Cast For Death by Margaret Yorke Page A

river, Patrick had told him and Elizabeth about the packet of Earl Grey tea he had seen at Pear Tree Cottage. It might easily, he propounded, bear Sam’s fingerprints, for he held the theory that it was Sam who had been camping at the cottage.
    ‘Why should he want to?’ Liz asked. ‘He was acting in London – he couldn’t have spent many nights there, anyway. And you’ve no proof yet that they knew one another.’
    ‘Maybe he stayed there while he looked for digs. Maybe he meant to do a bit of painting for Tina,’ said Patrick. ‘And another thing – those paintings weren’t right. Tina’s other things were good – even the valueless ones were in good taste. But the pictures were awful.’
    ‘Perhaps she bought them on spec, hoping they’d come into vogue later and be worth a fortune. Things do happen like that. Like McGonagal,’ said Liz, and had to explain to Manolakis about the poet.
    ‘It’s the only explanation, I suppose,’ said Patrick.
    ‘I think this is one of your hares, Patrick. Lots of people like Earl Grey tea. I do—don’t you?’
    ‘Yes.’ She was right, and someone with Tina’s tastes might be expected to do the same. ‘Let’s forget it now. Have you two enjoyed yourselves?’
    They had had a happy morning. They had watched the Morris dancers, and had had a good view of the procession and the unfurling of the flags, even finding the Greek one. Liz had been able to identify many of the distinguished guests; besides the official representatives from different countries there were actors, writers, and even an American senator. Manolakis felt satisfactorily caught up in the excitement of the occasion.
    ‘It is a great British festival,’ he said.
    He was right, they supposed, though neither Liz nor Patrick would ever have described it as one.
    ‘Well, what shall we do now? Run round the other Shakespearian shrines or go somewhere else?’ asked Patrick. ‘Dimitri, what would you like to do?’
    ‘I am at your commands,’ said Manolakis.
    ‘There’s such a crowd – let’s get out of the town and have a spin round the Cotswolds,’ said Liz. ‘It’s a famous part of England, Dimitri, and on a day like this it will be beautiful.’
    It was. They passed orchards full of trees about to burst into blossom, and hedgerows bright with young growth. Soon they were among rolling fields where lambs, now nearly as big as their mothers, were grazing.
    ‘Ah—the walls of stone. We have these too,’ said Manolakis, pleased to find yet another bond with Britain. ‘It is all so green.’
    He appreciated the names of the villages they passed through, and made notes in his little book about the Swells and the Slaughters when they stopped for tea in a café where tulips and forget-me-nots were in full bloom in the garden.
    ‘Shall we visit my sister now?’ said Patrick, as he finished the last scone.
    Liz looked taken aback.
    ‘What an invasion for Jane,’ she said.
    Patrick’s plans for the weekend had extended only as far as his visit to Pear Tree Cottage; he had given no thought to Saturday evening, nor to how they would spend Sunday. If he didn’t know what to do at weekends, he usually visited Jane.
    ‘Dimitris hasn’t met her yet. It’s a chance. She’s used to me just turning up.’
    ‘Yes—but three of us—suppose she’s having a party?’
    ‘We’ll join in,’ said Patrick blithely.
    Dimitris did not understand why Liz was objecting. Greeks loved meeting one another.
    ‘You do not like Patrick’s sister?’ he enquired.
    ‘Of course I like her – I haven’t seen her for ages, though. Anyway, I must think about getting back to London.’
    ‘Why? You have someone to meet?’ demanded Dimitris.
    ‘No—no. Not this evening.’
    ‘Liz, I thought you’d make a whole weekend of it,’ Patrick said. ‘Spend tonight in Oxford.’
    Where, she wondered. Surely he did not mean at St Mark’s?
    ‘You haven’t really got to get back?’
    ‘I needn’t, I suppose,’