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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Sheila Malory Mystery
- Sprache: Englisch
Eva Jackson is Rosemary's cousin ( 'umpteen times removed' ) and she has moved back to her childhood home in Taviscombe after the untimely death of her beloved husband Alan. As is the way of the village, Eva has been pounced upon by the local charities, and it is during a coffee morning that she mentions to Sheila Malory that she fears Alan might have died an unnatural death . Sheila is intrigued and sets out to find out more. But when Eva's body is discovered after a supposed insulin overdose, Sheila wonders if the killer might still be at large in the charming Devon countryside .
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Seitenzahl: 256
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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Death is a Word
HAZEL HOLT
For all my readers, past and present, with love and gratitude
Death is a word
Not to be declined in any case.
Contents
Chapter One
‘So how was Eva?’
‘Upset, of course,’ Rosemary said, ‘but you know how she is, always cheerful and positive about things.’
‘It was so unfair,’ I continued, ‘just six months after he’d finally retired …’
Eva’s husband, Alan Jackson, was a foreign correspondent, a familiar face on our television screens in exotic places, all too often with burning buildings and shellfire lighting up the darkness behind him.
‘Of course he should have retired years ago,’ Rosemary continued, ‘but there was always just one more job. Still, after all that Middle East stuff he promised Eva he’d call it a day.’
‘I really don’t know how she’s been able to live with it all these years.’
‘Well, she knew when she married him that’s how it would be. Goodness knows, the family tried to persuade her not to, but she always said she’d rather have that sort of life with Alan than a settled one with anybody else. She could have married Gerald, he was mad about her, and ended up as a judge’s wife, Lady Forsyth!’
Eva Jackson is Rosemary’s cousin (‘umpteen times removed’) and she’s always been very fond of her. Indeed we all are. It’s difficult to describe her – lively, amusing, down to earth, clever without seeming clever, sympathetic, a good listener – I could go on. She’s simply Eva, a large woman in every sense. ‘I really ought to diet,’ she says ruefully, ‘but I never seem to have the time.’ Which is true. When she moved back to Taviscombe after Alan’s death, she was eagerly pounced on by the local charities always on the lookout for energetic volunteers. When we protested she said, ‘It does me good to keep busy.’
It’s ironic that Alan, who had survived so many hazardous experiences – under crossfire in the Balkans, yomping with the marines in the Falklands, dodging snipers in Libya and interviewing Taliban warlords in the back of a Toyota truck, madly driving through the dust in Afghanistan – should have died in a London hospital of kidney failure. Eva had watched all these perils with a sort of stoicism.
‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘she understood all the dangers, being a journalist herself.’
‘Being a feature writer on a Sunday paper,’ Rosemary replied, ‘isn’t quite the same thing.’
‘Well she has done some investigative stuff.’
‘Checking on pharmaceutical companies and care homes isn’t really in the same league.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Anyway,’ Rosemary said, ‘she’s still got a garage full of unpacked boxes so I said I’d go round and help her sort them out. Mostly books and papers – she just unpacked the practical things she needed and left all the other stuff. A lot of it’s Alan’s and I don’t think she could face it right away.’
‘Easier with the two of you.’
‘Well, at least I can help her heave the boxes about.’
When I saw Rosemary a day or two later, I asked how it had gone.
‘We did a bit, but it’s a mammoth task! Lots of Eva’s old articles, notes Alan made, maps and reports – masses of correspondence – I don’t believe either of them ever threw anything away. And hundreds of books. She’s going to need yards and yards of bookshelves.’
‘I’ll give Dave a ring, if you like, he did a lot of carpentry for Michael and Thea when they first moved into their house.’
‘Good idea. Actually, I thought she needed a bit of a break so I asked her to lunch tomorrow and I hope you’ll come too.’
‘Fine. I’d love to see Eva again, but I didn’t like to call or anything when she’s only just moved in.’
‘The friends down here from way back have all moved away, so I thought you and I might rally round.’
