Cast For Death Read Free Page B

afterwards.
    ‘I will buy the paper. I will read him later. It will be good for my English,’ said Manolakis. ‘It is so strange to hear it all about us.’
    In fact they had not heard it all about them, in Patrick’s opinion, for so many people in London spoke in other tongues.
    ‘I’ll buy it,’ he said.
    ‘No, please!’ Manolakis put up a hand. ‘You know me, Patrick. You understand my speaking. I must practise with other people.’
    He was right. And there was the unfamiliar money too.
    ‘I got me some small money on the plane,’ said Manolakis, and he stepped forward to carry out his little transaction.
    On the way back to Oxford, they stopped in Marlow for dinner. The visitor was swift in admiration of the river scene. Swans obligingly swam past, and the weir lent drama. It was very un-Greek. By the time they got to St Mark’s and Manolakis had been installed in his room, fatigue after his journey and the subsequent tourism hit him, and he went to bed forgetting his newspaper. Patrick sat down for a few minutes alone, gathering himself after the day. He was tired too; he had overlooked the fact that being a good host is often exhausting, no matter how welcome the guest. Idly, he turned the pages of the Evening Standard. With Parliament in recess there was a dearth of political news and plenty of space for domestic items. Several valuable old paintings had been stolen from a house near Leamington Spa while the owner, a Birmingham businessman, was out at the theatre. A party of Americans, including a senator, had arrived in England for a varied programme of talks about matters concerning pollution of the atmosphere; there were pictures of Senator Dawson, of Princess Anne preparing for the Badminton Horse Trials and another of Ivan Tamaroff, the Russian pianist who had defected to the west eight years before and whose son, Sasha, a celebrated violinist, was soon to make his first visit to London where the two would perform together. At the foot of a column on an inside page a small paragraph caught his eye. ‘ Actor’s death, ’ he read, and below the heading: ‘ The inquest on Sam Irwin, 44, the actor whose body was found in the Thames last Friday night, has been adjourned. Mr Irwin was currently appearing in the part of Macduff in the production of Macbeth at the Fantasy Theatre. ’
    Shock made Patrick’s mind a blank at first. Then, as he unfroze, horror succeeded. Sam had been dead, not ill, that night: dead, and in the river.
    But it couldn’t have been Sam whose body he had seen. That man had red hair, and Sam was dark.

 
Part II
1
     
    Next morning, at breakfast, Patrick showed Manolakis the piece in the paper.
    ‘He was your friend? Oh, what sadness,’ said Manolakis, about to tackle the bacon and eggs which Robert, Patrick’s scout, had produced.
    ‘But why? How?’ Patrick demanded, brandishing the paper in the air above his coffee cup.
    ‘Suicide. You say there are many in your river.’
    ‘It must have been.’ But why had the inquest been adjourned?
    ‘You will be finding out, I think,’ said Manolakis.
    ‘Yes.’ It was dreadful news; he must learn what had happened, and when the funeral would be held. The coroner had probably given permission for this at the preliminary hearing; as far as Patrick knew, Sam had no close relatives; he had always seemed very much a loner. Liz must be told, too.
    While Patrick telephoned her, Manolakis gazed from the window at the Fellows’ garden. It was so green outside, and the daffodils under an ancient cedar were like pictures of England in springtime which Manolakis had seen. An elderly man in a shapeless jacket was walking over the velvety lawn, smoking a pipe. A gardener, Manolakis supposed, not realising that he was looking upon the Master of St Mark’s.
    Liz, just arrived at her office, was very surprised at the identity of her caller, and shocked by what he told her.
    ‘Oh, how terrible! Do you mean it was Sam that you saw that