Through The Wall by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online

broke in upon the beginning of a dream. She heard words, but they didn’t seem to mean anything. He repeated them with insistence.
    “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you hear what I’m saying? That money that Marian has come in for—”
    Ina blinked and turned. His hand was on her shoulder, shaking her. The words were there. She groped for a meaning.
    “Money—”
    Cyril swore under his breath.
    “Your Uncle Martin’s money—if Marian had been killed in that accident, who’d have got it?”
    She blinked again, and woke up.
    “I should—half of it. The rest would go back—to the relations—if Marian—had been—killed.”
    He let go of her shoulder with the effect of a jerk. She began to slip back into her dream. Not a very nice dream— rather frightening. Money—if Marian had been—killed. Someone said, “Pity she wasn’t.” It couldn’t be Cyril—Cyril wouldn’t say a thing—like that—
    She went right down into sleep and lost herself.
    Chapter 6
    I can’t think what Felix will say.”
    Miss Remington cocked a small birdlike head and looked brightly sideways at her sister. She was a little creature with closely waved grey hair, bright blue eyes, and a complexion of which she was still very proud. If she assisted it a little, it was no one’s business but her own, and very discreetly done. It being breakfast time and a chilly morning, she wore an old tweed skirt and a faded lilac jumper and cardigan which she had knitted herself. One bar of an electric fire burned on a hearth which had been built for better things. In front of it, with that air of despising his surroundings which is peculiar to his race, sat the cat Mactavish. He had just completed a meticulous toilet. His orange coat recalled the best Dundee marmalade. He looked down at the electric fire which he despised and waited for Felix or Penny to come and bone a herring for him. He had a passion for herrings, but he did not consider that either of the two older ladies was to be trusted in the matter of bones. A saucer of fish prepared for him by Miss Cassy had already been rejected. He sat with his back to it and waited for Felix to come down.
    Behind the tea-things Mrs. Alfred Brand was mountainous in one of those horrible garments to which stout women, unless very determined, find themselves condemned—black, with a pattern suggestive of mud spots and red ink. Florence Brand could be determined, but clothes did not interest her, and she had never had any taste. She bought what fitted her and wore it one year for best, two years for secondary occasions, and as long as it would hold together for housework and gardening. She had a large, smooth, pale face, brown hair with very little grey in it, and those rather prominent brown eyes which give the impression that the eyelids have had to be stretched to make them fit. All her movements were measured and deliberate. She opened a tin of powdered coffee, poured a measured teaspoon into two of the four Minton cups on the tray in front of her, and added boiling water and a modicum of milk. The cups had a blue latticework pattern and were about eighty years old. Miss Remington took the one nearest to her, put in two tablets of saccharin, stirred them well, and repeated her remark.
    “I can’t think what Felix will say.”
    Florence Brand did not trouble to reply. She sipped her coffee, which she took unsweetened. Since Felix would be down at any moment, it seemed unnecessary to speculate as to what he would say. The two letters lay open in front of his plate at the table, one from Mr. Ashton, and one from Marian Brand. He would probably express himself violently, which would alter nothing. As she thought about what Martin had done to them, the insurmountable barrier set between the living and the dead filled her with resentment. Martin had got away behind it. They couldn’t reach him, and that was that. There was nothing to be gained by talking about it.
    She took a slice of toast and