Some Deaths Before Dying Read Online Free

away on their return to England almost twenty years earlier. She had needed to contact the celluloid onto
     fresh film, but from those negatives had printed up forty-three reasonable shots of Jocelyn on his favourite pony during that
     marvellous fortnight when the regiment had so very nearly won the All-India, and night after night they had danced till the
     stars faded, and he had proposed to her loping beside her window as her train steamed out. It had been the second best present
     she had ever given him.
    Dick started to put the photographs away.
    “May I keep the one of Stan?” she whispered.
    “Sure you can. This one?”
    “No. Breaking the ice.”
    “Right, here you are then. I thought you might get a kick out of them.”
    There was a smugness in his tone, as if he had conferred a major benefit on her and could now expect her to reciprocate. She
     postponed the moment.
    “How is Helen?”
    “Firing on all cylinders, including some she’d never told me about. God, what a woman for a crisis! She’s found herself a
     job, dogsbody in a locum agency, but they’d better watch out. Six months and she’ll be running the show.”
    “You’ve lost your job?”
    “Sharp as ever, Ma! But no, I’m still hanging on, though I can see which way the wind’s blowing. It’s always been a family
     firm, and I’m the only senior bod left who isn’t one of the clan. If they’ve got to choose between me and some useless little
     twerp who married the boss’s niece, you know darn well who it’s going to be.”
    “Diffcult. I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t worry, Ma. Something will turn up. It’s just a matter of having enough irons in the fire and tiding things over meanwhile.
     By the way talking of irons, do you know where Da’s pistols are? The Laduries?”
    The suddenness of it was like a physical blow. Dick didn’t seem to notice the pause. Perhaps, since she always needed to summon
     the resources for speech, it hadn’t been markedly longer than usual.
    “In the bank, I think. Why?”
    “They’re really mine, you know. He left them to me in his will.”
    “He changed it.”
    “Yes, but that was after his stroke, when he was a bit gaga, poor old boy. I bet I could have contested it at the time, but
     it wouldn’t have been worth the rumpus.”
    It was astounding that he didn’t perceive her fury. Surely her eyes at least must blaze, blaze shockingly. The downright falsehood,
     compounded by the perfunctory sympathy. If she could have moved a muscle she would have struck him. As it was, her anger supplied
     the energies for a longer answer.
    “His first stroke. The same time he set up the trusts. Was he gaga then, Dick?”
    “That was old Bickner. He did a pretty good job on the trusts, and I’m very grateful.”
    “Jocelyn told Bickner exactly what he wanted.”
    “Well, that’s as may be, but—”
    She could stand no more and cut him short.
    “What about the Laduries? Why?”
    He shrugged, glanced out of the window, then back at her, smiling, confident in the cloak of candour. It didn’t fit.
    “Funny coincidence,” he said. “Here I was, coming to see you anyway… Do you ever watch a thing on the box called
The Antiques Roadshow
, Ma?”
    “Sometimes.”
    “Helen makes a point of it, so I do too if I’m around. Last Sunday…You know how it goes. They have these experts, and they
     set up shop in the town hall somewhere, like Salisbury, and people bring their heirlooms in to ask about—pictures, furniture,
     knickknacks, whatever, and then some old biddy who’s had a Rembrandt hanging in the loo all these years pretty well has a
     heart attack when they tell her what it’s worth. Right? Well, this time one of the pros was doing arms and armour, and some
     young woman—never seen her in my life before—showed up with a pistol, just the one of them, but I knew it was one of the Laduries
     the moment I clapped eyes on it. It had the initials even, J.M. ‘Hey! That’s one of Da’s,’ I