Read Online The Courtesy of Death by Geoffrey Household - Free Book Online

affair, but had no intention of having one.
    ‘I like Barnabas very much and I am so sorry for him,’ she said.
    ‘How did you first come across him?’
    ‘At a meeting of the Arimathaeans in Bath.’
    She told me about it. Fosworthy had insisted on holding the floor. It seemed to be his habit to appear as a minority of one. He was deferred to. I doubt if I ever appreciated his importance as a
local oracle. It accounted for the fury of his disciples when he denied his own teachings.
    This society, however, had nothing to do with his sect; it was semi-literary with a dash of archaeology, harmlessly and romantically occupying itself with the real and mythical history of Bath
and the Mendips: Arthur and Avalon, of course, the supernatural discovery of the plans of Glastonbury Abbey and so forth.
    Fosworthy had been disrespectful about the Christmas-flowering thorn supposedly sprung from the staff of Joseph of Arimathaea. He suggested that this variety had been among the first shrubs to
colonise the tundra after the retreat of the ice, and still required cold to flower. He became excited and eloquent on the marvel of this thorn to palaeolithic man and emphasised the vast antiquity
of folk memory.
    Undine’s account was naturally incoherent; but that she could repeat the subject matter at all showed that then and there she had been oddly impressed by Fosworthy. Well, of course she
had. He had never taken his adoring eyes off her. When they had their first tête-à-tête she had been fascinated by his gentle, ceremonious devotion. His eccentricity did not
alarm her. She accepted him as the conventional, comic figure of absent-minded professor.
    ‘Your friend is also interested in primitive religion?’ I asked.
    ‘I don’t know what she is interested in,’ Undine replied sharply, ‘besides breeding dogs and killing animals or not killing them or something. Men are so absurd. Women, I
mean.’
    The slip of the tongue passed right over my head at the time. But it seemed a good moment to get her to talk about herself instead of Fosworthy.
    ‘It was sweet of you to come to London and see him,’ I said. ‘What made you decide so suddenly?’
    ‘Because I shall do what I like.’
    I apologised. I assured her that it was only my personal affection for Barnabas which had made me put so impertinent a question.
    ‘It wasn’t impertinent at all,’ she answered graciously. ‘You have every right to ask. It was someone else I was thinking of.’
    ‘This friend of yours?’
    ‘How did you guess? Yes, she was following me and she saw me say good-bye to Barnabas on Bristol station. And then we had a row. So when Barnabas telephoned me yesterday, I decided I would
come to London.’
    ‘Have you told her where he was staying?’
    ‘No! She doesn’t know where I am either,’ she added with a shade of satisfaction.
    Well, if she didn’t, she soon would; but that was no business of mine. I had got all I wanted, so I pleaded a previous appointment which prevented me waiting any longer for Barnabas and
said an affectionate good-bye as gallantly as I could manage.
    My intention now was to see this Miss Filk and insist on her accompanying me to the nearest police station. I arrived back at my flat with quarter of an hour in hand and limped up to the flat
roof of the building from which one had an extensive view of my own street and two side streets. I wanted to make certain that she was alone and that no monkey business was being planned under
cover of her visit.
    I spotted the probable Miss Filk when she was fifty yards away on the opposite pavement. She was dressed in a black town suit, smart but severe, with a man’s cravat round her throat, and
wearing a simple felt hat. Pacing alongside her on a slack lead was a magnificent black Doberman—a very effective chaperone when committing oneself to the flat of a stranger. It occurred to
me that I should have to be pretty tactful if I meant to detain her against her