Read After the Funeral for Free Online Page B

stay here with all Mrs Lansquenet's nice things in the house. They took the - the -” Miss Gilchrist gulped a little - “the body away, of course, and locked up the room, and the Inspector told me there would be a constable on duty in the kitchen all night - because of the broken window - it has been reglazed this morning, I am glad to say - where was I? Oh yes, so I said I should be quite all right in my own room, though I must confess I did pull the chest of drawers across the door and put a big jug of water on the window-sill. One never knows - and if by any chance it was a maniac - one does hear of such things...”
    Here Miss Gilchrist ran down. Mr Entwhistle said quickly:
    “I am in possession of all the main facts. Inspector Morton gave them to me. But if it would not distress you too much to give me your own account?”
    “Of course, Mr Entwhistle. I know just what you feel. The police are so impersonal, are they not? Rightly so, of course.”
    “Mrs Lansquenet got back from the funeral the night before last,” Mr Entwhistle prompted.
    “Yes, her train didn't get in until quite late. I had ordered a taxi to meet it as she told me to. She was very tired, poor dear - as was only natural - but on the whole she was in quite good spirits.”
    “Yes, yes. Did she talk about the funeral at all?”
    “Just a little. I gave her a cup of hot milk - she didn't want anything else - and she told me that the church had been quite full and lots and lots of flowers - oh! and she said that she was sorry not to have seen her other brother - Timothy - was it?”
    “Yes, Timothy.”
    “She said it was over twenty years since she had seen him and that she hoped he would have been there, but she quite realised he would have thought it better not to come under the circumstances, but that his wife was there and that she'd never been able to stand Maude - oh dear, I do beg your pardon, Mr Entwhistle - it just slipped out - I never meant -”
    “Not at all. Not at all,” said Mr Entwhistle encouragingly. “I am no relation, you know. And I believe that Cora and her sister-in-law never hit it off very well.”
    “Well, she almost said as much. 'I always knew Maude would grow into one of those bossy interfering women,' is what she said. And then she was very tired and said she'd go to bed at once - I'd got her hot-water bottle in all ready - and she went up.”
    “She said nothing else that you can remember specially?”
    “She had no premonition, Mr Entwhistle, if that is what you mean. I'm sure of that. She was really, you know, in remarkably good spirits - apart from tiredness and the - the sad occasion. She asked me how I'd like to go to Capri. To Capri! Of course I said it would be too wonderful - it's a thing I'd never dreamed I'd ever do - and she said, 'We'll go!' Just like that. I gathered - of course it wasn't actually mentioned that her brother had left her an annuity or something of the kind.”
    Mr Entwhistle nodded.
    “Poor dear. Well, I'm glad she had the pleasure of planning - at all events.” Miss Gilchrist sighed and murmured wistfully, “I don't suppose I shall ever go to Capri now...”
    “And the next morning?” Mr Entwhistle prompted, oblivious of Miss Gilchrist's disappointments.
    “The next morning Mrs Lansquenet wasn't at all well. Really, she looked dreadful. She'd hardly slept at all, she told me. Nightmares. 'It's because you were overtired yesterday,' I told her, and she said maybe it was. She had her breakfast in bed, and she didn't get up all the morning, but at lunch-time she told me that she still hadn't been able to sleep. 'I feel so restless,' she said. 'I keep thinking of things and wondering.' And then she said she'd take some sleeping tablets and try and get a good sleep in the afternoon. And she wanted me to go over by bus to Reading and change her two library books, because she'd finished them both on the train journey and she hadn't got anything to read. Usually two books lasted her