Read Over the High Side for Free Online Page B

talking sensibly – but neither you nor I can talk away the fact, can we? He was stabbed. Knifed. Pricked. And you’ve no idea how?’
    â€˜How could I have any idea? Everything seems so unlikely.’
    â€˜I treat you as a detached person, Madame, since you give me proofs of detachment. He had several wives. He married you when he was already old but you were a young woman. He had exceptional charm – and shall I say sap? I don’t wish to cause you pain.’
    â€˜I’m ahead of you.’
    â€˜Very well; had he a new girl friend?’
    â€˜No,’ unhesitating. ‘It’s not that he couldn’t. No, you don’t give me pain. I thought of it. At one time I feared it. I’m not a fool. But I would have known.’
    â€˜I don’t wish to force you to go into details of your married life.’
    â€˜I won’t, either, unless you do force me to. Can I put it – I’m young, as you say, yes, but in these years … I have learned a good deal. Can I leave it at that?’
    She had dignity, sitting there. Excellent legs, neatly crossed, skirt carefully arranged. Pretty woman. Nose a bit too long,features a bit heavy, real blonde hair a little too stiff – fault of a cheap hairdresser that. Nice figure. Firm, sensible woman.
    â€˜I don’t know him,’ Van der Valk said. ‘I have to get to know him. Was he a jealous man?’
    â€˜I see that I have to explain. Jealous – the word is so crude. He was proud, touchy, sensitive. He observed me carefully. He took great pains that I should be interested, occupied. To settle the point once and for all I had – have – no lover. He was punctilious, generous – and passionate if you must know. And very fair. You’ve seen how poor we are just now. Well, I’ll tell you that I have a few items of jewellery given me in better times – nothing very wonderful but a good ring, a clip, some ear-rings. I offered to sell them to help tide us over. He would have none of it.’
    â€˜It suggests pride.’
    â€˜Of course it does; it also suggests that he earned my fidelity and loyalty.’ It was said warmly: it was also, thought Van der Valk, not badly answered.
    â€˜You’ll sell them now?’
    â€˜I’ve no choice if I’m going to pay for the funeral.’
    â€˜Have you notified his daughters?’
    â€˜I sent telegrams, but I don’t expect them to come.’
    â€˜I’ve only read some of their letters, superficially at that. They seem very attached to him.’
    â€˜It’s not for me to judge, Commissaire. They all have husbands, two have small children. They wouldn’t find it easy to get away.’
    Van der Valk, who had the strong Dutch ‘family feeling’ and approved of the Martinez family having the same, was a scrap shocked; he would have thought that one or more could well get away. A father who dies like that! Especially the young one, Stasie, who had a deeper bond with him than the others, perhaps. They all lived in the same street – one of the others could look after her children for a couple of days. Oh well, it was irrelevant to the job in hand.
    â€˜So to conclude, Madame, you see nobody who could gain by this death.’
    â€˜I most certainly do not,’ very warmly.
    â€˜You refuse the idea of an entanglement with a woman.I take your word for this, but we will have to check it, as you will understand.’
    â€˜Check away.’
    â€˜And you discount any quarrel over a business deal.’
    â€˜Sound as though he was smuggling drugs or something,’ sarcastically.
    â€˜No. But if in straits – and he was – he might have laid his hand to something he would not ordinarily have done – something outside the law?’
    She flushed, disquieted, angry.
    â€˜You don’t understand him. He was a gentleman. That sounds old-fashioned. But there were things he would not do,