Move Your Blooming Corpse by D. E. Ireland Page B

now.”
    She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Blimey.”
    â€œMr. Dryden was a playwright as well as a poet, Eliza.” Hewitt closed his eyes. “‘There is a pleasure sure in being mad, which none but madmen know.’” He opened his eyes and stared at them, as if waiting for a reaction.
    â€œNot only pleasure, but safety,” Higgins said wryly. “Mr. Hewitt, did you see who killed Diana Price?”
    No emotion registered on Hewitt’s face. “I do not know who Diana Price is.”
    â€œShe was a singer in the theater,” Eliza said. “But she started out as a Gaiety Girl, like one of those pretty girls you mention. You can’t be a Gaiety Girl unless you’re pretty. Diana Price was rather famous. I’m surprised you don’t know her.”
    â€œThe theater is nearly as foul with corruption as the racecourse. I haven’t been to the theater since I was a boy.”
    Eliza turned to Higgins. “Poor man. I bet he hasn’t been to the cinema, either.”
    â€œFollowing the Gold Cup, Diana’s body was found in the stables,” Higgins said. “She’d been run through with a pitchfork.”
    â€œHow tragic.” Hewitt opened his Bible once more. “I still don’t know her. But I will pray for her immortal soul. I shall now read from the Book of Judges.”
    After several minutes of him reading aloud, an impatient Eliza interrupted. “Did you visit the stables while you were at Ascot?”
    â€œI did not,” Hewitt said, then resumed reading.
    Higgins and Eliza waited until he finished the account of Samson and Delilah. But when Hewitt began the biblical account of Micah and the young Levite, Higgins lost patience. “Read the biblical injunction against spreading falsehoods. You just said you did not visit the Ascot stables. Yet jockey Bomber Brody and a young groom both claim they saw you there that morning. Since you weren’t an owner or racing official, Brody had you removed from the premises.”
    â€œPerhaps I did.” Hewitt closed his Bible. “I believe I arrived at the racecourse early in the morning. I may have wandered into the stables at some point. Remember I suffered a head injury at Ascot.” He touched the bandage at the back of his head. “My memory may be faulty.”
    â€œBut why go to the stables at all?” Eliza asked.
    He was silent for a moment. Higgins guessed he was trying to concoct a convincing lie. For certain, Hewitt was a slippery fellow.
    â€œI wanted to see the horses,” he said at last.
    â€œWhy?” Higgins and Eliza asked in unison.
    â€œI planned to run in front of them during the race and knew that might startle them. But if I showed myself to those horses scheduled to run in the Gold Cup—let them catch my scent, listen to my voice, note my appearance—perhaps they wouldn’t take fright later.”
    Higgins snorted. That was the first irrational thing Hewitt had said. “Where did you go after we spoke? Did you go back to the stables?”
    He remained silent, his eyes on the Bible.
    â€œTell us where you went.”
    Hewitt looked off into space. “‘If wishes were horses, blind men would ride,’” he chanted in a singsong voice, then stopped. “That’s what you all are. Blind.”
    â€œBlind to what?”
    But Hewitt’s attention turned unexpectedly to Eliza’s tight skirt. He pointed a stern finger at her. “‘Cast away thy sinful raiment.’”
    â€œI will as soon as I get home,” she replied. “I can barely breathe.”
    Higgins’s frustration grew by the minute. “Mr. Hewitt, do you remember where you were between the time we spoke in the paddock and the start of the Gold Cup?”
    â€œNow you sound like a policeman.”
    â€œExcuse me, gentlemen, but I cannot sit a minute longer.” Eliza jabbed the tip of her parasol into the