Read Online Dead Man’s Shoes by Leo Bruce - Free Book Online

but then seemed to think better of it and came on.”
    â€œDid he speak to you?”
    â€œYes. He said ‘Good afternoon’ in a very loud voice. I did not answer, of course. I don’t converse with strangers. I cycled on.”
    â€œThat’s all?”
    â€œWhen I reached the Barton Bridge Hotel, a few hundred yards farther on, I decided to go in. I was looking for someone who might have been there. I stopped talking a while to Mr Habbard the manager, and while I was there the man I had seen at the stile came in. He seemed to be in a hurry now and asked Mr Habbard for his bill to be got ready, as he was leaving. Mr Habbard, said, ‘Certainly, Mr Leech,’ and that was all.”
    â€œDo you think he recognized you as the man he had just said ‘Good afternoon’ to?”
    â€œNo, I don’t think so. He didn’t seem to see very well.”
    â€œThank you, Mr Smite.”
    â€œI must be going. I’ve got …”
    â€œI’ll see you out,” said Packinlay hurriedly.
    â€œNow does
that
convince you?” asked Packinlay when he returned.
    â€œThere was certainly one point of interest. About Larkin ‘making to go back’ when he first saw Smite. If that is true it is rather indicative. But the best of observers get false impressions.”
    â€œYou’re right there. Nothing easier. The wife tells me that I always get things wrong.”
    â€œNow we really must leave you,” said Carolus. “Again many thanks.”
    At last he and Rupert were safely in the car and following the directions which Packinlay had given them on how to reach the Barton Bridge Hotel.
    â€œBeauties, aren’t they?” said Rupert. “I loved the summons being served. Did you guess they were hard up when you said we were going to the hotel?”
    â€œNo. I wanted to be independent.”
    â€œAnd not bored to death. He was all right today because he was giving us information we wanted, but can you imagine that one when it’s run out?”
    â€œOdd to find a man like that in debt. Presumably he was well paid by Willick. And couldn’t he get an advance on his legacy?”
    â€œYou can’t be sure he was in debt. The summons may have been for some sum he refuses to pay for some reason.”
    â€œI don’t think so. It wasn’t the first time Smite had served one on him.”
    â€œAnyway, what a couple! Doesn’t she ever utter? They must chatter like magpies when they’re in bed for her to have time to ‘always say’ everything.”

7
    T HE B ARTON B RIDGE H OTEL had been a coaching inn, one of the few buildings along the loneliest stretch of road in that part of the country. It had been a simple hostelry where stops were once made by almost every horse-drawn vehicle and honest refreshment was served to travellers. Through three centuries at least it had continued thus, unpretentious and useful; but for the twentieth century it was not good enough.
    â€œGosh, look at the ‘good taste’!” said Rupert Priggley when he saw it. “Isn’t it ghastly?”
    Carolus nodded. The wealth of oak that had been introduced, the arty brick fireplaces with arty brass ornaments hanging round them and arty old spits and fire-irons in their recesses, the expensive Tottenham Court Road upholstery, carpets and curtains, the furniture so farm-house and tricksy with milking-stools and settles, the warming-pans and coaching horns, the pewter tankards and horse-whips—it was a nightmare in the phoney antique.
    â€œI don’t think I can bear it,” said Rupert Priggley. “What would you call this?”
    â€œThis is a cock-fighting stool made by one of the largest antique factories in London. That is a spinet.”
    â€œIt must have been quite a decent pub once, when it was a pull-up for draymen.”
    They went up to their rooms and came down to have a drink in the Old Snuggery.
    â€œI