A Murder Too Many by E.X. Ferrars

Author:E.X. Ferrars
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781631942686
Publisher: Felony & Mayhem Press
Published: 2022-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

He solved the problem while, having sat down at one of the tables, he was waiting for the drinks to be brought. The young man was Owen Phillips, the fiancé of Caroline Ramsden. But there had been a remarkable change in the young man’s face since Andrew had met him in the Ramsdens’ house. It looked far older. The glow of happiness had altogether disappeared from it. It had even a trace of grimness. If this was his real personality showing itself, Andrew thought that perhaps Caroline did not know what she was in for. A moody character, apparently, who might not be too easy to live with.

However, when Phillips arrived with the drinks and sat down facing Andrew, the grimness had faded. There was merely a look of worry on his face, an expression that looked rather like apology.

“I’m sorry,” he began at once, “I probably oughtn’t to have bothered you with my affairs, you know. But the Ramsdens seem to think a lot of you, so I thought you were someone I could consult. But I realise it’s taking rather a lot for granted.”

“I hardly know the Ramsdens,” Andrew said. “Mrs. Ramsden was a student of mine many years ago, and Gregory Ramsden I met for the first time the day before yesterday. I’m glad if they have a high opinion of me, but I can’t think how I can have deserved it.”

“Is that really so?” Phillips asked doubtingly. “Mrs. Ramsden spoke as if she knew you quite well.”

“I think students remember their lecturers much better than the lecturers remember them,” Andrew said, “specially if the lecturer is in his way attentive. As I remember it, she wasn’t very bright and I gave her some extra coaching when the exams were looming ahead. In its way, it may have meant a good deal to her. But what has that to do with why you want to talk to me?”

“I just thought you might be able to talk to the Ramsdens, to get Caroline—well, to get her to see reason.”

“Is she being unreasonable then?”

“That’s how I see it.”

Andrew felt fairly sure that he knew what was coming. “She won’t go to Toronto, is that it?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re still going?”

“I don’t know. That’s the hell of it. I can’t decide. What ought one to do in a situation like this? I thought if someone like you would talk to Mrs. Ramsden…” He broke off. Instead of appearing older than when Andrew had seen him before, the young man looked not only very young but very vulnerable.

“Has Caroline actually broken off your engagement?” he asked.

“It seems to me that’s what it comes to. She says she can’t leave her mother, but that I mustn’t give up the job I’ve just got, and she talks vaguely about coming out to join me sometime later. But of course she won’t. If she won’t come now, she won’t come at all. But she just doesn’t want to take the responsibility of being the one to break off the engagement, she wants to leave that to me.

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