Free After the Exhibition: A Jack Haldean 1920s Mystery (A Jack Haldean Mystery) by Dolores Gordon-Smith Page B

her.’
    Betty looked suddenly horror-struck. ‘Of course! You’ll need a picture of her. I’m sorry. When I think what happened to her, it seems so petty to feel anything but sympathy.’ She broke off and tossed her head impatiently. ‘Colin saw a lot of Signora Bianchi.’ She wriggled unhappily. ‘There were no end of rumours.’
    Bill and Jack exchanged glances. ‘What sort of rumours?’ asked Bill.
    She wrinkled her nose as if she’d smelt something rank. ‘Unpleasant ones. People said …’ She drew a short, exasperated breath. ‘I suppose I’d better tell you. The gossip was that Colin was having an affair with her. I flatly refused to believe it. I couldn’t see what the attraction was.’ She bit her lip. ‘She’s
old
, isn’t she?
Old
.’
    Jack looked at the photograph. There was no denying Signora Bianchi had an indefinable air of glamour. He could see very clearly where the attraction lay.
    ‘You might as well know,’ continued Betty. ‘I asked Colin to stop seeing her but he said it was none of my business.’
    Jack scratched his nose thoughtfully. It was nothing to do with the case, but he really wanted to know how Betty felt about Colin Askern. ‘Why should it be your business?’ he asked with seeming guilelessness.
    ‘Because Colin and I have become good friends,’ she said flatly. She looked at him with earnest appeal in her blue eyes. ‘Can we leave it there? I’d rather not say any more. Colin said he enjoyed her company because she’d travelled widely and knew about art and films and culture and so on. I never thought that was the whole truth.’
    ‘Have you any reason to think it isn’t the whole truth?’ Jack asked gently. It was obviously a very delicate topic and the last thing he wanted to do was upset her further.
    ‘Not real reasons, no.’ She ran her hand through her hair. ‘I don’t suppose it matters now what Colin thought of her.’
    Jack and Bill swapped glances. They knew each other well enough to know what the other was thinking. If Signora Bianchi had indeed been murdered, then Colin Askern’s relations with her could be very important indeed. Rather to Jack’s relief, Bill didn’t find it necessary to point that out to Betty Wingate.
    Jack went to replace the photo on the sideboard, then, changing his mind, put it in his jacket pocket.
    He looked round the room thoughtfully. There was a tiny black mark on the rug beside the sofa. He stooped down and rubbed his finger over it. ‘Is this where you dropped the match? There’s a burn on the carpet.’
    ‘I was standing about there, yes.’
    ‘And the woman was on the sofa? Was she lying down or sitting up?’
    Betty frowned in remembrance. ‘Sitting up, I think. Yes, that’s right. She was sitting up but with her head slumped back.’
    Jack knelt down by the sofa and examined it carefully. The sofa was a cheap wooden frame, deal varnished to look like oak, with red upholstery cushions tied to it.
    The cushions had evidently been plumped up, presumably by Mrs Hatton. Jack moved them to one side and examined the frame with minute care.
    ‘There’s a hair trapped in the angle of the frame,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t be a natural place to put your head if you were merely sitting down.’ He gave the wooden arm of the sofa an experimental shake. ‘This seems firm enough for normal use.’
    ‘I don’t think much of a sofa that catches your hair,’ said Bill. ‘It sounds damn painful.’
    ‘Yes, it does, doesn’t it?’
    Jack sat on the sofa, shifting his weight experimentally. ‘Under normal circumstances, I think the arm would remain fairly solid. Let me try something, Bill. I’ll sit here and, if you don’t mind, would you strangle me?’
    ‘Strangle you?’ said Bill with a grin. ‘That’s a turn up for the books. It’s usually me that gets cast as the corpse in these little re-enactments.’
    ‘Just do it,’ said Jack, hutching himself into the corner of the sofa. ‘Now I’m