Premedicated Murder by Douglas Clark

Author:Douglas Clark [Clark, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter V

It took forty minutes for Boardman to get to Rencory’s house. Forty nail-biting minutes for Rencory. Forty minutes during which Maisie Rencory, who had rejoined them, sat in the corner of the sofa and shrank into herself. Pale-faced and frightened-eyed she stared alternately at Masters and Green as though they might rise and strike her.

Masters was playing it cool.

Beyond saying to Rencory: “So you have castor oil seeds at the factory?” and receiving an affirmative nod, he had kept off the subject. Green had wandered over to him and whispered that as it now appeared Rencory had had both the opportunity and the means to commit the murder, shouldn’t he now be asked to accompany them to the local station.

Masters had shaken his head. Green’s reply had been to remind him that the third of the trio—motive—was the one ingredient in the mix that was optional. It made no difference to Masters’ attitude. He refused to ask Rencory to leave his own home even for the temporary office next door. “I’m not risking people seeing him leave for anywhere in our company. I’ll not subject him to the gossip until I know he deserves it.”

Green sat down and started to chain smoke the cigarettes from Rencory’s box. Rencory himself had paled considerably and he was now sweating but silent. Masters deliberately brought him out of deep thought by starting an irrelevant conversation.

“Have you any hobbies?”

“Hobbies?” Rencory was having difficulty in orientating his mind. “No. Never had time for them.”

“No golf, tennis, boating, fishing? You’re ideally placed here to indulge in sport.”

“From the looks of things I’m ideally placed to be behind bars for the rest of my life.”

“The possibility is there, but not the inevitability. If you did not kill Harte, Mr Green and I are as anxious as you are that you shouldn’t be blamed for it.”

“I didn’t kill him. Never had any thought of doing the poor old sod any harm. He was a poor bit of a thing. A cripple. Why would I want to kill him? He was the only one round here who showed Maisie and me friendship. We liked him.”

“What did you particularly like about him?”

“His voice,” said Maisie, softly. “He spoke so nicely. And he was always the same. He never seemed to get down like other people. He was a real tonic to be with.”

“His guts,” said her husband. “He was only half a man, but he’d got more guts than all the rest of Lowther put together. And he was independent. You had to watch your step and see you didn’t try to help him too much.”

Green asked: “Did you try? At first, I mean.”

“Once. I put a hand under his arm to help him. It was the only time I ever saw him riled.”

“Angry?”

“Not loud and cross, like. But the look he gave me! I really wondered what was up.”

“He said nothing?”

“Just looked at me as though I was muck. But he was all right the next minute. But I’ve never tried to help him since.

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.