Free Murder Adrift by George Bellairs Page A

their father’s death their mother turned her affection on the boys. You’ve met Mr. Kenneth?’
    â€˜Not yet. I was introduced to him, but I don’t think he even noticed me.’
    â€˜Well, when you’ve met him you’ll understand why she preferred Heck to him. He’s a cold fish, immersed in the business and I’d say, on the face of it, incapable of much warmth or reciprocating affection. Heck was his mother’s favourite and she didn’t conceal the fact. He took full advantage of it.’
    Dawson filled up his glass and eyed Hopkinson’s.
    â€˜You’re not drinking. Fill up. . . .’
    â€˜I was interested in what you were saying.’
    Hoppy wondered how much more Dawson had to tell him. Dawson seemed quite unaffected by all he’d drunk. But at this rate Hoppy felt he himself would pass out before the full tale was told.
    â€˜He married a nice girl. I think it was a shotgun wedding, so to speak. Everybody thought she was Ken’s girl. But no woman was safe where Heck was concerned. Suddenly the news broke that she and Heck had married at a London registry office. She was the daughter of a Colonel Penderell, of Portwich, a prominent local family and she had two formidable brothers. I calculated at the time that there was a child on the way and the wedding was forced medicine. I was proved right. Nobody knows what went on between the two families behind closed doors. As usual, I guess, Mrs. Todd settled it all. You’ve met her?’
    â€˜Yes. This morning.’
    â€˜What do you think of her?’
    â€˜A charming old lady.’
    Dawson, who was lighting his pipe, made wuffing noises to indicate that he was amused at the naive reply.
    â€˜All milk and roses, eh? She’s iron underneath. What she’s had to put up with since she married Todd would have killed most women, or else put ’em in an asylum. She was the daughter of the Dean of Portwich, daddy’s darling, everybody’s darling, including the bishop. Then she married Ephraim Todd, known as Teddy. They met for the first time – you won’t believe it, but it’s true – they met when Teddy called at the deanery in an effort to sell communion wine. It was a love match. By God, it was! They fought like cat and dog. Teddy was merchanting cheap wine in an old brewery on the site where their big warehouse is now. He took his new wife to live in the lodge at the brewery gates, a little dark two-up and two-down place. He was hardly making enough to live on, but she soon pulled it round. He drank a fair amount of his own stuff and once, when he was drunk, he hit her. She hit him back with a rolling-pin and they had to take him to hospital. After that, she was the boss, with a capital B. Funnily enough, with all her troubles and struggles, her appearance changed very little. She was always a handsome woman, smallish, graceful, but resolute and iron inside. She had to be or else she’d have gone under.’
    He paused to light his pipe again. He smoked strong tobacco and Hopkinson, to counteract it, lit the cigar which, earlier in the evening, a convivial fellow guest had thrust in his pocket.
    â€˜I guess you’re wondering how I know all this. It was family history before my time. But there was an old chapcalled Finch, who was book-keeper and general factotum to Teddy Todd, who went through it all. He spent his time between the Big House and the office and all this went on around him. There used to be a little club in Fordinghurst until it went bust with the arrival of the motor-car, which made the members able to get down to Portwich for their entertainment. Ben Fitch used to tell me things after he’d had a few drinks at the club. One night, after he’d had one too many, he walked in the harbour; and that was the end of poor Ben.’
    â€˜You mentioned the family arrangements after Hector married his brother’s fiancée. Do you mean to