Read Online Give a Corpse a Bad Name by Elizabeth Ferrars - Free Book Online

read it, but from the length of time she looked at it she must have read it over several times before she spoke.
    â€˜Am I right,’ she said then, looking at Toby, ‘that the implication of this letter is that I murdered Shelley Maxwell?’
    â€˜I shouldn’t be surprised,’ said Toby.
    â€˜He was dead drunk, wasn’t he? His stomach was swimming in whisky. That meant that he must have drunk it a very few minutes before he was killed. But you searched, didn’t you—’ she still had her steady gaze on Toby—‘and couldn’t find anything that might have contained the whisky?’
    â€˜Inference,’ said Toby, ‘someone removed it.’
    â€˜Yes,’ she said, ‘and suppose it was I who removed it. And not only removed it, but gave it to him in the first place. The inference then is that he was not lying in the road when I first encountered him. Probably he was standing up. Probably I talked to him. So when I drove my car over his head I must have known that he was there …’
    Toby was staring fascinated at the stillness of her ringed hands. ‘D’you know,’ he remarked, ‘you’re about the most controlled woman I’ve ever run into.’
    She started then, and her hands came quickly together. Toby smiled at her with irony.
    â€˜Do you,’ he said, ‘happen to keep a flask in your car?’
    â€˜Yes, I do.’
    â€˜Could you say off-hand whether it’s full or empty at the moment?’
    â€˜No, I haven’t the slightest idea. I—’ She hesitated and her eyes suddenly looked unguarded and afraid. ‘It must be full, I think. There was that big accident last December at the railway crossing on the Plymouth road. You remember—’ she turned for a moment to the sergeant—‘I came up just after it happened. I had my flask out then, giving some whisky to the man who wasn’t killed. I think I filled it up again afterwards—yes, I did, I know I did—the same evening. But I haven’t thought about it since.’
    â€˜You’re sure about that?’ said Toby.
    â€˜Y-yes, sure.’
    â€˜Then wouldn’t it be a good idea,’ said Toby, ‘to show it to the sergeant now?’
    She got to her feet. ‘Come along.’

    As they came out into the hall there was the sound of footsteps on the landing overhead and then on the stairs, and Daphne Milne appeared round the bend in the staircase. She stood still as soon as she saw them, looking first at her mother, but then, as if she could not help herself, let her big eyes gaze into Toby’s. For a moment he paused before her, but a pressure in the small of his back from George sent him on after Mrs Milne. He followed her down a short passage and out through glass doors at the end of it on to the gravel drive, which, sweeping round the house, came to an end at a large, stone garage.
    The garage doors were open. As they approached a man came out and went down a path towards the kitchen garden.
    â€˜Chauffeur?’ said Toby.
    â€˜Well, gardener really,’ said Mrs Milne, ‘but he does drive me sometimes and he looks after the car. Now that—’ and she pointed—‘is where the flask is. Look for yourselves.’
    Toby took a step forward. But with his hand on the door of the car he stopped. ‘I’ve a feeling,’ he said, ‘that you think we may be backing this anonymous letter.’
    She shrugged her shoulders. ‘No, I don’t know that I do. I appreciate your bringing it to me. Please go on.’
    Toby leant in through the door of the saloon and felt round in the pigeon-hole on the dashboard. Behind some fur gloves, some maps and sun-glasses, he found a flask. It was a glass flask, its base fitting into a silver cup. He held it up. It was full within about an inch of the stopper.
    Mrs Milne saw it with a crooked smile. As Toby handed it to the sergeant