Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains Read Free

little too callous, but Mrs Balfour merely shrugged.
    ‘I have no idea,’ she answered, ‘but he’s not going to wait much longer.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘He’s going away to our place in the Highlands for the first of August,’ she said. ‘And, as I wrote to you, I can’t leave the house any more unwatched and I can’t telephone without being listened in to, but I taunted him – one beastly night when he was at it as usual – I said what made him think that I wouldn’t pack my things and run off when he went shooting, and he said I’d be long gone by then. He said – I shall never forget it – he said, “Naturally, this will have to be tidied up by the end of July. I’m not going to miss the stags over it.”’ She gave a little sob as she spoke and then caught her bottom lip in her teeth.
    ‘Mrs Balfour,’ I began, after another long moment’s consideration.
    ‘Oh, Lollie, please,’ she said. ‘Not Mrs Balfour when I’ve just told you all that – too ridiculous for words. And certainly not Walburga.’ There was a ghost of a smile.
    ‘Well, Lollie,’ I resumed, ‘it’s a most fantastical tale. He sounds not only insupportable – that almost goes without saying – but actually mad. He sounds as though he needs some kind of rest cure or some clever doctor. However, he is not my concern.’ I gave her a stern look. ‘You are. And your instincts are sound. You should do just what you threatened to. Pack your bags and go, my dear girl. Or leave your bags behind and go. Just go.’
    ‘But go where?’ said Lollie. ‘My parents are dead, I have no friends that aren’t his friends too, I have no means of getting any money without his approval. And besides . . .’ Her voice trailed off.
    ‘Are there children?’ I asked, guessing that they would be a heavy anchor.
    ‘Not yet,’ said Lollie. ‘I mean, no. See?’ she went on wildly. ‘“Not yet”! I still can’t convince myself that this is actually happening to me.’
    ‘Is he in the house at this minute?’ I asked. She shook her head. ‘Well then, you can walk out of the front door along with me. Come home with me. And then telephone to a doctor, or to the police. To both.’
    ‘You do believe me then?’ said Lollie. ‘He always reminds me that I have no proof or witnesses and tells me that anyone I speak to will think I’m mad. And that he’ll give them lots of help to think it when they come to ask him about me.’
    ‘Hm,’ I said. She was right about the evidence and witnesses, of course, when I looked at the matter coolly. On the other hand, waiting until what they witnessed was her murder could not be recommended.
    ‘Is there any way you can try to be even more careful?’ I asked. ‘Has he ever given any hints of his proposed method?’
    ‘Oh yes,’ said Lollie. ‘I should have told you. It would be impossible to go on if I thought every dish might be poisoned or I might be shot in the back at any moment. No, I think he’s going to strangle me at night in my bed.’
    ‘He told you that?’
    ‘Not in so many words,’ she said. ‘He whispers as he comes and goes, you see.’ She leaned forward and spoke very softly. ‘ The rain set early in tonight, the sullen wind was soon awake, it tore the elm-tops down for spite, and did its worst to vex the lake. ’
    I could feel a nasty prickling feeling creeping up my back towards my neck, where a nasty shrinking feeling in my scalp waited to meet it.
    ‘What on earth?’ I said, thoroughly rattled.
    ‘I wondered for the longest time,’ said Lollie, ‘and then I found it. Well, a line of it – in a volume on the Carlyles.’ I must have looked impressed at this example of her reading habits, because she went on: ‘A volume that Pip left on my desk for me to find, open at the right page. It’s Robert Browning: a horrid, horrid poem all about strangling his mistress.’
    ‘I don’t know it, I’m glad to say.’ I shook my shoulders to drive off the last of the