Read Ellis Peters - George Felse 01 - Fallen Into The Pit for Free Online

room. But I can’t
prove
any of it. I’m telling you, but it’s only my word for it. Only, honestly, I haven’t made it up, and I’m not imagining it, either.”
    “I wish you’d had the sense to come to me days ago,” said Chad Wedderburn.
    “Well, but I didn’t want to make trouble for you, and it was all so slippery. You can see it’s no good now. I only made you take the same sort of nastiness I’ve had.”
    “What about tonight?” prompted George.
    “He was down in the day-room, playing darts with three of the fellows. They didn’t often invite him in, but I suppose he was there, and they took him on. I didn’t even know. I went down there to borrow a fine screwdriver, because I’d broken the strut of Ted’s photo, and I was putting a new one on it. When I went in he was sitting by the table, and he had a clasp-knife, and was trimming the end of a dart that wouldn’t fly true. I never took any notice of him. I just put the photo on the table—as far from him as it would go, but it’s only a small table—and asked Tom Stephens for his pocket gadget, and he gave it to me, and went on with the game. And I went back to pick up my picture.” He stirred painfully on his pillow, and shut his teeth together hard to stop a rising gulp. “It’s Ted in his uniform—I went and left it down there—”
    “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of that. Go on!”
    “He sat there whittling away with the knife, and he looked at me over it, and then he spat—making believe he was spitting on the blade, and then stooping down to sharpen it on the sole of his shoe—but he knew what he was about, all right! He spat on Ted’s photo—spattered it all over the face— He spat on my brother, and grinned at me! A dirty little Nazi like that!”
    “So you went for him,” said George equably.
    “Of course I did! What would you expect me to do? I dropped the screwdriver—anyhow it was a little pocket thing, all closed up, like a lipstick—and went for him, and hit him in the face, and he started to get up and lunge at me, all in one movement. The knife went into me, and I fell on top of him, and then the other three came and pulled us apart, and I was bleeding like a pig—and—and I was scared like a kid, and started to yell for Mr. Wedderburn, and Tom went and got him—and that’s all.”
    Not all, perhaps, that could be told, but all that Jim was capable of telling just then, and it was as full of holes as any sieve. He looked speculatively at Chad’s darkening cheek, and asked: “What about your little incident? If you had the kid in your arms at the time,
you
can hardly have started the rough stuff.”
    Chad smiled sourly. “I didn’t even call him rude names. It was all strictly schoolmaster stuff. He was sitting like a damp sack until I turned to go out of the day-room, and then he shot up like a rocket and took a hack at me. I—hadn’t been complimentary, of course. His poor English might have led him to find words there which I never used.”
    “Don’t put words in
my
mouth,” said George hastily.
    “Just the words you’ll probably find in his. He has them all, there’s been time to find the right ones. But it would hold up an assault charge,” he said simply, “if you’re hard up. Every little helps!”
    George thought it might, but discreetly said nothing. He patted Jim with an absent-minded cheerfulness, as he might have done a Dominic smitten with stomachache, bade him do as he was told, like a good chap, and not worry about anything; and with the exchange of a glance committed him again to the surprising care of Chad Wedderburn, who was inexpertly putting together the small necessities of a stay in hospital from the chest-of-drawers. “See him off, and keep him happy. Come along to the station on your way back, will you? I’ll take care of brother Ted, you can be easy, you shall have him back safely.”
    He went down, not very well satisfied, to collect three vague and confused