Read Online Eight Murders In the Suburbs by Roy Vickers - Free Book Online

opinion. Did it not occur to you, Madge, to consult me before making sweeping alterations in my house?”
    â€œIs it your house, Arthur—or our house? Of course I oughtn’t to have done it on my own, but I had to take a risk! I had the feeling that everything in the house was practically as it had been when your parents married.”
    â€œIt was indeed! But what was wrong with it?”
    â€œWe have to give ourselves every chance, Arthur—or we shall be slipping back into the old ways.”
    The last words rendered him speechless. Slipping back into the old ways was precisely what he desired. He could find no means of making her understand. They were in the dining-room. He strode to the sideboard. The tantalus was still there. He took out the whisky decanter—nearly dropped it when she spoke.
    â€œNot whisky for me,” said Madge. “Gin and orange, please.”
    That was another shock. Never before had she taken a drink in the home, except during a party, when she would make a glass of sherry last the whole time. He hesitated, then began to mix the gin. She had turned herself into a different kind of woman and intended to stay so. He was not angry now, only afraid.
    â€œLet’s drink to our future, Arthur.”
    â€œTo our future!” And what sort of future? She no longer interpreted his wishes as her duties—she was compelling him to accept some give-and-take principle of her own. She expected her tastes to be consulted equally with his, and she demanded that he should woo her afresh for every caress.
    With a sense of discovery he remembered how he had sat alone in the drawing-room that night, wondering whether she had ‘run round to Dalehurst with that wretched book.’ Until he had removed the doubt, there would be nothing for it but abject surrender.
    â€œI’m afraid I’ve been a bit bearish over the decorations, darling. Sorry! Come and show me everything, and I’ll tell you how much I like it all.”
    She was sweetness itself whenever he made an effort to please her—but the effort had to be successful! Not that she required to be pleased all the time—she was as ready to give as to take. It emerged, however, that the month of madness at the Savoy, shorn of its expensive indulgence, was to be the blueprint for their married life. A kind of marriage which he had never contemplated and did not want.
    Most evenings, in the train, he would decide to put his foot down. But when he got out of the train—you could just see the gables of Dalehurst from the arrival platform—other considerations would arise. So he would say nothing when he found a cocktail party in progress at home—nor when Madge was absent, at some one else’s party—nor when she said she was sorry but she could never understand stories about business deals.
    In June, five months after the Savoy holiday, he contrived to meet Gershaw as if by chance, when the latter was leaving his office for lunch, and enticed him to a drink.
    â€œMadge seems to have got over her bereavement, but the fact is she has had a partial lapse of memory.” He brought in an anonymous psychiatrist. “Now, I do remember that she went out after dinner saying that she had a message for Mrs. Gershaw from the vicar and she must go in person, because your telephone was out of order. Can you possibly tell me, old man, how long she was with you?”
    â€œ Phew ! That’s a bit of a contract. My wife let her in—I was in the drawing-room, with the door open. I heard them chattering away in the hall and presently I butted in to ask your wife to have a drink, but she said she couldn’t stay. I didn’t notice the time. Call it three minutes—five, if you like. Best I can do! But I can tell you definitely she’s wrong about our telephone. It was on the telephone that we heard that night about the—about Mrs. Blagrove.”
    That was nearly all that Penfold