The March Hare Murders Read Free

now, not to-night. Then suddenly it struck him that it would be pleasant to go for a swim.
    “Stella, how far is it actually to the beach?” he asked.
    She replied, “Oh, not ten minutes. You can cut along by the side of Verinder’s garden and through the wood there, and that brings you out on the cliff path. You can easily scramble down from there. Of course if you want to go round by the road, it takes longer.”
    “I thought I might go for a swim later,” David said.
    “I’ll come with you, if you like.”
    “Good.”
    “Though I ought to get on with cooking the dinner,” she went on uncertainly. “Perhaps I’d better leave the swim till another day. David—”
    “Yes?”
    “We’ll have to leave you alone a good deal while you’re here. Ferdie’s working pretty long hours at present, and I’ve very little help in the house. I’ve only got Mrs. Scales, who comes in three mornings a week, and no help at all in the garden. It’s a biggish place to manage alone. D’you think you’ll mind?”
    “Of course not. I told you so.”
    “But won’t it be bad for you, being mostly alone?”
    “I shall like it.”
    “Really?” She looked at him doubtfully. “Well, I suppose it can be quite pleasant for a bit.”
    “D’you mean you don’t like it yourself?”
    “Oh no, I’m much too busy to think about that,” she said.
    “How about the piano?” he asked suddenly. “D’you get time for that?”
    “No,” she said, “I scarcely touch it.”
    “Isn’t that a pity?”
    “No, why should it be? I was never any good. Never any good at all.”
    “I thought you were some good.”
    “No.” She shook her head. “One grows out of that sort of thing. One finds more important things to do.”
    “What has Ferdie got to say about that?”
    “Oh, he says I ought to go on with it, but he doesn’t realise how little time I have. If we’d a smaller, more convenient house, perhaps. … But don’t let’s talk about me all the time. David, don’t you want to tell me anything about what really happened?”
    He had seen that coming. He had known that sooner or later he would have to attempt explanations, and with a part of himself he wanted to talk and to go on talking till there was nothing left to say. But that struck him as a danger to be avoided at all costs, a cruelty, an indecency to others that he must not allow himself to be tempted into committing. But the only alternatives seemed to be calculated lies or silence.
    Taking off his spectacles, he swung them gently to and fro in front of him and tried to think of words.
    He heard Stella say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m not trying to make you say anything you don’t want to.”
    “No,” he said. “But I will tell you about it sometime, Stella. … Sometime.”
    “Don’t worry,” she said.
    “And I’ll tell you one thing now. …” All at once it was as if the words were being pressed out of him and he could not stop them. He felt again that unpleasant heat in the room and the pricking pain in his eyes. The words had to come. “Stella, when I was abroad, I …”
    “Don’t worry,” she said.
    “I killed a man—”
    “But of course,” Stella said. “We all know that. Don’t worry, David, we won’t talk about it.”

    •   •   •   •   •

    That was David’s first effort at explaining to Stella about the accident. He knew, of course, that she knew of the event. She knew that he had knocked a man down and run over him in an army lorry and had killed him. She knew, too, and would tenderly remind him of the fact if he went on talking, that he had been exonerated from all blame. The man had been drunk. He had run out suddenly from behind a car drawn up by the roadside. There had even been evidence to suggest that he had deliberately thrown himself in front of the lorry.
    But that was where it all began to get complicated. For the man’s snatching of death at his hands seemed to David the