Free A Blunt Instrument by Georgette Heyer Page B

conceivably knows more than he chooses to admit. I hope the police aren't underrating him; immense potentialities in Neville."
    "Potentialities for what?"
    "You have me there, sister," replied Sally. "I'm damned if I know, but I'm going to have a shot at finding out."
    Luncheon was announced a moment later, and the subject of Ernest Fletcher's death was abandoned. Throughout the meal, Helen said little, and ate less. Miss Drew maintained a cheerful flow of small talk, and North, having eaten a hurried meal, left the table early, informing his wife that he would be back to dinner.
    After the ladies had finished their coffee, Sally gave it as her considered opinion that Helen would be the better for a rest. Somewhat to her surprise Helen fell in with this suggestion, and allowed herself to be escorted upstairs. When Sally lowered the window-blinds she said: "You aren't really going round to Greystones, are you?"
    "Yes, I am. Taking a message of condolence from you to poor old Miss Fletcher. I shall say you are writing to her, of course."
    A faint voice from amongst the banked-up pillows said: "Oh! I ought to have done that!"
    Time enough when you've had a nap," said Sally, and withdrew.
    Half-an-hour later, when she presented herself at the front door at Greystones, it was to be met by the intelligence that Miss Fletcher, like Helen, was resting. She was spared the necessity of inquiring for Neville by that willowy young gentleman's strolling out of the drawing-room into the hall, and inviting her to enter and solace his boredom.
    Simmons made it plain by his cough and general air of pious gloom that he considered the invitation unseasonable, but as neither Sally nor Neville paid the slightest heed to him, there was nothing for him to do but to retire to his own domain, on the far side of a baize door leading out of the hall, and draw, for his wife's edification, an unpleasing picture of the fate awaiting the hard-hearted and the irreligious.
    Meanwhile, Neville had escorted his visitor into the drawing-room. "Come to see the sights, darling?" he inquired. "You're too late to see the dragging of the lilypool."
    "Ah!" she said. "So they're after the weapon, are they?"
    "Yes, but there's no pleasing them. I offered them Aunt Lucy's Indian clubs, a mallet, and the bronze paper-weight on Ernie's desk, but they didn't seem to like any of them."
    "So there was a bronze paper-weight on his desk, was there? H'm!"
    "Well, no," said Neville softly, "there wasn't. I put it there."
    "What on earth for?"
    "Oh, just to occupy their minds!" said Neville, seraphically smiling.
    "It'll serve you right if you get pinched for the murder," Sally told him.
    "Yes, but I shan't. I was right about Honest John, wasn't I?"
    "Yes. How did you know he was back?"
    "News does get about so, doesn't it?"
    "Rot!"
    "All right, precious. I saw him drive past the house on the way to the station. Flying the country?"
    "Not he. John's not that sort. Besides, why should he?"
    Neville regarded her with sleepy shrewdness. "Do not bother to put on the frills with me, sweet maid. It is worrying for you, isn't it?"
    "Not in the least. My interest in the murder is purely academic. Why do they think the instrument is still on the premises? Because of what Helen said?"
    "They don't confide in me as much as you'd think they would," replied Neville. "What did Helen say?"
    "Oh, that she was sure the man she saw wasn't carrying anything!"
    "Bless her little heart, did she? Isn't she fertile? First, she didn't see the man at all; now she knows he wasn't carrying anything. Give her time and she'll remember that he had bandy legs and a squint."
    "You poisonous reptile, just because it wasn't light enough for her to recognise the man -'
    "Oh, do you think it wasn't?" asked Neville. "You've a kind heart, and no Norman blood."
    "Oh! So you think she did recognise the man, and that it was John, do you?"
    "Yes, but I have a low mind," he explained.
    "You've taken the words out of my