Eva’s parents lived just outside Taviscombe and she was brought up here. Her father was an Australian, but his family originally came from Somerset. Apparently her grandfather quarrelled with his father way back, when he didn’t join up in the First World War because he was a pacifist. He (the young man) went to Australia, married there and, dramatically, never mentioned his family again, but his son, Eva’s father, did volunteer in 1945 and came to England to join the RAF. After the war, he came down to Exmoor to have a look at the place his family came from and decided that this was where he wanted to live. He married a local girl (from quite a well-off family) and, with their help, set up a small engineering factory which did very well and eventually made him a rich man in his own right. It always seemed to us a very romantic story and, as girls, we envied Eva for having such an unusual family.
Eva was some years younger than Rosemary and me, but we took to her straight away. Rosemary, whose mothering instincts were very strong even then, took Eva under her wing and, even now, is very protective of her.
Eva went to boarding school but spent her holidays at home, so Rosemary and I saw quite a bit of her when she was young. But, after Oxford, like so many of that generation, she was mad keen to go to London – where it was ‘all happening’ – and we saw her only infrequently, when she visited her parents or sometimes when we stayed with her in her chaotic flat in Bloomsbury near the British Museum, when we felt like a trip to London.
It had been quite a while since I’d seen Eva. Rosemary and I had gone up to London for the funeral – a formal affair at St Bride’s off Fleet Street, with some well-known faces, broadcasters, politicians, other journalists – but, of course, it hadn’t been possible then to do more than murmur a few obvious words of sympathy.
She was already there when I arrived, a glass of red wine in her hand, and Rosemary’s old boxer dog asleep with his head resting heavily on her feet. She waved her glass in greeting.
‘Sorry I can’t get up,’ she said smiling, ‘but Alpha here has got me pinned down. No’, she went on, as Rosemary made a move to remove him, ‘I like him there – it’s very comfortable.’
I went over and gave her a hug. ‘Lovely to see you. How are you finding the cottage?’
‘Cosy, I think the word is. I thought it would be easier to manage after that large flat, but I do miss the space, there’s nowhere to put things. And, because I’m hopeless at packing I left it all to the removal men and, bless them, I’m sure they did a good job but they’ve packed everything, even some old pencils and rubber bands! I suppose it’s like computers, you give them an instruction and they take it literally!’
‘Oh dear. Rosemary tells me you need more bookshelves. I can recommend a good carpenter.’
‘That would be marvellous, that is, if he can find enough wall space. Another thing I’ve discovered about an eighteenth-century cottage is that none of the walls are straight, they sort of curve, if you know what I mean.’
‘Only too well. No, Dave is quite used to that – he’s very good. I’ll give you his number.’
‘I suppose I ought to do a bit more sorting out, I really haven’t any idea what I want to keep. As I said, they obviously emptied all the bookshelves and filing cabinets into boxes. It’s all a bit daunting. Rosemary’s been an angel and got me going – I’d really like to leave them there, in situ, and try and forget they ever existed. But it wouldn’t be fair to leave it all to Dan after I’ve gone.’
Dan is Eva’s son, their only child, also a journalist, though also in another field; he’s a restaurant critic, well known for his acerbic comments on the page and on many television programmes.
‘How is Dan?’ I asked. ‘I loved his piece about that new place in Notting Hill – do they really serve the food on pieces of slate? It’s bad enough that practically everywhere you go the food comes in enormous soup plates!
Eva laughed. ‘Oh, he’s off to do some sort of gastronomic tour of Spain. I think it’s for that food programme. I can’t keep up with him.’
‘Well,’ Rosemary said, ‘I’m glad he’s not here to comment on my little offering. Come along both of you, bring your glasses, lunch is ready.’
The next time I saw Eva was at Brunswick Lodge, the cultural centre of Taviscombe as my friend Anthea, who runs the place, likes to describe it.
‘Oh, any subject at all – I’m sure whatever you choose will be fascinating,’ Anthea was saying.
