Gourmet Detective 01 - The Gourmet Detective by King Peter

Author:King, Peter [King, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781453277935
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Published: 2012-09-25T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

I RECOILED IN HORROR. I looked again—the body was there, no doubt about it. “St Leger!” my mind screamed. “He’s been murdered because of what he knows!”

The large window appeared to be double-glazed and made of very thick glass. Not much chance of breaking it in without a sledge-hammer. I would have to go for help. As I passed the door, I took a look at it. It looked solid and probably had half a dozen locks and bolts. I turned the brass handle—and to my astonishment, the door opened.

It was St Leger sprawled there. I pulled him out from his position half under the coffee table and dragged him on to the couch. It was only then that I remembered the cardinal rule about never touching the body. Oh well, no private eye is perfect. I was looking round for a phone when a groan made me jump almost out of my skin.

St Leger groaned again and I pulled him up straighter. He was still alive! I started to loosen his tie but it was already loose. Memories of IJ being dead and coming back to life began to flood back but I was close to St Leger now and I suspected that the circumstances were different. The blast of alcohol fumes that he breathed at me almost knocked me back. He wasn’t dead but he was certainly dead drunk.

I found the kitchen, a couple of dozen electronic gadgets surrounding a stainless steel island and put half a jar of coffee into what was surely an automatic coffee maker. The refrigerator had a continuous ice-maker and I soaked a dish towel in water and filled it with ice cubes. I made a cup of coffee strong enough to sober W.C. Fields and took it and the ice cubes back into the living room. It was then that I noticed two glasses on the table. One had lipstick.

Some minutes later, the bleary eyes greeted me with a singular lack of cordiality. After they had focused, St Leger croaked:

“What the devil do you want?”

He looked awful. I forced more black coffee into him and re-arranged the ice pack. He almost gagged at the coffee and tried to push the ice-pack away.

“What is that?” he spluttered.

“Just coffee. Have some more—it’s good for you.”

He didn’t agree, I could tell. Especially he didn’t like the way I made it. He expressed his opinion of me and the coffee in language that NTV would never have allowed on the box. Then the coffee started to come up and I moved out of range.

“What are you trying to do—choke me?” he gurgled.

“What are you trying to do? Kill yourself with booze?”

He glared furiously at me but his breath was coming back.

“I knew a fellow once,” I said conversationally, “spent forty-eight hours in intensive care with an intravenous drip in his arm after over-indulgence in the grain.”

The glare was still there but his breathing was nearly normal. His colour was coming back too but I didn’t want to be too soft.

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