Free Give a Corpse a Bad Name by Elizabeth Ferrars

‘you and Eggbear was up here because of the accident.’
    â€˜That’s right,’ said Toby.
    â€˜Then—’
    â€˜Just you tell me,’ said Toby, ‘when you had a swig at that whisky in the car. Mrs Milne won’t hear of it.’
    Albert eyed him speculatively, then answered in a fatalistic voice: ‘All right, then. This mornin’.’
    Toby looked startled. ‘But look here,’ he said, ‘this morning that flask ought to have been empty.’
    Albert nodded. ‘I had’n filled. Took it round and got Ruby to fill’n.’
    Toby gave a bark of triumph. ‘It was empty!’
    â€˜Aye,’ said Albert, ‘and how it come to be I couldn’t say. ’Twas more’n half full Tuesday.’
    â€˜Oh, you had a spot on Tuesday too?’
    â€˜Aye, ’twas Tuesday I come over queer—a touch o’ the influenza, I reckon—I come over queer with pains in my body and a kind o’ faintness, and I thinks to myself: ‘There’s whisky in that car, and the lady’d be the last to begrudge it you.’ So I take a drop, and that leaves the flask a bit over half full, like I was sayin’. Then I go home to bed, and stay in bed all Wednesday. Yesterday I get up for my dinner, but I stay in by the fire and listen to the wireless, and then today I’m back at work. I’ve a very sound constitution; illness don’t keep me down long. But as I was tellin’ you—’
    â€˜Hi, hi!’ said George suddenly, his blue eyes excited. ‘You weren’t at work yesterday?’
    Albert shook his head.
    â€˜Mrs Milne,’ said George, ‘is she much of a gardener?’
    Albert laughed derisively, and George subsided out of sight behind the gate.
    â€˜And you say,’ said Toby, ‘that the flask was empty this morning?’
    â€˜That’s right,’ said Albert. ‘Half full Tuesday, and empty this mornin’. I was surprised, but when I heard o’ the accident I allowed as ’twas somethin’ to do with that.’
    â€˜It was,’ said Toby. ‘Thank you.’
    Albert replied that he was welcome, and, pulling up his fork once more, returned with those weighted steps of his to the patch of soil he had been digging.
    Toby looked down at George, who now was squatting at the foot of the hedge. He had his elbows on his knees, his plump face held in his hands.
    â€˜George,’ he said, ‘what made you ask if Mrs Milne was a gardener?’
    George went on staring straight ahead of him. ‘When you were taking a sleep after your dinner yesterday afternoon,’ he said, ‘before the inquest, I went for a walk.’
    â€˜You’re doing an awful lot of walking, George.’
    â€˜Yes,’ said George. ‘Well, I came along here. Someone was doing a bit of gardening—that’s to say, someone was making a bonfire. I smelt it.’
    â€˜Well, what about it?’
    George shrugged his shoulders. ‘Don’t know. What about that flask? Why were you so sure it’d be empty this morning?’
    â€˜Just a guess,’ said Toby, ‘though I felt fairly sure that whoever sent that letter knew that the flask was empty. And since it was —George, there is something in all this. I don’t know what it is, but it’s there. If that flask had been full, or rather, if it’d been the same as our Albert left it on Tuesday, that letter wouldn’t have meant a thing. But as it is …’
    George heaved himself on to his feet. ‘Well, speaking for myself and myself alone,’ he said, ‘I’d like my dinner. But I don’t suppose that’s in your reckoning yet.’
    â€˜Why not?’ said Toby. ‘I’m as hungry as you are. Come on, we’ll be getting back.’
    â€˜Eh?’ said Geroge. ‘D’you mean to say you’re going to let that chap’s story go