Some Deaths Before Dying Read Online Free Page B

Mr. Bickner had come and sat with them in the study, stiff and uncertain. Jocelyn
     had mumbled, she had interpreted, Bickner had answered pityingly, patronisingly, speaking to her, not Jocelyn, until she had
     been forced to interrupt him in mid-sentence.
    “Stop. This won’t do. You must talk to my husband, not me. Look him in the eye—it’s what he expects you to do. He understands
     every word you’re saying, better than I do, in fact. And listen to him. You can hear what he’s saying, if you really try.
     Think of it like a very bad line on a telephone, but you’ve got this important message coming and you’ve just got to catch
     it, somehow. Please. You’ve been a very good friend to us over the years, so do please try. Now, darling, just a few words
     at a time, so I can help Mr. Bickner understand what you’re telling him.”
    And stuffy, unimaginative old Bickner had genuinely tried, and by his third visit was making something of it and answering
     Jocelyn direct, without waiting for Rachel to interpret. That had been wonderful for Jocelyn, just knowing that there was
     someone other than his wife and one daughter who was prepared to make the effort to reach him… Dick couldn’t be bothered,
     and Anne, alas, had stayed away, furious and frightened … only Flora … Did she ever think how unfair it had all been? Anne
     always Jocelyn’s darling. Dick Rachel’s, but Flora, decent, impulsive, conscientious Flora, simply taken for granted, given
     her due of parental concern and affection, but never that extra element of passionate love?
    There was a rap and creak as the drawer was pulled free. Dilys came back.
    “That’s all done, dearie, but there’s nothing I can see in behind.”
    “Put a lamp on the floor. Knothole at back on left. Put your finger in. Push left, till it clicks. Pull panel out. Package
     behind. Bring it.”
    “Oh, a secret compartment, like in a Victoria Holt! I knew it had to be.”
    Almost exhausted now, Rachel lay and waited, willing fresh energies to secrete themselves. She watched the rooks without attention,
     just letting them come and go… The panel clicked. Dilys gave a tweet of excitement. There was a scrabble as she eased the
     package free. It had barely fitted when Rachel had wedged it in against the back panel of the bureau… and then Dilys was by
     the bed again, her eyes bright, her mouth slightly open. She showed Rachel a large buff envelope with a flat rectangular shape
     inside it.
    “Well done,” Rachel whispered. “Box inside. Undo catches. Tilt it so I can see. Then open it. Please don’t look. Sorry.”
    “That’s all right, dearie. A secret’s a secret only till you’ve told it, I always say. I promise you I’m not bothered.”
    Dilys followed her instructions to the letter. While she studied the catches Rachel looked at the box. It was just as she
     remembered, about nine inches by eighteen, polished rosewood with a silver coat of arms let into the top.
    “Ready,” said Dilys, sliding brass hooks free. “You don’t think anything’s going to fall out?
    “All in its own little beds.”
    “Right, here we go then.”
    Dilys tilted the box into position, crooking it on one forearm, ostentatiously closed her eyes, and opened the lid with her
     other hand.
    Rachel had not seen the contents for almost forty years, since the night when the young man came, but she remembered exactly
     how it had looked. The purple baize lining, indented with shaped slots and pockets. All but one still held the specific item
     for which it had been made. The two cleaning rods, brush and plunger, spanner, screwdriver, keys, oil phial, cap-flask, mold,
     cartridges, slugs and a single pistol, its dark metal lightly chased, its ebony butt inlaid with the two silver initials—expensive,
     beautiful in its precision and its dormant power, a tool to use. The other pistol was missing. The wrong one.
    Perhaps her eyes were failing her.
    “Closer.”
    Dilys obeyed.
    No,