Free Some Die Eloquent by Catherine Aird Page B

Leeyes.
    â€˜Er – quite, sir – buried the dog just after dark on Friday evening.’
    â€˜How do we know that?’
    â€˜I gather Mrs Stroude is the sort of neighbour who would have noticed – er – unusual activity in the next-door garden in daylight.’
    â€˜I don’t know where we’d get without inquisitive neighbours,’ said Leeyes frankly. ‘I reckon that’s what keeps people on the straight and narrow – not morality at all.’
    â€˜This one is positive nothing sinister went on in the garden in the early afternoon,’ said Sloan. He paused. ‘She went out a little later on, though. That’s when she noticed the car.’
    â€˜What car?’
    â€˜A blue Allegro,’ said Sloan carefully. He paused. ‘A very battered one.’
    â€˜Did she know it?’ He grunted. ‘Women don’t usually.’
    â€˜Oh yes.’
    â€˜Do we know it?’ enquired Leeyes heavily.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Not the battered blue Allegro that we all know?’
    â€˜Dr McCavity’s,’ said Sloan, ‘from the sound of it.’
    â€˜Hrrrrrmph,’ said Leeyes.
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ said Sloan. ‘Quite.’
    â€˜How,’ enquired Leeyes pertinently, ‘did the dog get from house to garden?’
    â€˜How it got out of the house is what bothered Miss Wansdyke. She didn’t know about it being dead in the garden, of course. She’d left it locked indoors when she went to school as usual. She was so upset about that fact that she told Mrs Stroude she was putting the chain on her door that night.’
    â€˜So someone opens the door with a key …’ he paused. ‘Or do you think our promising young Sherlock Holmes was so busy digging up the dog that he wouldn’t have noticed a break-in?’
    â€˜Miss Wansdyke would have done,’ said Sloan realistically.
    Leeyes nodded. ‘Right. Then the door gets opened with a key, and someone kills Fido.’
    â€˜Isolde,’ said Sloan distantly.
    â€˜You having me on, Sloan?’ growled Leeyes.
    â€˜No, sir.’
    There was a pause, then: ‘I had forgotten we were in a superior part of the town.’
    â€˜Quite, sir.’
    â€˜Sloan …’
    â€˜Sir?’
    â€˜There’s an old saying about dogs.’
    â€˜Letting sleeping ones lie?’ ventured Sloan.
    â€˜No,’ roared Leeyes. ‘Certainly not. We’re police officers, man, not politicians.’
    â€˜Sorry, sir.’ He coughed. ‘Another old saying, I think you said …’
    â€˜Love me, love my dog,’ said Leeyes.
    â€˜Yes, sir. Of course, sir, but …’
    â€˜Have we got a case of “Hate me, hate my dog” on our hands, Sloan? Tell me that.’
    â€˜I hope not, sir.’
    â€˜Sloan –’ Leeyes had a second thought – ‘how do we know that Miss Wansdyke didn’t find the dog dead herself later on the Saturday or Sunday and see that it was decently buried in her garden?’
    â€˜Because it had had its throat cut,’ said Sloan chillingly.

CHAPTER VII
    Ah, no, let be! For the Philosopher’s Stone,
    Called the Elixir, never can be known.
    Just as, in the immortal words of the poet, even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea, so eventually every tired policeman finds his way at last to his own fireside. Lightly brushing a kiss on to his wife’s cheek, Detective-Inspector Sloan dropped thankfully into an armchair.
    â€˜You’ll miss me when I’m in the hospital,’ said Margaret Sloan. ‘When I’m not here to come home to …’
    He did not attempt to answer this. ‘I’ll know all about it, though, when you get back, won’t I?’ he insisted in mock despair. ‘A baby crying … nappies everywhere … another mouth to feed …’
    â€˜Talking of food …’ she said, disappearing hastily in the direction