Give Up the Body Read Online Free Page B

somehow seemed silly and inconsequential. The sun was still shining brightly outside. It was warm and soft and secure in here with Jud’s cigar smoke bluing the air and the familiar sounds of flies buzzing against the big front window. I could talk of it with detachment; it was only a part of a slightly unusual day. I could laugh at myself. At the moment it was nothing. Later, I learned to trust my instincts more.
    I said, “So it looks as if I wasted the liquor.”
    Jud did not seem amused. He said, “Keep your eyes open tonight, Addy. You may have a good time scooping the big papers on Delhart’s next wife.”

IV
    I T WAS NEARLY nine o’clock when Nellie and I galloped over the bridge. Twilight was just giving way to full dark so that Nellie’s wobbly headlights made a respectable looking yellow tunnel along the tree lined road.
    I was glad for the comforting sounds from my old car. I was afraid of the forest at night; I knew many normal people to whom it gave a claustrophobic feeling. The formlessness of the thick-trunked trees and the endless tangle of underbrush was terribly oppressive. I thought about it particularly tonight. The way the long, dark branches of the big firs reached out over the road gave me a shivery feeling.
    It was a relief to turn from the road onto the very smoothly gravelled driveway that wound around, looped back on itself, and finally ended in a floodlighted area way before Carson Delhart’s “cabin.”
    He called it that but it was really a two-story log house complete with balconies overlooking two lovely ponds, and a big veranda that offered a view of the forest and his prize flower beds, filled with almost every rose ever invented.
    I had visited here before, to see Mrs. Larson who was the cook when Delhart stayed in the country. Her husband, whom everyone called Big Swede, was the gardner and watchdog of the estate. And their son, Tim, improperly called Little Swede despite his six-feet three inches, acted as Delhart’s chauffeur. I had gone to school with Little Swede and we had enlisted in the service together. The Larsons were particular friends of mine but they could be of no help now. This was the first time I had entered the lion’s den when the lion was in residence. And despite my cocksureness of the afternoon, I was not feeling too good about it.
    Delhart was smart and he was not giving me this interview simply to help me forget the scene of the afternoon. I did not like the man, remembering his firm grip on my arm and the way he had looked down at me.
    The floodlight was very harsh and bright, throwing a cold, chiselled glare over the flower beds and the trees that lined the driveway and, in some cases, pressed almost against the second story of the house. I parked Nellie directly in front of the veranda steps, hopped out, and hurried to the front door. I could hear nothing from inside, no muted talking, no sounds from a radio, none of the normal noises one expects from a houseful of guests. I rapped hard on the door, using a fancy brass knocker that had been cast in the shape of a crouching bear.
    In less than a minute I heard footsteps. Then the door opened. The man who faced me gave the impression of shortness of stature and complete lack of color. He was quite young, in his early thirties, I judged, with sleekly plastered and dull brown hair, very thin and precise-looking lips, and brown eyes as dull as his hair. I had seen him before at a distance. This was Potter Hilton, Delhart’s secretary. He was the owner of the trained voice I had heard over the telephone.
    “I’m Miss O’Hara.”
    “Yes,” he said. He stepped aside. I smoothed my full skirt and went into the hallway. It was beautifully finished, the walls being the planed down side of the original logs and varnished to a lovely glow. It made me glad I had lived up to the place by wearing my best black and white dress rather than the slack suit I had originally chosen.
    Hilton was about my height but he