‘Well, I’d love to, of course, but I do seem to have taken on rather a lot already …’
‘Oh, it doesn’t have to be anything formal, just a little chat, really, and I’m sure people would like to ask a few questions. After all,’ she continued, ‘we don’t often have the chance to hear about the life of a famous foreign correspondent, quite a celebrity. About an hour would be fine, a bit longer if there’s a lot of questions and, of course, if we could manage some sort of film—’
‘Sorry to interrupt, Anthea,’ I said, moving towards them, ‘but Rosemary needs to have a word with Eva. I think it’s urgent.’
With the benefit of years of experience, I managed to extract Eva from Anthea’s clutches and take her into the kitchen where Rosemary was washing up after the coffee morning we had just been attending. She looked up enquiringly.
‘I thought she needed rescuing,’ I said. ‘Anthea is a bit full-on at the best of times and she’s really determined to pin down poor Eva.’
‘You’ll have to do it in the end,’ Rosemary said, wringing out the dishcloth. ‘But you really don’t need that now – especially,’ she said sternly, ‘with all that stuff in the garage.’
‘Perhaps I could help,’ I said. ‘An extra pair of hands.’
‘That would be marvellous,’ Eva said gratefully. ‘If you’re sure you can spare the time. I know I’ve got to do it; I just need energising.’
‘Right, then,’ Rosemary said briskly. ‘How about Wednesday?’
Eva’s cottage, a few miles outside Taviscombe, is down a narrow lane with practically no passing places – you just pray you won’t meet anyone. It stands alone, set back a fair way from the road and is not, by any means, a pretty cottage. Although built of the local red sandstone, the thatched roof has long since been replaced by more utilitarian slates, which, with its tiny windows, gives it a bleaker look. Originally it had been two small cottages, built for agricultural workers in the days when farming was more labour intensive than it is today. Even so, it’s not very large and I could quite see what Eva meant about the lack of space.
‘Not a single cupboard in the place,’ she said as she showed me round, ‘except for the space under the stairs and that’s so dark you can’t see what’s in there.’
Still, in spite of its unprepossessing exterior, the inside was unmistakeably Eva’s. The furniture seemed to have settled in comfortably and her possessions and the things that Alan had picked up in his travels gave it a familiar look.
‘How about some coffee?’ Eva asked.
‘Coffee afterwards,’ Rosemary said firmly. ‘I know you two – once you get settled there’s no moving you.’
Eva led us out through the back door into a large garden, now largely run wild.
‘I really must get all this seen to,’ she said helplessly. ‘I simply don’t know about gardens. We always lived in flats – not even a window box.’
‘Sheila will help you there,’ Rosemary said. ‘Her gardener likes a challenge.’
Eva’s garage wasn’t a garage per se, being a large stone building a little way from the house with a frontage onto the lane.
‘I think it must have been a woodshed or something,’ she said, fishing in her pocket for a key. ‘Oh, this wretched padlock – there, that’s done it. I know I should keep it locked up but, honestly, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to steal anything in here.’ She looked despairingly at the sealed boxes which filled the whole place. ‘There are times when I wish someone would.’
‘I think it was probably a cider house,’ I said, looking with interest at those bits of the walls I could see. ‘Too large for a woodshed. Still, being large is good – you’ll be able to get your car in here all right, when we’ve moved all these.’
‘When!’
Rosemary, who had been examining some of the boxes near the door, opened one of them. ‘This lot seem to be books. I think we should concentrate on the books and leave the papers until later, then you can see how many new shelves you’ll need. I’ll just open up a few more of these, then we can take them into the house and sort them there.’
We laboured away for quite a while. It was a tiresome job – easier when Rosemary found an old wheelbarrow for carrying the boxes back to the house – unpacking the books in the little sitting room and then carrying them upstairs to the spare bedroom. After a while, Eva sat down firmly.
‘Too late for coffee. I’m going to take you both out to lunch. No, Rosemary, dear, we’ve done enough for one day.’
While we were washing the dust off our hands, Rosemary said to Eva, ‘If you’ll give me the key I’ll go and lock up the garage – I know you, you’ll forget all about it and, although I know you’d like all that stuff to disappear, I don’t believe in actually encouraging crime.’
Eva pulled a face and fished the padlock key from her apron pocket. ‘I know you’re right, Rosemary dear, but really, no one ever comes down the lane. Whose car shall we go in?’
