Give a Corpse a Bad Name Read Online Free

someone comin’ along the road just after you’d been put down—see them well enough to give us a bit of a description. ’Tis the difficulty of identifying the body, sir.’
    One of Stuart Maxwell’s hands went down to scratch the ear of his Aberdeen. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think I did.’
    â€˜No one on the road from Purbrook?’
    â€˜No-o.’ His voice was deep and rather indistinct; it had a drawling, lazy sound. ‘As a matter of fact, if there had been anyone I should certainly have seen him. I remember I glanced up that way—I remember it distinctly now—and saw a car’s headlights a good way off. If anyone had been coming down the road I should have seen him against them.’
    â€˜What kind of car?’ asked Leat.
    â€˜Oh, I didn’t see. It branched off towards Plymouth. No, I’m sorry I can’t say anything to help you.’
    â€˜I suppose, sir, at the time of the accident itself you were already at home? I suppose you didn’t hear anything?’
    A quick grin appeared for a moment on Stuart Maxwell’s face, but there was a rasp in his drawl as he said: ‘Really, Leat, d’you imagine I’d have left Mrs Milne to handle a gruesome business like that by herself if I’d had the faintest idea of what was happening? No, Mrs Milne dropped me at the crossroads, went down the other way to drop Miss Willis, and can’t have passed the spot again for at least ten minutes—time for me to have got home, got the house locked up and got myself a drink. It’s barely five minutes’ walk across the fields to the Purbrook road from here, you know.’
    â€˜That’s just it, sir. ’Tis odd, to my way of thinkin’, that the lady never called you, seein’ you live so close by.’
    The grin appeared again, staying longer this time. The major remarked quietly: ‘D’you know, that sounds as if you don’t believe me. What’s on your mind, Leat? What’s worrying you? Have you any reason for thinking I might be expected not to tell the truth?’
    A stolid shake of the head was the constable’s reply. ‘All the same—’
    â€˜It’s not in the least odd,’ Stuart Maxwell went on, ‘if you’re at all well acquainted with Mrs Milne.’
    â€˜No, sir. All the same …’ But in the end Leat did not produce his comment. He thanked the major for having answered his questions, flung a leg over his saddle and pedalled away.
    The major stood staring after him for a long moment.
    When Cecil Leat reached the police station the sergeant greeted him: ‘Well, Cecil, my lad, here’s another trip for you and your bike. Get along out to the scene of yesterday’s accident—’
    â€˜God, Sergeant, that’s just where I been!’
    â€˜That’s right, Cecil, you—’
    â€˜Not five minutes’ walk away!’
    â€˜Ah, but you couldn’t’ve done then what you belong to do now. I didn’t know meself till now what ’twas you belonged to be doin’. For I’ve just this moment had an idea. Get along out where we was last night, and have a good look round for a bottle.’
    â€˜What of?’
    â€˜A bottle, or a flask it might be, which your nose tells you used to contain whisky. ’Tis this way. Us been telephonin’ all the pubs here and in to Purbrook, and in to Wallaford too, but us can’t get no line on the bloke. Then along comes doctor and tells us this: the bloke’s stomach is fair swimmin’ in whisky. Straight whisky—it ain’t been absorbed at all. And that means, says doctor, ’e must’ve gulped it down only a moment afore ’e was killed. And that means, says I, ’e must’ve had somethin’ to gulp it down out of. So you’re booked for that bottle, my lad. You get along out and find it.’
    Cecil Leat looked sourly at