Read Online The London Blitz Murders by Max Allan Collins - Free Book Online

bask in the adulation. It was as if Archie were standing there praising her work, adoringly interested in her… which in the reality of their marriage had never occurred.
    Finally she said, “You’re very kind, Mr. Cummins. Tell me something about yourself.”
    “Not much to tell, really,” he said, with a fleeting grin. “My father was a schoolmaster of sorts.”
    “That’s sounds… educational.”
    Janet put in, “I’m afraid more so than you know, Mrs. Mallowan. Gordon’s father was rather more a warden than a schoolmaster, I would say—the school was for delinquent boys and girls.”
    “Oh,” Agatha said, and frowned sympathetically. “I hope that wasn’t terribly unpleasant for you. Was your father strict, then?”
    “By most standards, yes,” the boy said. “But it was good for me. Prepared me for the life I’m leading now.”
    Janet, rather proudly, said, “Gordon has something else in common with you, Mrs. Mallowan.”
    “Really? What is that, dear?”
    “He’s a chemist.”
    “Is that right, Mr. Cummins? You do know I work in a pharmacy.”
    “I do know,” he said, “that you know your poisons.”
    They all laughed. A little.
    Shyly, the cadet said, “I can’t say my tour of duty as a chemist is anything to boast about—I trained in a Northampton technical school and worked here in London, as a research chemist.”
    “That’s when we met,” Janet explained. “I was already working for Mr. Morris.”
    Agatha bestowed on them a smile, one each; then to the young RAF cadet, she asked, “You enjoy the air force?”
    “Very much! I’ll be flying a Spitfire soon.”
    Janet said, “One of his senior officers—a Schneider Trophy pilot—has personally endorsed Gordon for his commission.”
    “How thrilling,” Agatha said. “Do you think you can get a pass to join us on opening night?”
    “That would be wonderful. I do so love the book!”
    Her smile was apologetic. “Well, the play turns out a little differently…. Why don’t you come in and watch these auditions? We’re finding an understudy for our leading lady.”
    Cummins sat toward the back as Agatha returned to Irene’s side, while Janet headed to the stage and the wings, to direct traffic on the auditions. The pert Miss Ward was asked to stay around for a possible callback, and the other actresses read with Larry, none of them terribly good.
    A thin blonde actress (who was forty-five if she was a day) was reading when Stephen Glanville strode down the aisle and, with his usual confidence, slid in and over and plopped down next to Agatha.
    For an archaeologist, Glanville had personality to spare. He was tall, handsome, mustached, cleft-chinned, forty-two years of age, in a rumpled brown tweed suit with reddish-brown bow tie that identified him as the professor he was; he was also the most despicable rake. Notwithstanding, he was Agatha’s husband’s best friend and sometime cohort in Egyptology, and—despite the man’s faults—Agatha loved him dearly.
    Glanville had taken a position in the RAF—strictly bureaucratic, at Whitehall—and had in fact engineered Max’s commission. This had been an enormous favor to Max, whose heritage was against him, ridiculously enough; though born in England, and giving off an Oxbridge air, Max had nary a spot of English blood—French mother, Austrian father.
    So it indeed was Stephen who’d wrangled Max that posting, as RAF Adviser on Arab Affairs to the British Military Government in Tripolitania, North Africa. Agatha tried not to resent that Max was surrounded by the great sites of antiquity that were his passion, in a bungalow by the sea, with a warmclimate and a diet of fresh fish and vegetables. Meanwhile she existed in cold, precarious London on bangers and mash.
    Before Max’s posting, Stephen had also helped Agatha and her husband find suitable lodging in London, in the same Lawn Road Flats where Glanville himself lived. Stephen’s family, his wife and children, had