The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop Read Free Page A

Lestrange Something-or-other who has taken the Stone House on the far side of the village. Your mater seems to loathe the dame pretty freely.’
    The brown-faced boy grinned.
    â€˜Well, I don’t know what she said to give you a nasty knock,’ he said, ‘but you do look as though something’s got you in the gizzard, old lad.’
    â€˜You don’t feel sick, Jimsey, do you?’ asked Felicity, pursuing the subject with motherly interest. ‘You are a horrible greenish-white colour, you know. You look simply beastly, poor old thing.’
    â€˜As though you’re going bad, you know,’ contributed Aubrey sympathetically but not very happily. ‘Sure you’re fit?’
    â€˜Quite sure, thanks,’ replied Jim shortly. ‘What about tea?’
    â€˜On the lawn?’ suggested Felicity. ‘It’s lovely out there. Come along and wash, Aubrey darling.’
    â€˜You can’t say that as Yvonne Arnaud said it in Tons of Money ,’ said Aubrey, grinning, and pressing the bell as he passed by it in following Felicity out of the room.
    Having ordered that tea should be served on the lawn, Jim Redsey hoisted his feet over the arm of his chair and closed his eyes. As, however, his thoughts behind closed lids seemed even more wearying, worrying and confused than when his eyes were open, he stared absently at the glass doors of the bookcase opposite. The figures of his aunt and the lawyer were reflected in these glass doors. They were deep in conversation, or, rather, in a dissertation on roses, emphatically delivered by Mrs Bryce Harringay in a peculiarly penetrating voice, as they crossed the lawn in front of the library windows.
    Jim’s eyes narrowed. Was this the chance he had been waiting for all that long day? With the two youngsters up aloft, and the two older birds preoccupied with each other and even making off in the right direction, could he sneak out without being seen?
    He crept to the French windows, concealed his large form behind the curtains and peered out. His aunt and the lawyer were walking away from the house towards a rockery covered with Swiss mountain plants with which Rupert Sethleigh’s late gardener had been making some experiments. Mrs Bryce Harringay was still talking, this time on the subject of the rockery.
    â€˜Yes, very interesting, of course. No, I have never been in Switzerland. The Riviera, of course, but not Switzerland, no. Yes, Rupert has been looking after these himself since Willows was dismissed.
    â€˜No, he doesn’t really care about gardening, but the Vicar of Crowless-cum-Boone is coming on Thursday – I think Rupert said Thursday – to look at these plants, and so Rupert felt bound to attend to them himself now Willows is gone. Oh, a nasty sullen fellow. Had no idea of his place. Of course, it was a pity Rupert struck him. I never think it wise to give these people a real grievance, do you? Oh, yes, the Vicar of Crowless is quite an authority upon Alpine plants – quite. He lectures, you know. And spends his life , they say, in Kew Gardens. Oh, his wife runs the parish. A most capable woman, most.’
    â€˜Well,’ said Theodore Grayling, seizing upon this opening before Mrs Bryce Harringay could change the subject, and wisely deciding that if he was to obtain a hearing at all he had better be as dramatic as possible, ‘I do hope the Vicar of Crowless will not be disappointed when he arrives and finds that your nephew has gone to America. Not that there is any reason against going to America,’ he added, noting with satisfaction that Mrs Bryce Harringay was turning purple with amazement and emotion. ‘I have always longed to visit our great sister-country; I have an admiration for America which –’
    In defiance of all the canons of good taste and correct behaviour, Mrs Bryce Harringay seized the lawyer’s arm and shook it violently.
    â€˜What are you saying?’