The Victoria Vanishes Read Free Page A

Only his wide blue eyes remained youthful. I'm doing the right thing, he reminded himself. It's time.
    'Do you think he ought to be standing on a table at his age?' asked the voluptuous tanned woman in the tight black dress, as she helped herself to another ladleful of lurid vermilion punch. 'He needs a haircut. Odd, considering he has hardly any hair.'
    'I have a horrible feeling he's planning to make some kind of speech,' Raymond Land told Leanne Land, for the woman with the bleached straw tresses and cobalt eye makeup who stood beside him in the somewhat risque outfit was indeed his wife.
    'You've warned me about Mr Bryant's speeches before,' said Leanne.'They tend to upset people, don't they?'
    'He had members of the audience throwing plastic chairs at each other during the last "Meet The Public" relationship-improving police initiative we conducted.'
    They were discussing th e uncanny ability of Land's col league to stir up trouble whenever he appeared before a group of more than six people. Arthur Bryant, the most senior detective in residence at London's Peculiar Crimes Unit, was balanced unsteadily on a circular table in front of them, calling for silence.
    As the room hushed, Raymond Land nudged his wife. And I don't think your dress is en tirely appropriate for the occa sion,' he whispered.'You're almost falling out of it.'
    'My life-coach says I should be very prou d of my breasts,' she countered, so why shouldn't I look good at a party?'
    'Because it's a wake,' hissed Raymond.'The host is dead.'
    'Ladies and gentlemen!' Bryant bellowed so loudly that his hearing aid squealed with feedback. 'This was intended to be a celebration of our esteemed coroner's retirement, but instead it has become a night of sad farewells.'
    The table wobbled alarmingly, and several hands shot out to steady the elderly detective. Bryant unfolded his spectacles, consulted a scrap of paper, then balled it and threw it over his shoulder. He had decided to speak from the heart, which was always dangerous.
    'Oswald Finch worked with the Peculiar Crimes Unit from its inception, and planned to retire on this very night. Everyone had been looking forward to the bash. I had personally filled the morgue refrigerator with beer and sausage rolls, and we were planning a big send-off. Luckily, I was able to alter the ic-ing inscription on his retirement cake, so it hasn't gone to waste. "The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables," only the other way around, and with retirement substituted for marriage,'
    'What's he talking about?' whispered Leanne.
    'Hamlet,' said Land.'I think.'
    'Because instead of retiring, Oswald Finch died in tragic cir cumstances under his own examination table, and now he'll never get to enjoy his twilight years in that freezing, smelly fisherman's hut he'd bought for himself on the beach in Hastings. Now I know some of you will be thinking "And bloody good riddance, you miserable old sod," because he could be a horrible old man, but I like to believe that Oswald was only bad-tempered because nobody liked him. He had dedicated his life to dead people, and now he's joined them.'
    One of the station house girls burst into tears. Bryant held up his hands for quiet. 'This afternoon, in a reflective mood, I sat at my desk and tried to remember all the good things about him. I couldn't come up with a nything, I'm afraid, but the in tention was there. I even phoned Oswald's oldest school friend to ask him for amusing stories, but sadly he went mad some while back and now lives in a mental home in Wales.'
    Bryant paused for a moment of contemplation. A mood of despondency settled over the room like a damp flannel. 'Oswald was a true professional. He was determined not to let his total lack of sociability get in the way of his career. True, he was depressing to be around, and everyone complained that he smelled funny, but that was because of the chemicals he used. And the flatulence. People said that he didn't