Grave Matters by Margaret Yorke Page A

living-room. ‘Mike, you’ll be portly when you’re middle-aged if Jane feeds you like this.’
    ‘I’m getting portly already,’ Michael said, though in fact he was not.
    ‘Think of all those poor lonely dons’ wives with their tomato soup on their trays and the Sunday film on the box, while their husbands dine in hall. What a dreary life,’ said Jane.
    ‘I wouldn’t dine in hall on Sundays if I was married,’ said Patrick. ‘Notice that I’m not there now.’
    ‘You would if you had four argumentative brats,’ said Michael. He grinned at Jane. ‘We haven’t reached that stage. It’s still peaceful when you can make them doss down at a suitable hour.’
    ‘How’s my niece?’ asked Patrick.
    Jane patted her stomach. ‘Active,’ she said.
    ‘There are too many aunts and nieces in this whole affair,’ said Patrick. ‘Old Amelia and her niece Valerie, and then Ellen.’
    ‘Yes, Ellen,’ said Jane and exchanged a glance with Michael.
    ‘Why is all this so much on your mind, Patrick?’ Michael asked. In the past Patrick’s fantastic speculations and theories had proved to be not as far-fetched as they seemed at first, and he had a great respect for his brother-in-law’s judgement, but he thought him insulated from reality, tucked away in his academic fastness among the dreaming spires. ‘After all, life is full of inexplicable things and strange happenings.’
    ‘I know it is. But two old ladies, two respected spinsters, die suddenly, within a couple of months of one another, both by falling down rather special stairs, and both were friends. Then a dog drowns.’
    ‘O.K. So the two old girls fell down the stairs. That’s an odd coincidence, I’ll allow you that. But you saw the first old lady fall yourself, and knew it was an accident. The second old lady was depressed and sad, perhaps, and she had a weak heart. Delayed shock may have caused her death. Anyway, what a splendid way to die.’
    ‘Falling down the stairs in the British Museum? I can’t agree,’ said Patrick.
    ‘I really meant the suddenness of it, and the other one, the one who died on the Acropolis,’ said Michael.
    ‘It wasn’t splendid, Michael,’ Patrick said. Once again he saw the thin limbs crudely exposed, and the shocked Greek policeman swiftly covering them.
    ‘But there can’t be any connection with the dog. Maybe he had a weak heart too.’
    ‘Another coincidence? Maybe.’
    Patrick did not want to tell them about Ellen and David. To say it aloud would be to force himself to admit it. The first time he had seen them together, in the field, could have been innocent, but there was no mistake about the way they had looked at one another that morning in the British Museum. Circumstantial evidence, he told himself sternly, unsupported by the facts needed for the true researcher.
    ‘I went to Meldsmead on Thursday,’ he said abruptly. ‘I hadn’t got the feel of the village – I wanted to try to sense the atmosphere. I had a drink in the pub and met a man there whom I’d spoken to before. He told me Carol Bruce had been ill. Some sort of stomach upset.’
    ‘Gastric flu. There’s a lot about,’ said Jane.
    ‘Or else there is some sort of curse on that house, as everybody says. Ellen thinks so,’ he said.
    ‘Patrick, just what are you afraid of?’ Jane demanded, putting down her knitting and looking at him. ‘You don’t really want to go on with this, do you? Yet usually you’re looking for mysteries in the most normal events. Are you afraid that Ellen is involved in something sinister? Do you think the dog was killed on purpose, as a warning, perhaps?’
    ‘I think that someone doesn’t want Carol Bruce at Abbot’s Lodge,’ said Patrick. ‘She put her foot through the floorboards of a room that had been re-floored. She slipped on some steps that were perfectly dry except for where I found a trace of fine oil. She scratched her arm doing a household repair, and her dog has died mysteriously. And