After that, whenever we had time, Rosemary and I helped to move boxes.
‘However many we do,’ I said, ‘it never seems to make any impression.’
‘I know,’ Eva said despairingly. ‘I think they multiply in the night.’
But, eventually, most of the books were rescued and shelves put up to accommodate them – the few that Eva could bear to get rid of (Pastoralism in Tropical Africa – no, I’ve never read it but it’s one of Alan’s; I must keep that. You can ditch the one on home economics, though, it was a review copy; I can’t think why I kept it’) were sent to various charity shops and only the papers, now housed in several filing cabinets, were left in the garage.
‘No, I can’t be bothered to sort them now,’ Eva said firmly. ‘And, no, I don’t particularly want to put my car in there; it’s perfectly all right in the lane.’
Rosemary shrugged and said, ‘It seems a pity not to get the whole thing done properly – you know how it will be, you’ll never get around to them now.’ Rosemary hates to leave any job half finished.
‘As a matter of fact,’ Eva said, ‘I may have to do something about them. I had an e-mail from Geoffrey Bailey – you know, he was Alan’s publisher.’
Alan had written several books about his various assignments which had been very well received, though I remember Eva’s descriptions of how difficult it was to get him pinned down in one place long enough to get anything written. ‘And, of course, who had to cope with the copy editor’s queries and read the proofs?’ she said. ‘Poor Geoffrey was tearing his hair out when he needed an answer urgently to some query and Alan was in a desert somewhere and the phone had broken down. Anyway, Geoffrey wants me to write a sort of short “life”, as an introduction to Alan’s unpublished stuff.’
‘That would be splendid,’ I said. ‘Is there much there?’
‘God knows. As you saw, there’s a mass of papers and I do rather dread tackling them, but now I have an actual reason for doing it, I really must get down to sorting them out.’
‘Will you edit them yourself?’ I asked.
Eva shook her head. ‘I’m not sure. Geoffrey has a couple of people in mind who could do it, but …’ She hesitated. ‘I suppose I feel I should do it – one last thing I could do for him.’
She looked at me. ‘You’ll understand, Sheila.’
Although I’ve been a widow for many years now, I can remember how it was when Peter died and how I felt the need to pin him down, as it were, by doing something to affirm the fact that he had been a person, unique in his own right and not just a memory, fading with time.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I understand. And I think it’s a very good idea for you to have a special project. Anyway, if someone else did it they’d always be referring back to you – there’ll be things only you know about, not to mention dates and so forth.’
Eva groaned. ‘Not dates! I’m hopeless at dates – I barely know what day of the week it is.’
Rosemary continued to lament the fact that Eva’s garage was still full of unsorted papers.
‘It really wouldn’t take long just to get them organised in a general way – chronologically or something, and at least she’d know what was there.’
I laughed. ‘She’ll get around to it, eventually – Geoffrey will see to that. But you know how it is,’ I continued. ‘She’s putting it off because she still hasn’t really accepted that Alan won’t be back to sort them himself. It does take a while.’
‘Yes, of course, I’m an idiot not to have realised. I shouldn’t have pushed her to do all that clearing out.’
‘No, one needs a push, to be energised, as Eva said, otherwise it would be easy just to sit back and let things flow over you.’
‘Not Eva! She’s so positive.’
‘Even Eva,’ I said sadly.
Chapter Two
Eva seemed to settle in quite well. She was busy with her committees, and, being a sociable person, made new friends. Rosemary and I saw her often and, since she no longer had relatives living here, I think she looked on Rosemary and me as her real family.
‘She’s taken on too much,’ Rosemary grumbled. ‘People take advantage of her good nature.’
‘They always have done,’ I said. ‘It’s what she’s used to. Anyway, she’s got to fill her time with something.’
‘She could be working on the book. That would keep her occupied.’
‘She will, when she’s ready. Not yet, though.’
‘No, I suppose it’s a bit soon.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Why don’t we all go to the theatre in Bath – there’s always something good on there. Or the Old Vic at Bristol. I’m sure she must be missing the theatre; she used to go all the time.’
