The Glass Alibi: A Case for Superintendent Slade by Leonard Gribble

Author:Leonard Gribble [Gribble, Leonard]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: PFD Books
Published: 2015-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII

AUNT CLARISSA

THE brave impulse that made me, without conscious thought, turn to Aunt Clarissa was rather shredded by sharp doubts on the car run from Tullenfield to West Clandon, which isn't such a great way from Guildford. I couldn't converse with June. She lay on the back seat, swathed in blankets and eiderdown, and I drove, as I hoped, with due care for her condition.

I was elated at having snatched her from the confines of Myrtle Lodge. I was jubilant, too, at the outcome of my knight-errant venture. Soon after Tullenfield my spirits were rising so much that I felt quite cock-a-hoop and indulged in reckless snatches of song.

Afterwards, picking my way across Southern England, I became more self-conscious and indulged less in high spirits. Although her presence was there to inspire me, I'm afraid June became less looming in my thoughts as her place was taken by the less alluring figure of my mother's elder sister. I had not had much to do with Clarissa Wilberforce since my early teens. In those remote days she had always seemed lovingly repellent, which might be difficult for a stranger to understand precisely, but was as close to certain appreciation of such an awe-inspiring adult as my boyish nature allowed itself.

I could write much upon the subject of Aunt Clarissa, and in total it would merely redound to my own discredit, for the truth is I had given her no love, had accepted her as one of life's less pleasant verities, and in later years had remembered her only at Christmas and on the first day of April, which chanced to be her birthday, and in any case is not a difficult day of the year to remember.

So let me say, quite directly and succinctly, Aunt Clarissa turned up trumps. I arrived at her cottage shortly before midnight, and after a clamorous exhibition of bad manners persuaded her to leave her bed. She arrived at the front door in a state of greater calm than the young man dancing on her doorstep.

"Well, Clifford," she said, "you certainly have your poor father's gift for calling at odd hours. I hope you are alone."

"I've got a lady with me," I said, "and she can't move."

Aunt Clarissa then proved her sterling worth.

"I think I had better get my stout walking shoes," she said.

I caught a glimpse of the old felt slippers covering her white feet as she turned.

Between us we got June out of the car and into the house. In the small hall the eiderdown became snagged on a door handle, and fell away, dragging the blankets with it. There was June in my arms in her pyjamas, looking ravishingly forlorn.

Aunt Clarissa, to her eternal credit, didn't bat an eyelid.

"That is very pretty material, my dear," she remarked, fingering the end of June's satin jacket.

Only when I coughed did she realise that her friendly gesture had exposed a small section of my lovely burden's midriff. Two faint stabs of pink burned in her shrunken cheeks, and her brows threatened to rise, but didn't quite make it.

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