Chapter and Hearse Read Online Free Page B

board.
    When he gave the men their tea in the afternoon he said, ‘You might just put a lick of paint on that small scratch on the radiator in there next time one of you has a paintbrush in his hand.’
    â€˜No problem,’ said the foreman. ‘No sugar, thanks.’
    â€˜Two lumps for me,’ Fred reminded him. ‘Worked out how it was done, have you?’
    â€˜Done?’ said Simon.
    Fred gave him a knowing wink. ‘They said the husband had got a lady love tucked away somewhere.’
    The foreman set his mug down and said sapiently, ‘What he had got was an unbreakable alibi, so you mind what you say here, Fred.’
    Fred bridled. ‘There’s no smoke without fire. Besides, don’t forget that most murderers are widowers.’
    â€˜Because they’ve killed their wives.’ Simon nodded. ‘I’ve heard that one before.’
    â€˜Remember,’ pronounced the foreman magisterially, ‘it didn’t say anything about that in the newspapers – not even the Sunday ones.’
    â€˜What else did it say?’ asked Simon, adding in spite of himself, ‘I suppose it is theoretically possible that the ironing board was live – electrified, that is – a long time before Mrs Wetherby touched it.’
    â€˜Not before one o’clock it wasn’t, insisted Fred vigorously. ‘Ivy Middleton was here all that morning. She put the dirty washing in the machine and started it up before she went home, like she always did, dinnertime.’
    â€˜That’s right,’ said the foreman. ‘I was forgetting about Ivy. She touched that ironing board and she didn’t get an electric shock, did she, Fred?’
    Simon and Charlotte hadn’t kept Mrs Ivy Middleton on to do the rough housework. As Charlotte had put it so pithily when she – they – paid for the Manor, ‘They could afford Cullingoak Manor – just – but not the extras as well.’ Ivy had rated as an extra and so Simon saw entirely to the running of the house.
    â€˜There could have been some cable and a time switch,’ he said in spite of himself. It was just as well Charlotte was at work. She wouldn’t have approved of his wasting the workmen’s time – let alone his gossiping with them – like this. ‘You know, an electric wire from the nearest power socket to the ironing board timed to come live after Mrs Middleton had left.’
    â€˜Now, if I may say so, that’s where you’re wrong,’ said the foreman placidly. ‘The police thought of that too.’ He took a swig from his mug. ‘It so happens that there wasn’t any such timer in the house or garden, and, believe you me, they searched for it.’
    â€˜I can quite see that they would,’ murmured Simon.
    â€˜And,’ the foreman added, tapping the table with his forefinger for greater emphasis, ‘they had a witness that the husband – Peter Wetherby, that is – didn’t leave the house before the police arrived, so he couldn’t have hidden a timer anywhere outside the house.’
    â€˜Got it in for him, haven’t you,’ said Simon, ‘this Peter Wetherby?’ Suddenly something about the name jarred in his mind. He couldn’t quite place the memory but it was there, somewhere.
    â€˜Ironing boards don’t become live on their own.’ The foreman shrugged, starting to get to his feet.
    â€˜I reckon,’ said Fred, ‘it was suicide.’
    â€˜Suicide?’ echoed Simon.
    Fred nodded. ‘I think she connected a wire from the socket to the ironing board herself and her husband came home and found her and removed the evidence pretty quickly. Didn’t want anyone to know she’d done it because of this other woman, see?’
    The foreman said, ‘You’re a great one for your theories, Fred, but it don’t get the work done … Come along now, let’s get