Free Death Trick by Roderic Jeffries

island had been very beautiful. But the people had known poverty and he could remember his mother crying because she could not give him a decent meal.
    ‘What are you thinking?’
    He told her.
    ‘That’s true. Must it always, then, be either beauty with want or ugly prosperity?’
    It was a question he had often asked himself and to which he had never found an answer.
    ‘Pablo could never think like that.’ Her tone had scarcely changed, but now there was no mistaking her contempt. ‘For him, beauty was success and money. And young women.’ She touched the mole.
    ‘Señora, have you ever met an Englishman called Gerald Oakley?’
    ‘I don’t think so.’
    ‘I’m reasonably certain he visited Casa Gran on Monday.’
    ‘It’s possible. On Sunday, Pablo once more tried to persuade me to let him have some of the land; he was even more insistent than usual. Perhaps the Englishman was interested in the development of it.’
    ‘But he didn’t actually mention Oakley’s name?’
    ‘No, he did not.’
    ‘Has he sold all the land you gave him?’
    ‘A long time ago. And for very much less than it would be worth now, as I frequently pointed out, much to his annoyance.’
    ‘Was he ever concerned in the actual developments?’
    ‘I can’t say. He never discussed money or business with me, unless he wanted something; and even then, like any husband, he’d speak as if I were a fool.’
    Few Mallorquins, Alvarez knew, had yet come to terms either with the proposition that a marriage was a partnership rather than a takeover or that women could be as intelligently capable of dealing with financial matters as they.
    He stood, apologized once more for having troubled her, and said goodbye. As he stepped out of the cool interior of the house into the hot, dusty street, he thought that it was like returning to the present.
    On Monday, Alvarez drove again to Palma and parked under the Plaza Major. From there, he walked to Roig’s office, on the first floor of a building in Rey Jaime III.
    The reception area was large, close-carpeted, and hung with several attractive coloured prints; the single desk was kidney-shaped. Marta had been working at a large electronic typewriter and she immediately began to moan. ‘I just don’t know what to do. I mean, who’s employing me? There’s a lot of work needs doing, but who’s going to pay me for doing it? And the phone’s been going all the time with questions I can’t answer.’
    As if on cue, the telephone rang. She told the caller that just for the moment she couldn’t say definitely what was happening, but that the delay wouldn’t affect the case; she promised to get in touch the moment something certain was known.
    She replaced the receiver. ‘I’ve tried asking the señora, but I don’t think she can be bothered. Between you and me, she and the señor didn’t get on very well together.’
    ‘I gather he was fond of the ladies?’
    ‘All I know is, he’d wandering hands.’
    ‘D’you remember the Braddons?’
    ‘Not likely to forget ‘em.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘If you’d been here the last time, you wouldn’t ask.’
    He did not immediately pursue what she’d said. ‘Were they frequent callers?’
    ‘Never stopped.’
    ‘They were trying to make Señor Roig expedite their action over the house they bought, weren’t they?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘D’you have any idea why he didn’t press their claim harder?’
    ‘Because he was stringing ‘em along until it was all but too late for them to sue.’
    ‘You knew he was doing that?’
    ‘I’m not stupid.’
    ‘Then why didn’t you warn them?’
    ‘I was working for him, not them; besides, they’re foreigners.’
    ‘Going back to their last visit here, what happened?’
    ‘There was a row like no other I’ve heard in this office; leastwise, the English señor was shouting his head off.’
    ‘What was it all about?’
    ‘It must have been to do with the letter I’d typed out a couple of