Read Online So Bad a Death by June Wright - Free Book Online

Matheson.” I heard the receiver being replaced.
    I went back to the porch to bring Tony in for his meal. The phone rang again. Ames’ voice was becoming familiar. This time he sounded apologetic.
    â€œI forgot to mention, Mrs Matheson, that Mr Holland likes his guests to wear evening dress.”
    â€œWe always do,” I replied loftily, and took pleasure in ringing off first.
    I moved about the house quickly. There was still a great deal of unpacking and arranging of furniture to be done. Ordinarily I would have welcomed the chance of John being out of the way to get it done. But that night I felt nervous. The odd creaks and reverberations, to which one becomes accustomed after a time, seemed unnatural and sinister to my ears. The silence was heavy. It made the noises sound muffled and furtive. A constant beat from the frogs in the creek and the hum of night insects reminded me of the isolated position of the Dower House. I kept Tony from bed for as long as his temper could stand it. His worn-out crying comforted me that lonely night, where it would have irritated me at another time.
    In fact, I had the jitters so badly that I was compelled to put away the detective story I was reading at dinner. Even the radio was tuned into some gruesome play by Edgar Allan Poe. For a while I went bravely around the house, pulling down blinds and flooding the rooms with light. My dinner dishes were washed and dried with a clatter, but I did not open the kitchen door to put scraps in the garbage bin on the porch. An opossum in the roof, stirring before his midnight scampers, almost caused me to drop a stack of plates. I shook my fist at the ceiling, took a firm grip of myself and went into John’s study to unpack a case of books.
    It was this one small room, fourteen feet square, because it fitted the green carpet perfectly, which had reconciled John to the distance from town and the unreliable train service. The walls were lined with bookshelves and a gas fire had been neatly fitted opposite to the only sensible position to put a desk. This was in an alcove formed by windows facing three ways.
    I crossed to them slowly and deliberately to draw the blinds, mindful that at least I had Tony for company. A mist had risen up from the creek at the back of the Dower property where the frogs still croaked incessantly. Somewhere above the mist the moon was shining, making the white trunks of the English trees in the wood slim and wraith-like, and illuminating the tower of the Hall. I forced myself to wait, watching it. I don’t know why. Perhaps I was daring myself to be afraid if that mysterious light flashed from it again. I even counted up to twenty before I dropped the shade, and called myself a fool.
    Kneeling beside the open case, I began to sort books. They were mainly technical tomes belonging to John, but there were a few novels of mine and a set of Shakespeare which had been a school prize. Turning over pages at random as I crouched there on the floor, something made me glance towards the door. It was closed against the draught, but I could have sworn a thread of cold air blew on my neck that I had not noticed before. Terrified, I watched the door handle, half expecting to see it slide around. I knew I was being absurd and tried to call lightly: “Is that you, darling?”
    The heavy pressing silence dulled my words. Again I became conscious of the croaking of the frogs, monotonous and lonely.
    â€œThis will never do,” I told myself severely, getting up from the floor and letting the lid of the case close with a bang.
    I opened the door and went into the hall. At one end the porch light shining through the narrow windows flanking the front door made a pattern on the carpet. I watched it for a moment. It was quite still. At the far end of the passage a lamp was aglow just outside Tony’s room.
    He was breathing quietly. The nursery was full of the warmth and companionship of him. I leaned over the