Read Online Who Saw Him Die? by Sheila Radley - Free Book Online

Roydon, I very much appreciate the kindness and forbearance shown to Cuthbert by the police. However –’ she directed her penetrating, dark-eyed gaze back to the Chief Inspector ‘– I am not at all satisfied with the investigation into the circumstances of his death.’
    â€˜So Mr Roydon tells me,’ said Quantrill in a soothing tone. ‘May we sit down while we talk about it?’
    â€˜Please do.’
    Quantrill remained on his feet until after both women had seated themselves. They were so very different, he thought, watching them: Eunice Bell sitting ramrod-straight on a hard chair, severe in navy blue; and Hilary, almost as thin, almost as straight-backed, but gracefully at ease and looking very attractive in a dusky pink suède jacket that, come to think of it, he didn’t remember having seen before …
    But he could see similarities between the women, too. They were both independent, strong-minded, self-contained. And considering that he had spent eighteen months working with Hilary but was no closer to her now than when he started, he foresaw little chance of finding out much about Eunice Bell during the course of the next ten minutes.
    There was one thing he could tell about her, though. In whatever way she had been affected by her brother’s death, Miss Bell had not been knocked off balance by it. During the course of twenty-five years of detective work, Quantrill had interviewed thousands of witnesses; he was accustomed to talking to people who were under extreme emotional or mental stress. He could recognise the rigidity of fear, the sweat and shake of nervous tension, the inward stare of the mentally disturbed, the gleam in the eye of the obsessed.
    But Eunice Bell showed none of these signs. Her stiff posture was clearly a long-established habit, an indication of nothing more than reserve and fastidious self-control. She sat with a practised composure, her hands and feet neatly placed, calmly motionless. And he knew that – much as he would like to discount what she was about to say to him, on the grounds of emotional imbalance – he was obliged to accept the fact that he was dealing with a rational woman.
    â€˜Why now , Miss Bell? This is what puzzles us. Police Constable Powell came to see you after Mr Bell’s death, but you made no reference to murder then. In fact you told the constable that your only surprise was that your brother hadn’t been run over years ago. All the evidence pointed to accidental death, and that was the Coroner’s verdict. So why are you now suggesting murder?’
    Eunice Bell looked at him from under dark, level eyebrows. ‘I expressed no surprise at the time, Mr. Quantrill, because I was well aware of my brother’s habits. It was stupid and wrong of him to make a practice of crossing the road quite deliberately in the path of oncoming vehicles. Unfortunately, I could do or say nothing to stop him. He was a menace to local drivers, and I’m only thankful that he wasn’t the cause of anyone else’s injury or death.’
    â€˜We’re all thankful for that,’ said Quantrill bluntly. ‘But –’
    â€˜I didn’t at first realise that Cuthbert had been murdered,’ Miss Bell continued, ignoring the interruption, ‘because I decided long ago that when the inevitable collision occurred, I would prefer not to know the identity of the driver. I thought it would be unjust of me to hold anyone other than Cuthbert himself responsible for his death. And so I didn’t read the local newspaper report of what happened, and I didn’t attend the inquest.
    â€˜But for some reason – curiosity, I suppose – I did read the report of the inquest in yesterday’s newspaper. And when I saw the name of the driver, and realised who he was, I knew that he must have lied about himself at the inquest. And because he had gone to the length of lying – or at least of