Read Online Death of a Mystery Writer by Robert Barnard - Free Book Online

got yourself married.”
    â€œWell,” said Ben weakly, “I’m not a tidy person. . . .”
    â€œI should hope not. Filthy, I shouldn’t wonder. That’s what makes people get married—being fed up with it. Don’t let your mother provide you with dusters and vacuum cleaners, Mark, my boy. She cleaned me up, but she shouldn’t try it on you. Squalor is part of a writer’s stock-in-trade.”
    â€œI’m not a writer,” said Mark thickly.
    â€œI know, my boy,” said his father equably. “I was referring to myself. Though stranger things have happened, of course. . . .”
    â€œI’d rather die than be a writer,” went on Mark, oblivious of the pressure of his mother’s hand on his right sleeve. “Bloodless, sadistic bastards. Always taking people apart, pretending to understand—God, they’re the last people to understand.” His great, dark-rimmed eyes watered with self-pity, and he looked with dull resentment at his father. “Self-satisfied oafs,” he said. “Think themselves bloody little gods. Playing with people . . . never leaving people alone . . . I’d rather die than be . . . than be a . . . writer.”
    He subsided into a comatose silence, and looked at his untasted dessert. He had effectively doused the festive atmosphere. Oliver Fairleigh’s eyes glinted dangerously as he looked in his direction, and there was an edge to his voice as he tried—in a parody of the tactful host’s manner—to fill in the surrounding silence.
    â€œOf course he has a point,” he said generally, looking round the table. “Wouldn’t you agree, Woodstock? We are a pretty bloodless lot, I suppose—watching people, storing it all away. Eh? All the little details that fall into place later, all the little mannerisms that give people away. It must seem a pretty inhuman sort of existence, to people outside the charmed circle.” He lowered his voice, and addressed Celia Woodstock alone: “He’s had a little bit more than is good for him, you know. Not used to it.” And then, as conversation seemed to be slow in starting up around the rest of the table, he said: “Shall we adjourn to the library? Surtees hasput out the coffee there. I’ve one or two things I’d like to show your husband, my dear—he’ll have to humor a bibliophile’s whims for a little while, I’m afraid.”
    They all got up, the Woodstocks saying all the right things, and the little party trooped off toward the library. With one exception. As they reached the door they noticed that Mark had sunk back into his place, and his head was beginning to fall forward onto his chest.
    Bella went back and leaned over him.
    â€œCome on, Mark. Dinner’s over. Come and have some coffee. That’ll buck you up.”
    There were clotted mutterings from Mark that sounded like obscenities. Bella started to lift him.
    â€œLeave him, Bella,” said her father, his voice dangerously close to a shout. “Best to let him come to on his own.”
    â€œOh, no, Daddy. This is the best part of the dinner. Mark will have to be in on it.” And Bella and Terence between them stood Mark up, and—staggering slightly, for Mark was not a small man—they hoisted him across the hall and into the library. Once they had him there they let him sink into an easy chair by the door, where he promptly went to sleep, if he had ever wakened.
    The study was large, luxurious, and dark, lined with cupboards and bookcases, whose contents were predominantly brown and nineteenth-century looking, though there were two shelves over the desk which contained a long line of books in gaudier dust jackets, no doubt the host’s own collected works. The desk itself was an enormous, heavy Victorian affair, and was open.
    â€œMy goodness!” said Oliver