Murder Will Speak by J J Connington

Author:J J Connington
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781471906145
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Published: 2013-11-28T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

A False Alarm

INSPECTOR CRAYTHORN was an adept at breaking bad news. He met Linda Hyson at the front door, took her into the drawing-room, and laid the situation before her with far more tact and gentleness than might have been expected from his normal robust and staccato manner of speech. Having gained from Cissie a shrewd opinion of how matters had stood between Hyson and his wife, the inspector avoided showing too much sympathy for her at the loss of her husband. She reacted as he had expected. It was a terrible shock to her, naturally; but not so painful as it would have been if she had been fond of Hyson. The few details which Craythorn gave were apparently sufficient. She asked for no others, nor did she suggest seeing her husband’s body.

“Now, Mrs. Hyson,” Craythorn said, when he had finished his tale, “I know this is very hard on you in the circumstances; but we just have to trouble you, and it’s better to get it all over at once. So you won’t mind if I bother you with a question or two?”

“Ask anything you like,” Linda answered. “But I really can’t hold out much hope of being useful. I may as well be quite frank. My husband and I lived almost separate lives and I know very little about his doings.”

Craythorn nodded sympathetically. He had trained himself to note, almost subconsciously, the main characteristics of anyone he met and now he took in at a glance the tallish graceful figure, corn-coloured hair, long-lashed dark grey eyes, straight nose, clean-cut lips. No jewellery of any sort, except a wedding-ring. Pretty hands and well-shaped feet, he added to his catalogue. A rum creature Hyson must have been to neglect a wife like this! Then, with a jerk, he pulled himself back into a more professional attitude of mind. Handsome is as handsome does. The question was: What had handsome been doing that day? He had no suspicions about Linda, merely a desire to be thorough in his work so as to be able to satisfy the coroner at the inquest.

“You can throw some light on to-day’s affair, at any rate,” he pointed out. “I’ve talked to your maid. She was in the house till three o’clock. You were still here when she left, she told me. You rang up someone on the phone before she left?”

Linda, rather to Craythorn’s surprise, did not answer immediately. She seemed to be considering something. Then she made up her mind.

“That’s quite true,” she admitted after a moment or two. “I rang up a friend of ours, a Mr. Barsett.”

Barsett? The inspector pricked up his ears. That was the man who used to drop in of an evening, the fellow who was a friend of Mrs. Hyson but not of her husband. And this was Thursday, the maid’s night out. Had Mrs. Hyson rung up Barsett to ask him to drop in? No, not that, since Hyson was expected home to supper, as the table had shown.

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