Death with Blue Ribbon Read Free

he came out of hospital, Rivers had said. What might happen if he mentioned it to anyone, anyone? The police could not protect him. There was only one thing for it. A private detective. The name gave him a little relief. If he had Sherlock Holmes here, for instance, omnipotent, imperturbable Holmes. He was a character in fiction of nearly a century ago, but there must be someone to whom he could tell his appalling story.

Two
    â€˜So I’m prepared to spend a large sum, a really generous sum, to be rid of the whole thing,’ said Rolland, expansively.
    Carolus Deene examined his visitor without favour.
    â€˜It’s what you might call a plum, this job,’ went on Rolland. ‘Free board at the Fleur-de-Lys. Free meals in the Haute Cuisine Restaurant—with the exception of certain starred dishes, of course. And a reasonable allowance of free drinks in the bar.
With
a large fee. Any private detective would jump at it.’
    â€˜But I’m not a private detective.’
    â€˜Not?’ said Rolland. ‘I understood that you were just the man for this job. I made enquiries before coming to see you. It needs someone presentable, as you can imagine. The Haute Cuisine has a reputation.’
    â€˜So have you,’ said Carolus quietly. ‘And it stinks.’
    Rolland was never more surprised in his life. The words were spoken so indifferently and gently that he only just caught them.
    He rose to his feet. He had endured a good deal in the last few days but this was too much. Some wretched little investigator insulting him like this.
    â€˜How dare you?’ he asked.
    â€˜Sit down, you conceited fool,’ said Carolus, but notaltogether unkindly. ‘Don’t you realise I’m the only chance you’ve got? You’re going to answer questions for the next ten minutes and I’ll tell you whether I’ll take the case or not. First I had better make something clear. The investigation of crime is a hobby with me but I have never looked at anything less than murder. I am rather inquisitive about that, I must admit. I’m a schoolmaster, you know, and I think it’s answering the questions of small boys all term-time that makes me want to ask some of my own in the holidays. You haven’t got a murder to offer me?’
    â€˜It’s worse than murder. It’s blackmail,’ said Rolland.
    â€˜Still, one often leads to another,’ Carolus reflected. ‘You had better tell me all about it.’
    He offered Rolland a cheroot and when he nervously refused, lit one himself.
    Carolus was a spare muscular ex-Commando in his forties. His lovely young wife had died during the last war and he had remained a widower. The inheritance of what he described as an embarrassingly large income from his father had left him independent, but, unable to live in idleness, he had become senior history master at the Queen’s School, Newminster, and fulfilled his duties conscientiously, though his colleagues viewed his Bentley Continental, his comfortable Georgian house, his reputedly self-indulgent way of living, cared for by his magnificent housekeeper Mrs Stick and her retiring but industrious husband, as unsuitable for one in his position on the staff.
    The investigation of murder was his one interest outside the school. He applied a mind both scholarly and worldly to this and had been surprisingly successful in finding solutions to many puzzles connected with it. He had a quiet reputation as an investigator but never asserted himself. Two people claimedto disapprove of his criminological activities; his headmaster, Hugh Gorringer, who ‘feared for the good name of the school they both served’ as he put it, and Mrs Stick herself who did not like him to ‘get mixed up in these nasty murder cases.’
    Mrs Stick’s facial expression when she had shown Rolland in that afternoon warned Carolus that she guessed the nature of his visit. She was a little woman,