My Name is Michael Sibley Read Online Free

Sibley?”
    “There’s no particular reason. Some people one likes instinctively, and others one doesn’t. That’s all, really. But I shouldn’t say he was the type to have the courage to do a murder, if that’s what’s on your mind.”
    The Inspector looked at me reflectively. He said, “There’s nothing on my mind at all, sir. I was just asking, that’s all. Do you know any other friends of his in London—or anywhere else, if it comes to that?”
    I shook my head. “I’m afraid not.”
    “Nobody at all?”
    I thought then of the party in the public house before I went to Palesby. “Well, I once met a girl he was quite keen on, called Margaret Dawson.”
    The Sergeant raised his head. “Did you say Dawson, sir, or Lawson?”
    “Dawson. But she’s married now, to some theatrical producer. I don’t know his name.”
    “And you never saw him with anybody else—recently, I mean?”
    “No. At least—”
    “Yes?” The Inspector paused in the act of lighting his pipe.
    “Well, I once saw him with a man in a public house in Chelsea, but I don’t know who he was. He looked like a foreigner, but I may be mistaken. And I know he knew one or two people near Ockleton, where his cottage was, but I never met them. He said they had interests in the import side of the business. He used to go over and visit them. He never invited them to the cottage when I was there, because he said they were bores.”
    “When did you last see Mr. Prosset, sir?” asked the Sergeant. I looked across at him. He was absent-mindedly tapping his teeth with the end of his pencil. It is difficult to explain why I replied as I did.
    Perhaps it was due to my upbringing, which was hardly calculated to encourage that toughness of character which enables a person to face boldly a challenge when it arises and take the straight, if difficult, path. I had largely overcome certain weaknesses since I left my Aunt Edith, but now and again, in some sudden and unfortunate predicament, they would reassert themselves; it is not easy to eradicate the blemishes of early youth, especially such as may be bred into the blood and nurtured in favourable soil. Possibly thrown off my balance by the revelation that Prosset’s death had not been accidental, I tossed aside the cool, analytical training learnt in the previous ten years, and lied like a sneak thief caught in compromising circumstances. The struggle satisfactorily to solve the problem I knew would present itself, to solve it between questions and answers, had been lost, and the Sergeant’s question found me still undecided.
    But now I had to decide in a split second. I had a quick mental picture of driving down to Ockleton, on the Sussex coast, arriving through deserted lanes in the evening, staying with Prosset, driving back, again through deserted lanes, early the following morning. I recalled the local correspondent’s words: “He spent the weekend alone.” I took the easy way out. The temptation to have done with the whole thing presented itself, and I fell. In the flash of time in which I had to decide, I decided not to face up to matters. It was perhaps moral inertia more than weakness.
    “When did I last see him?” I replied, and was surprised at the smoothness of my tone. “About ten days ago. The weekend before last. I stayed with him at the cottage with my fiancée.”
    The Sergeant nodded and made a note. “You’re engaged, are you, sir?”
    I told him I hoped to be married in two months’ time. The Inspector made some joke about marriage. We all laughed. I felt relieved. The crisis was over. It had been easy.
    “What’s your fiancée’s name, sir?” asked the Inspector in his strong, hard voice.
    “Kate Marsden,” I replied. “Why?”
    “Did she know Mr. Prosset?”
    “Very slightly, that’s all.”
    “I was just wondering if she would know anything; any other friends of Mr. Prosset, for instance. That’s all.”
    I gave him her address, though I assured him that she