Free Dead or Alive by Patricia Wentworth Page A

to the dealer from whom he was getting a car, paid for it, collected it, and drove away. He drove to Ledlington, and having in mind that the car was not yet run in, he did not allow himself to exceed thirty-five miles an hour, though he would have liked to have gone a great deal faster. He wanted to see Henry Postlethwaite with the least possible delay, and he wanted to see him before he saw Meg again. Owing to the rather emotional turn which the evening had taken, the Professor had faded into the background. Meg had been too much startled by her encounter with Della Delorne, and too much upset by his questions, to remember that he was going down to see her uncle today. If she had remembered, she would have tried to cramp his style. He knew his Meg, and she would certainly have tried to make him promise not to worry Uncle Henry, not to tell him that she hadn’t got any money, and above all things not to suggest that it was his business to provide her with some—all of which things Bill had every intention of doing. He was fond of the Professor, and he meant to be kind, but he also meant to be firm, and he was quite definitely of the opinion that his immediate job in life was to see that the Professor did worry about Meg. It was therefore going to save a lot of wear and tear if he kept out of her way until after he had seen her uncle.
    It was a very nice morning for a drive—blue sky, rippled over with small fleecy clouds, some wind, and a sun so warm as to seem more like June than October. There had been rain overnight, and bright drops still beaded the brambles on the shady side of the hedgerow here and there—a wonderful blackberry crop, and the thorn trees loaded down with crimson haws.
    He lunched in Ledlington, parking his car in the Square watched over by the statue of Sir Albert Dawnish, whose Quick Cash Stores, now so beneficently universal, had their origin in a humble establishment not twenty yards from this very spot. Ledlington is justly proud of her great man. She has set him aloft in the rigid trousers and all the other distressing garments peculiar to statuary in these islands.
    After lunch Bill drove out to Ledstow. The road first crossed an open heath and then, coming on to a lower level, wound amongst trees. Ledstow village consists of a church, a public house, a row of petrol-pumps, and a single street of cottages varying from the timbered Elizabethan hovel to the converted railway-carriage of the post-war period. They all appeared to be equally unsanitary, but alas not equally picturesque. The village pond, thickly blanketed with green slime, gave out an archaic odour which seemed to be holding its own against the twentieth-century smell of petrol. The church, ancient and beautiful, was surrounded by a very large, damp graveyard set about with yews.
    On inquiry Bill discovered that Ledstow Place, the property recently bought by Henry Postlethwaite, was known locally as The Place without any further qualification. It was about a quarter of a mile from the village, and was approached by a dark lane which turned at right angles by the pond and skirted the churchyard, the farther end of which marched with its boundary wall. There was a wall all round it—a very sizeable wall.
    Bill came to a locked gate, with a lodge beyond it crouching amongst evergreens. He had to sound his horn half a dozen times before anyone came, and then it was an old woman, very slow and deaf, who looked through the gate and asked him his business. He began to think he ought to have wired to say he was coming. He produced a card, passed it through the bars, and shouted,
    â€œI want to see Mr Postlethwaite! I’m an old friend!”
    â€œHe don’t live here,” said the old woman, shaking her head.
    â€œWho doesn’t?” said Bill at the top of his voice.
    â€œThere’s never been any Smiths here that I know of,” said the old woman.
    â€œPostlethwaite,” said Bill—“not