Speedy Death Read Free Page B

Medea-like welcome.
    ‘You are just in time to join in a serious intellectual discussion.’
    ‘Oh?’ said Carstairs politely.
    ‘Yes. Mr Philipson thinks that an accident took place in this house last night.’
    ‘Oh?’ said Carstairs again, in the same elaborately colourless tone.
    ‘Now I think it was a suicide,’ announced Mrs Bradley, with the air of one who indicates that it is a fine morning for a walk.
    ‘Oh?’ said Carstairs, for the third time.
    ‘Look here,’ broke in Bertie, ‘how long shall we be needed here, do you think? I want to get back to Town.’
    Carstairs affected to consider the question. Finally, he said with some abruptness, ‘I can trust you two people not to act idiotically if I tell you something very unpleasant, I suppose?’
    Bertie nodded, and searched the older man’s face with his eyes. Mrs Bradley showed her teeth in a mirthless grin, and smoothed the sleeve of ajade-green jumper which shrieked defiance at her yellow skin.
    ‘There was murder committed in this house last evening,’ said Carstairs, with quiet authority.
    ‘Ah!’ sighed Mrs Bradley, abandoning the jumper to its creases. ‘Fancy that!’ But whether the ejaculation expressed surprise, apprehension, relief, or merely a serious kind of mental pleasure to think that something had happened at last, neither of her hearers could tell. She plucked a bud from a rose-bush which grew beside the steps and smelled it delicately.
    Bertie was obviously very much surprised. A well-bred young man, he had been schooled to refrain from gaping or allowing his jaw to drop, but his expression was eloquent of his amazement.
    ‘What—what do you say?’ he bleated feebly.
    ‘I say murder,’ replied Carstairs solemnly. ‘And, what is more, carefully planned, deliberately executed murder.’
    He paused. His hearers neither spoke nor moved. Then Mrs Bradley smelled the rose again.
    ‘Come into the summer-house,’ he said abruptly. ‘I must talk it over with someone.’
    ‘A member of the family?’ suggested Bertie hesitatingly.
    Carstairs shook his head.
    ‘In their different ways they are all knocked out by the tragedy,’ he said. ‘Bing is not young, and he loved this friend very dearly. Garde—well, he’s had a shock, like the rest of us, and, besides, I did give him a hint of what I thought last night. Ofcourse, poor Eleanor was engaged to Mountjoy, as I expect you know—although, I remember, the engagement was supposed to be a secret—so I can scarcely consult her.’
    ‘I knew they were engaged,’ said Bertie, somewhat inadequately.
    ‘So did I,’ Mrs Bradley gravely agreed; and they followed Carstairs across the lawn to the small but pleasantly situated wooden summer-house.
    ‘We can be in private here, I think,’ said Carstairs. ‘Well, now.’
    They settled themselves comfortably, and Bertie, with a lift of the eyebrows towards Mrs Lestrange Bradley, which brought smiling permission from the lady, took out cigarettes. Carstairs waved aside the proffered silver case, and began.
    ‘The first thing I ought to make clear to you both is that you may regard yourselves as absolutely free to leave this house whenever you like. I must repeat, however, what I said last night. Whether this death proves to have been an accident, as you suggest’—he looked at Bertie Philipson—‘or a suicide—Mrs Bradley’s opinion, or’—he lowered his voice—‘a murder, as I solemnly believe and intend to prove, the fact remains that the whole affair is very mysterious. Think over the points with me, and I think you will see what I mean.’
    He checked off the points on his fingers with a solemn earnestness which at any other time would have diverted both his hearers.
    ‘First, there is the queer fact that, although a man, known to the scientists of two continents asEverard Mountjoy, went into that bathroom, we found drowned in that same bathroom an unknown woman, and no trace of our friend except his