Betrayed by Death by Roderic Jeffries

Author:Roderic Jeffries [Jeffries, Roderic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-07-12T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

“You know,” said Josephine from the bed, “a grizzly bear would be better company.”

Fusil, still dressed, stopped pacing the floor. “What’s that?”

“For God’s sake, Bob! You return home five hours late, curse me because supper’s dried up through being kept warm in the oven for so long, don’t say a word during the meal, come up to go to bed and then spend the next fifteen minutes wearing out the carpet.”

He saw the look of worry on her face. “Sorry, love.” He crossed and kissed her.

“Can you tell me what’s happened?”

“I built a house of cards, a suspect puffed, and it all fell down.”

“What’s that mean?”

He sat on the edge of the bed and told her what had happened. She laughed. “There’s sweet Fanny Adams to laugh about —” he began.

“Where’s your sense of humour got to?”

“Out of the bloody window.”

“Come on. You’ve got to admit it’s amusing. All of you ready to go in like the S.A.S. and then this jeweller just turns round and sends a message not to be so stupid.”

“You’ve a queer sense of humour when you remember I was hoping this would give us a lead on the murders.”

She reached out and took hold of his hand. “Bob, of course I can’t laugh about that. But equally I can’t go through life vicariously suffering for other people, and neither can you if you’re not to end up in a mental home. You’ve got to learn to forget for a bit, to take the present without the future or the past. I’m laughing because I love you. Just think, if nothing ever went wrong for you you’d become impossibly pompous, just like your Uncle Hamish.”

He had to smile.

“That’s better. ‘Light shines through, splitting asunder the chains of ignorance.’”

“What the hell’s that?”

“It’s out of a ghastly tract of a book we had to study at school. I was caught reading a banned comic and had to write out a long passage twenty-five times. By the time I’d finished I’d have split asunder a few things besides the chains of ignorance if I’d had the chance.”

“A born anarchist!”

“It’s taken you a long time to find that out. Come into bed.”

Later, after they’d read for a while and then switched off the bedside lights, he lay on his back and stared up into the darkness. She’d said something important: but she couldn’t begin to realize how important. Regain a sense of humour and relax. Then, relaxed, wonder how Jones had been able to identify Queen as a detective almost immediately? Queen swore they couldn’t have met before. Surely the only reasonable answer was that Jones had made the identification instinctively because he had had cause in the past to recognize that constant state of awareness which was the hallmark of both detective and villain?

*

As Fusil finished shaving and switched off the shaver, there was a call from downstairs to say that breakfast was ready. He filled the hand-basin with hot water, sluiced his face, dried it, finished dressing, and hurried downstairs.

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