Free Choice of Evils by E.X. Ferrars Page A

said. ‘You're sure of that?’
    ‘Oh yes, because I thought just what you're thinking now, that she'd been to see that man Edward Clarke, and for some reason seeing him had got her into a pretty excited state. That was what she looked, at any rate. Well, I didn't come home immediately, but when I did I natur-ally expected to find her here, and when I didn't I assumed she was lying down in her room. Then I began to feel uneasy, not because of her, but because there was no sign of Simon. I'd realized he didn't worry at leaving his guests to look after themselves, then I began to get annoyed about it. I thought he went a bit far with it and that it was really bloody ill-mannered, so I thought I'd go out and interrupt genius at work in his summerhouse. Then a funny thing struck me. It wasn't dark yet, but you'd have expected anyone who was working in that place to have wanted a light. But there was no light in the window. So I thought the story of his wanting to work there was just a yarn and that he was probably sound asleep on his sofa. And I went out there and knocked and got no answer, so I opened the door and … and there she was, Andrew. It was a fearful shock. She was lying on the floor in the middle of the room, with what looked like the back of her head blown away, and there was a lot of blood Peter's voice began to shake. 'That's what they've told me had happened. She'd been shot at close range through the back of her head, so it couldn't have been suicide, it was murder. For one thing there was no gun there. The murderer took it away with him.’
    ‘You've told all this to the police, have you?’ Andrew said.
    ‘Oh, yes, and a lot more, about what I'm doing here and so on. And I think I'm at the top of their list of suspects. Don't they say that if it isn't a family affair, whenthe husband or the wife comes first, then the person who reports the finding of the body is the prime suspect. I'm very glad you're here, because talking to you is giving me back some sense of proportion. I've been feeling bloody scared, that's the truth.’
    ‘I doubt if you need be,’ Andrew said. 'There's a fact you haven't mentioned, that you met Rachel Rayne for the first time yesterday. That's true, isn't it, Peter?’
    ‘Of course it is.’
    ‘Well, that doesn't give you much time for working up a motive for killing her, unless, of course, you're one of those people who need to do a little killing from time to time just to keep themselves going. No, I shouldn't complicate things by imagining you're going to be suspected of murder. But I believe I know something that you don't. I know where Simon Amory is. He's with Mina Todhunter.’
    ‘How do you know that?’ Peter asked.
    ‘When you telephoned me to come up here you omitted to give me the address of the house, and it isn't in the telephone directory, so I phoned Miss Todhunter, and asked her for it. And she mentioned that he was with her and asked me if I wanted to speak to him. I said I didn't want to trouble him and that the address was all I wanted, and that was that. Of course, I can't really swear that he was there, as I didn't speak to him, but if he wasn't she wouldn't have risked asking me if I wanted to speak to him, would she?’
    ‘No. No, I see what you mean. So you don't think he's a suspect either.’ Peter dropped down on to the bed again, giving a sigh, as if he felt that he had shed a load. He even managed to give a small smile. ‘Yet he's the obvious person, isn't he? I mean, so far as we know, he's the only person with a relationship with Rachel that goes farther back than a week ago, when I believe she arrived.’
    ‘We don't know that for certain, do we?’ Andrew said.
    ‘What was she doing, visiting Clarke this afternoon, if she didn't know him a bit better than appears. Incidentally, what was he doing in his office on a Saturday afternoon? I believe that's unusual for a solicitor. And what was she doing visiting Todhunter yesterday