What Dread Hand? by Christianna Brand Read Free Book Online Page A

her father having married beneath him.
    That Harold Hartley had married beneath him was acknowledged by one and all, not excluding Mrs. Hartley and himself. That he had had much the best of the bargain, occurred to none of them. Not that he was unkind to Louisa—not particularly; but he had always been a difficult, disagreeable man and of late had grown quite impossibly irritable—so ill-tempered and nervous and—suspicious; neurotic, Louisa supposed would be the word for it—he had even dug out an old war-time, smuggled-home revolver and kept it loaded in a drawer beside his bed. A nasty, black, ugly thing, she wouldn’t so much as touch it herself, but it seemed to give him confidence. She sometimes wondered whether he wasn’t the victim of some kind of mild blackmail—there was some oddly secretive visiting, now and then. Well, if that were so, she could only pray that it might continue—there seemed enough money to spare, and anything was worth paying that might prevent any smear of scandal from interrupting the triumphant progress through life of her darling Linda.
    Linda was their ‘only’: a horrid child, really, but to the loving and simple heart of her mother, the very pink of perfection both in brains and in beauty. For Linda alone did she resent the social rebuffs of snobby little Sanstone—led by Mrs. Bindell, the solicitor’s wife. Why Mrs. Bindell should be so positively inimical towards her, she never could quite understand; that she resented the bosom-friendship of the twins with Linda was evident. To effect a separation, Louisa strongly suspected, she would certainly oppose Linda’s entry to the new school. However, Harold must cope with that; Harold saw a good deal of Mr. Bindell over these property deals of his, and he would fix it…
    But alas!—in grey December, Harold, in Louisa’s own phrase, took ill and was about to die.
    She sat with Mrs. Bindell in ‘the lounge’ while Mr. Bindell went up to the sickroom. ‘Though it’s not much use him going, Mrs. Bindell. It’s days since poor Harold could speak a word, not to be understood; nor hold a pencil to write, or even make signs.’
    ‘It is usual to call and enquire,’ said Mrs. Bindell loftily, putting common little Mrs. Hartley in her place.
    But Louisa, it seemed, had been right after all. Harold had been unable to say a word to Mr. Bindell. ‘But he does seem to be trying to ask me something, Mrs. Hartley. Something he wants me to find for him or something like that. Do you know what it could be?’
    ‘No, I don’t,’ said Louisa. ‘We know about his will and all that. Something to do with the office, perhaps?’
    ‘I’ll go along there,’ suggested Mr. Bindell, ‘and get them to let me look around.’
    But according to the office underlings, nothing was found that could account for Mr. Hartley’s anxieties; and when she herself tried to question him, he rolled his head on the pillow and his look said as plainly as it had many times said during their life together, ‘Mind your own business, Louisa, and leave me alone.’ And the days passed away and so at last did Harold; and at the Sanstone Crematorium, ashes to ashes returned, and that was the end of him.
    Mr. Bindell waited a decent interval—a fortnight, he evidently considered sufficient—and then called upon the widow, this time without his lady. Linda had gone to the cinema with the twins. ‘So may I take it, Mrs. Hartley, that we are alone in the house?’
    ‘Well, yes,’ said Louisa startled. Was Mr. Bindell going to leap upon her with improper proposals, now that Harold was out of the way? She had always thought he had a nasty look.
    But Mr. Bindell did not leap. Instead, he reached into his brief case and brought out a large envelope. ‘You remember that your husband was trying to tell me something before he died?—trying to ask me to find something for him.’
    ‘Yes, I remember,’ said Louisa. ‘Did you find it? What was it?’
    Mr. Bindell