Read Online Hasty Death by M. C. Beaton - Free Book Online

Also, I believe that Captain Cathcart may propose to my Dora and this Lady Rose is getting in the way. I would like to get rid of her.’
    The teacup rattled nervously on the baker’s knee. ‘You don’t mean . . .’
    ‘No, silly. I mean I’ve a good mind to phone the Daily Mail and expose her. That way she’d be socially ruined and the captain wouldn’t even look at her.’
    Mr Jones was a round-shouldered greying man with small black eyes almost hidden in creases of fat. The delicate chair he was sitting on creaked alarmingly under his weight as he leaned forward.
‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ he said, his sing-song voice betraying his Welsh origins.
    Why? ‘
    ‘Because this captain ain’t in top society. I mean, he’s put himself in trade. As it stands, Lady Rose’s parents would never give their blessing. But if she was socially
ruined, why then, she would be on a par with him.’
    ‘I never thought of that. It’s so good to have a man around to advise me. I do worry about Dora. I would like to see her married before I get married again myself.’ She glanced
roguishly at the baker.
    ‘As to that,’ said Mr Jones, turning red, ‘I have a proposition to make.’
    Mrs Jubbles put one thin old hand up to her bosom. ‘Oh, Mr Jones!’
    ‘Yes. See, I’ve a mind to ask Dora myself.’
    ‘Dora!’ screeched Mrs Jubbles. ‘My Dora! Her what’s meant for the captain. Get out of here and don’t come back.’
    Mr Jones stood up and laid his teacup down on a side table which had just been beyond his reach.
    ‘I was only trying to help,’ he said huffily.
    Mrs Jubbles raised her trembling black-lace-mittened hands and shouted, ‘Out! Out! Out!’
    And so Mr Jones left, bewildered, not knowing that Mrs Jubbles had believed his visits were because he was enamoured of her.
    Madly, she blamed this Lady Rose. Things had been going so well before she appeared on the scene.
    Harry decided to call on Lord Alfred Curtis to start his investigations. Lord Alfred lived in a house in Eaton Terrace. His manservant answered the door and took Harry’s
card. He studied it and then ushered Harry into one of those ante-rooms off the front hall reserved for tradesmen and other hoi polloi.
    Harry reflected ruefully that even society’s servants knew he had sunk to trade.
    He waited and waited. At last the door opened and Lord Alfred swanned in, wrapped in a brightly coloured oriental dressing-gown. ‘You woke me,’ he said by way of greeting, but Harry
noticed that the young man had shaved and that his thick brown hair was smarmed down with Macassar oil. Lord Alfred yawned and said, ‘What’s this about?’
    ‘It’s about the death of Freddy Pomfret.’
    Alfred composed his thin face and heavy-lidded eyes into what he obviously considered was the correct mask of mourning. ‘Poor fellow. Commit suicide, did he?’
    ‘No, he was shot.’
    ‘Terribly, frightfully, awfully sad. So what’s it got to do with me?’
    ‘You paid him ten thousand pounds.’
    ‘So? I must sit down. I’m getting a sore neck with you looming over me. Let’s go into the morning-room.’
    Harry followed him up the stairs and into a room off the first landing. It was decorated in gold: gold-embossed paper on the wall, gold silk furniture, gold carpet.
    There was a fire crackling in the grate. ‘Sit down,’ ordered Alfred with a wave of one long white hand.
    They both sat down opposite each other.
    ‘I was asking you why you gave Freddy ten thousand pounds. I’m acting on behalf of his family,’ lied Harry.
    ‘Let me think.’ Alfred placed the tip of one finger against his brow, rather in the manner of the Dodo in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. ‘Ah, yes, he was on his
uppers. Begged a loan to pay off his gambling debts.’
    ‘Do you have an IOU?’
    ‘Of course not. Gentleman’s agreement. You wouldn’t understand.’ His voice held the hint of a sneer.
    ‘No, I don’t,’ said Harry bluntly. ‘It’s