Death for Madame by Peter Main

Author:Peter Main
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Courier Publishing
Published: 2018-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Troubles of a Toper

“MY IDEA,” said Mr. Carr earnestly; “is that I should run this hotel for the benefit of my friends. If I don’t like a fellow’s looks I just will refuse him a bed.”

“But,” I asked, “will your friends pay for the beds they occupy?”

“That,” Mr. Carr was lofty, “is not a matter which will worry me. I have suddenly become rich and I like spending money. I have turned over a new leaf and have become a respectable member of society. No more dice, thank you,” he paused with an expression that said that perhaps he had been hasty and he amended his statement, “at least not with Maggie. You see, dice with Maggie is dangerous. If I play dice with her I always lose—she uses crooked ones, of course—and I know that before long she’d have won the hotel from me. I am going to enjoy running this hotel.”

“Uhhuh, son, while the money lasts,” said the Professor helpfully.

“Oh, it’ll last,” Mr. Carr was positive, “and if it doesn’t, well, I’ve been broke before and I know how to get along. I’m almost an expert on being broke. If I had the time I might write a book on how to be broke but happy. On the other hand, I might not.”

He scowled thoughtfully at an empty tankard, won at Oxford in the late eighties by some long dead hearty.

“There is, however,” he said slowly, “what you might call a wasp in the butter. Now I am a respectable hotel-keeper I realise that it does not do any good to have bluebottles hovering around your pub, and these coppers will not go away. You know,” he was earnest, “I am beginning to get the feeling that I’ll find a policeman hidden in the bottom of my tankard. It’s not good for the nerves. I never was what you’d call a policeman-fancier in a big way. You leave the police alone and they won’t harm you was my motto, and, as mottoes go, it’s a good one. But now I find that this place is breeding coppers as a piece of bad meat breeds maggots.”

He looked around, as though expecting to see a policeman appearing like a genie in the middle of the fire.

“What,” he addressed himself to the Professor, “are the cops doing with the idea that I murdered Aunt Lottie for her cash? I can suggest plenty they could do with the idea, but I’d like to know what they are doing with it.”

The Professor was having difficulty with his pipe. A piece of plug the size of a pea, seemed to have become wedged in the hole at the bottom. He removed the charge of tobacco and scraped away carefully. Then he looked up at Mr. Carr, wagging his head heavily so that the hair waved up and down on his forehead.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m afraid I kinda ran into a bit o’ bother there. After I’d landed yer cousin an’ his girl

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