D.I. Price Investigates: A box set of classic British detective fiction by Joanna Cannan

Author:Joanna Cannan [Cannan, Joanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2018-12-12T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Two

It was past eight o’clock when the fat Sergeant came to the kitchen where Laura and Primrose were heating soup and preparing a tray to take upstairs to Eve, now prostrate in her bedroom. ‘There’s a few questions the Inspector would like to ask the mother — save troublin’ the widder,’ he mumbled in the hideous accent of the shire. ‘I’ll take up the tray,’ said Primrose, ‘and then I’ll have another shot at ringing Howard.’ She had agreed to stay the night provided she could contact her lover.

Inspector Pelly was a big man with bushy eyebrows and a bristling brown moustache, but he had, nevertheless, what Laura thought of as a chétif appearance; his complexion was yellowish; his front teeth were prominent; his hair, though plentiful, was lifeless; his eyes were slow and dull. When Laura came into the drawing-room he was sitting at Eve’s little writing-table in the window.

Laura’s hair was like a bird’s nest. In the kitchen she had rolled up her sleeves and donned Mrs Fitch’s floral apron. Grief for Eve, if not for Richard, had deepened the lines on her face and tears had furrowed her make-up. She looked more than usually witch-like and Pelly was surprised and intrigued to find that the personable Dr Hallow possessed such an unpresentable crone of a mother-in-law.

The fat Sergeant had followed Laura into the drawing-room. He sat down on a small chair, which creaked ominously, opened his notebook and poised a ballpoint pen.

Laura gave her names but could add no address other than care of Mrs Hallow. ‘You live with your son-in-law and daughter then, Mrs Langley?’

Laura said, ‘No,’ and patiently explained that because of her husband’s recent death she had left her Sussex home — too large, too expensive — and was here to discuss her plans. ‘That’s why we were so surprised when my son-in-law failed to turn up at four o’clock as he had promised. He knew that my other daughter, Primrose, was particularly anxious to get back to London tonight.’

‘I see. Now, Mrs Langley, on what terms were Dr and Mrs Hallow?’

Laura stared at him.

‘On very good terms — excellent terms,’ she said firmly. ‘But why these questions? You don’t mean to say —?’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Pelly. ‘Dr James and Dr Meadows agree that the injuries are incompatible with a fall. Dr Hallow was struck a severe blow on the back of the neck with the blunt edge of some instrument resembling a heavy ruler, possibly even the side of a hand — a Commando trick, now, thanks to our fiction-mongers, only too well known to the general public.’ He raised his hand, palm open, and brought it down on the table, to judge from his grimace evidently harder than he had intended.

Primrose . . . thought Laura with horror. Primrose in the Wrens at that place in the Highlands where they trained the Commandos . . . What nonsense, that rabbit-punch is known to everyone. ‘Good heavens,’ she said to gain

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.