish good humour.
    Clements bent closer to his work; Palfrey sat on a high stool watching and thinking. At last Clements looked up. ‘Well?’
    ‘A narcotic,’ Palfrey said.
    ‘You wouldn’t care to say what narcotic, would you?’
    Palfrey went to the bench near the sink, tested, analysed. At last he looked up with a vacant smile.
    ‘I’m no expert, of course. Some kind of morphine poisoning. Not laudanum and not opium as such,’ Palfrey said. ‘A mixture, and a new one. Halsted was worried by the symptoms of his patient Garth – or don’t you know about that?’
    ‘Hardy told me.’
    ‘Well, we can tell him that Halsted either poisoned himself or was poisoned,’ said Palfrey, ‘and the thing he’ll want to do first is to find out where Halsted had tea yesterday.’
    ‘What are you going to do?’
    ‘Finish my holiday,’ said Palfrey, absently. ‘This isn’t my show at all, you know.’
    But he felt that it was, and knew that he would not be able to forget it.
    ‘I gathered that Hardy hopes you’ll be here for a few days,’ Clements told him as they parted, and Palfrey’s heart leapt.
     
    During the next three days, Hardy came several times to Palfrey’s hotel and was eager to talk. He had not been able to trace Halsted’s movements after he had left Corbin a few hours before his death, but his car had been found at the foot of a rock in the Wenlock Hills. There were no fingerprints except Halsted’s. The night had been so dark and misty that there was little chance of finding anyone who had seen the car after it had left the pool on the moor. Hardy was able to say that the car had been driven to and from the pool, but the traces were lost on the road surface. It seemed likely that after Halsted had been left in the pool, his car had been driven close to Morne House, past the squat inn and to the Wenlocks, among the rocky valleys of which the driver had doubtless hoped that it would remain hidden for a long time.
    Hardy admitted being disappointed in the results of his other inquiries.
    ‘Who benefits if Morne dies?’
    ‘His daughter.’
    ‘And if she predecease him?’
    ‘His sisters, equally.’
    ‘So Markham would stand to gain a great deal,’ said Palfrey.
    ‘Yes, but there’s a serious snag in that line of country,’ Hardy told him. ‘Men don’t commit murder for money when they’ve already got plenty. Morne and Markham haven’t a great deal in common except wealth. Both are extremely wealthy. I can tell you this,’ went on Hardy. ‘The Markhams have always hoped that Gerald and Loretta would marry. The family has intermarried a great deal; there would be nothing unusual about it. Rumour – sorry that there’s so much rumour in this! – has it that Loretta won’t look at her cousin. She certainly shouldn’t! A more vital creature than she it would be hard to find, and Gerald Markham is a weakling. No mind of his own, no desire to work; he wastes his time writing indifferent verse, composing bad music and playing the piano – he can play. I’ll say that for him.’
    Palfrey looked at him owlishly.
    ‘You know a great deal about the Mornes, don’t you?’
    ‘Don’t forget the Morne family is the family in Corshire,’ Hardy objected. ‘There isn’t another that ranks with it – not even Dalby, who’s Lord Lieutenant of the county.’
    ‘Do they own much of the land?’
    ‘Most of the land. Morne won’t have anything done on it without his express consent. During the war, lead and tin mines were opened after being closed down for years.’
    ‘Odd. Why did he close them?’
    ‘He had no objection to them being worked by small private companies, but refused to let them be worked by public companies before the war. The mines weren’t particularly important, wages were low, and Morne wouldn’t have it. There was