Call for the Dead Read Online Free Page B

body and I must put up with one another twenty hours a day. We have lived longer than most people already.' There was more of it--something about not enjoying the luxury of sleep. So why should she want a call at 8.30?" "Why should her husband--why should anyone? It's damn nearly lunch time. God help the Civil Service." "Exactly. That puzzles me too. The Foreign Office admittedly starts late--ten o'clock, I think. But even then Fennan would be pushed to dress, shave, breakfast and catch the train on time if he didn't wake til 8.30. Besides, his wife could call him." "She might have been shooting a line about not sleeping," said Mendel. "Women do, about insomnia and migraine and stuff. Makes people think they're nervous and temperamental. Cock, most of it." Smiley shook his head: "No, she couldn't have made the call, could she? She wasn't home till 10.45. But even supposing she made a mistake about the time she got back, she couldn't have gone to the telephone without seeing her husband's body first. And you're not going to tell me that her reaction on finding her husband dead was to go upstairs and ask for an early call?" They drank their coffee in silence for a while. "Another thing," said Mendel. "Yes?" "His wife got back from the theatre at quarter to eleven, right?" "That's what she says." "Did she go alone?" "No idea." "Bet she didn't. I'll bet she had to tell the truth there, and timed the letter to give herself an alibi." Smiley's mind went back to Eisa Fennan, her anger, her submission. It seemed ridiculous to talk about her in this way. No: not Eisa Fennan. No. "Where was the body found?" Smiley asked. "Bottom of the stairs." "Bottom of the stairs?" "True. Sprawled across the hall floor. Revolver underneath him." "And the note. Where was that?" "Beside him on the floor." "Anything else?" "Yes. A mug of cocoa in the drawing-room." "I see. Fennan decides to commit suicide. He asks the exchange to ring him at 8.30. He makes himself some cocoa and puts it in the drawing-room. He goes upstairs and types his last letter. He comes down again to shoot himself, leaving the cocoa undrunk. It all hangs together nicely." "Yes, doesn't it. Incidentally, hadn't you better ring your office?" He looked at Mendel equivocally. "That's the end of a beautiful friendship," he said. As he walked towards the coin box beside a door marked "Private" he heard Mendel saying: "I bet you say that to all the boys." He was actually smiling as he asked for Maston's number. Maston wanted to see him at once. He went back to their table. Mendel was stirring another cup of coffee as if it required all his concentration. He was eating a very large bun. Smiley stood beside him. "I've got to go back to London." "Well, this will put the cat among the pigeons." The weasel face turned abruptly towards him; "or will it?" He spoke with the front of his mouth while the back of it continued to deal with the bun. "If Fennan was murdered, no power on earth can prevent the Press from getting hold of the story," and to himself added: "I don't think Maston would like that. He'd prefer suicide." "Still, we've got to face that, haven't we?" Smiley paused, frowning earnestly. Already he could hear Maston deriding his suspicions, laughing them impatiently away. "I don't know," he said, "I really don't know." Back to London, he thought, back to Maston's Ideal Home, back to the rat-race of blame. And back to the unreality of containing a human tragedy in a three-page report. It was raining again, a warm incessant rain now, and in the short distance between the Fountain Caf'nd the police station he got very wet. He took off his coat and threw it into the back of the car. It was a relief to be leaving Walliston--even for London. As he turned on to the main road he saw out of the corner of his eye the figure of Mendel stoically trudging along the pavement towards the station, his grey trilby shapeless and blackened by the rain. It hadn't occurred to Smiley that he might want a