The Third Grave by David Case

Author:David Case
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Valancourt Books
Published: 2019-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

6

I retired early that evening and slept well enough, mercifully without dreams. Dawn arrived serene and clear, a burnished saffron glow on the eastern rim. I dressed and went down to the breakfast room, intending to telephone Mallory after I had eaten, but as I sat in those cheerful surroundings with the early morning sunlight shimmering in the yellow curtains, I instead determined to walk out to The Croft. It was only two or three miles, an hour’s jaunt at the most, and I told myself I needed the exercise. But was that the reason? Or had my conversation with Peal induced me to behave like an investigator? Did I wish to trace the path on which my telegram had sent the messenger to his ghastly death? Perhaps.

I sought out Mabel, settled for my second night’s lodging, and secured specific directions to The Croft; went up to look in on John, who watched me with quiet eyes and made no attempt to move his shattered jaw; and finally repaired to my room and packed my valise. As I lifted it, the weight struck a response. I had brought little enough, but the suitcase would be bothersome to carry along, and moreover it occurred to me that I might just as well arrive at Mallory’s without luggage. God knew what things would be like there. If I were to leave my suitcase at the Red Lion, I would have a ready excuse for early departure. Resolved upon this, I opened the case again and put my toothbrush into my pocket, then took the case down and arranged to leave it with Mabel. She was amenable enough, hoping for further custom. She accompanied me to the door, and as I stepped into the street, said, “Don’t let the monster get you now, Mr. Ashley.” I saw that she had been converted to Coots’s thinking.

Fleecy clouds were pulling apart in patterns against a cerulean sky, above venerable oak trees, dividing like woolly amoebas in their eternal solitude. Clouds, like the single-celled stuff of life, were immortal, I thought; it is only awareness of death that curses man with mortality. I walked along a narrow path with hedgerows on one side and rolling fields on the other. It was a gentle region, one known to young Brooke all his life, and an incongruous setting in which to perish by violence. I wondered if I’d know the spot when I came to it. Perhaps there would be visible signs, the undergrowth torn up, the ground gorged by drinking blood, chalk marks made by the police to describe the position of the body; perhaps I would sense the scene instinctively, by a chill of the flesh, a dim cry in my ears. Was it more terrible to die in such an unlikely locale, or was it a peaceful landscape to lay a corpse, mild and pretty, where the dead body could take root and sprout new life from its own decay, regenerated by the fertility

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