Death of a Lake by Arthur W. Upfield

Author:Arthur W. Upfield [Upfield, Arthur W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction - Classic Crime
ISBN: 9781875892891
Publisher: ETT Imprint
Published: 2008-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

A Business Proposition

“TWO HUNDRED QUID makes a tidy packet,” Lester said, sniffling. “I thought about who might have took it, and if no one did, then where would Ray plant it? He had time to plant it, see! I got to workin’ it out. It couldn’t have been Mac, ’cos he’d have rushed off to the nearest pub. Harry, yes. Carney is shrewed, and he don’t drink. Then there’s George Barby. George is always careful of his money. He likes a drop, but not enough to blow two hundred on a bender.

“Then something happened what hit me to leg. It was about three weeks after Ray went off. I was repairing the fences round the horse paddock when a wire snapped back and gashed me arm. It bled a lot, and I came home for something to stop it. All hands were away, so I went over to the kitchen to get Ma Fowler to fix me arm properly. And when I walked into the annexe, them women was arguing in the kitchen, spittin’ at each other like a coupla cats.

“Joan was saying that she didn’t have any of the money, and that if Carney had found it he was keepin’ it to himself. She goes on to say that it’s more’n likely Mac dug it up somewhere, else where did he get the money to buy Ma that emerald ring. Ma threatened to smash Joan’s face in if she bilked her for her share, and Joan laughs and says: if ever she did lay her hands on that twelve thousand five hundred quid her Ma would never know.

“They goes at it, and I’m quiet and listening in the annexe, and after a bit Joan says something about Ray’s gold locket. Ma tells her to forget about the locket, saying it’ll be many a year before anyone finds Ray Gillen. Joan says it’ll be about a year before the Lake dries out, and first on the body gets the locket, and whoever gets the locket gets that twelve thousand five hundred of the best.

“With that Joan goes out of the kitchen and I cleared back to the pepper trees and went in again as though for the first time, and Ma Fowler doctored me arm. And sweet as sugar, she was.”

Lester’s watery eyes encountered Bony’s steady regard, and Bony nodded.

“It sorta come plain to me why them women and Carney and Mac always seem to be watching each other,” Lester said. “I knew them four was up to something, and when I heard the women quarrelling I knew what about. I could never make out how the locket came into it, unless it was a sort of clue telling where Ray had planted his money.

“But the thing that stuck in me mind was the amount of dough the women mentioned. I wrote it in words on a bit of paper. Then I wrote it in figures with the pound sign in front, and I knew I had seen them figures in a paper some time.

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