‘You could ask her.’
But Eva said she’d love to go sometime but she was a bit busy just at the moment and the most Rosemary could persuade her to was a visit to a garden centre and a cream tea.
‘Leave her alone for a bit,’ I said. ‘I expect she just wants to make a life for herself in Taviscombe. She knows we’re here if she wants us.’
‘I suppose so,’ Rosemary said reluctantly. ‘It’s silly to keep fussing. It’s just that I want to help. After all, she is my cousin …’
After a while Eva had to go up to London. ‘To see Alan’s solicitor,’ she said, ‘and I thought I might spend a little time with Dan, he’s got a spare room in his flat. And there are lots of people I really ought to catch up with, while I’m there.’
I wondered if Eva might have invented the need to go away, far away from the filing cabinets filled with papers, but Rosemary said, ‘I believe Alan left things in a bit of a muddle – not surprising given the way he was always travelling around. I think he intended to sort things out when he retired but, poor soul, he never got around to it. Eva’s all right for money. She earned quite a bit when she was working and she still does the occasional article, but there’s probably some legal stuff she has to do.’
‘Dan might help?’ I suggested.
Rosemary laughed. ‘Oh he’s the last person!’
‘Oh?’
‘Not exactly practical. Lives in a world of his own.’
‘But surely – the job, the TV?’
‘Oh, that’s Patrick. He’s a sort of secretary, nanny, boyfriend, all in one. Dan relies on him for everything.’
‘Goodness, I never knew.’
‘It seems to work out all right and Eva is devoted to him, very grateful for all he does for Dan.’
So Eva went off to London and Rosemary was able to stop fussing over her and concentrate on the demands of her mother who was conducting a war of attrition with the local surgery concerning the alterations they proposed to make to her medication.
‘She’s convinced,’ Rosemary said, sighing heavily, ‘it’s all about saving money and she’s probably right, but Mother doesn’t exactly believe in the Health Service as a national institution, she considers it exists solely for her personal benefit. It was all right when Dr Macdonald was around, he was used to her, but, now he’s retired, it’s difficult. I try not to let her loose on them but you know how she is, and she’s bitterly offended all the receptionists, even the nice sympathetic ones.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘I suppose I’ll have to go and sort things out at the surgery and then try and explain it to Mother!
With Christmas looming on the horizon, plans for various activities were already under way at Brunswick Lodge. This year it seemed that the usual Christmas Fayre was to be supplemented by an auction.
‘An auction would be just the thing. We need to raise enough for a new carpet in the main room,’ Anthea said at the committee meeting. ‘The present one is wearing quite thin in places and I’m sure it constitutes a hazard.’
‘What sort of hazard?’ Derek Forster demanded. Derek takes his position as treasurer very seriously and is engaged in perpetual conflict with Anthea over any expenditure, however small. Something major like a carpet gave him a splendid excuse to impede her in every possible way.
‘It might go into a hole and someone might catch their foot in it. It’s a health and safety issue,’ Anthea concluded grandly.
‘Rubbish!’
‘It’s all very well to say rubbish,’ she countered, ‘but you wouldn’t like to have to pay the compensation.’
‘We’re covered by insurance, as I’m sure you know and, anyway, there isn’t a hole, nor is there likely to be in the foreseeable future.’
‘Anyway,’ Anthea said, deftly changing tack, ‘it looks quite dreadful. It lets the whole place down. I must remind you that, under our tenancy agreement with the council we are obliged to maintain the Lodge in good decorative order.’
‘A carpet isn’t decoration,’ Derek said with elaborate patience.
The whole business might have gone on indefinitely, as it often did, if Matthew Paisley hadn’t interrupted to say he had to go because they had friends coming to dinner and he thought an auction was a good idea, whatever it was for, and should we put it to the vote. So we did and it was passed (only Derek opposing) and we all went home.
Anthea, of course, was in her element organising the auction, Derek having officially washed his hands of the affair, though actually keeping a beady eye on the whole proceedings.
‘Ah, Sheila, just the person,’ she said, unfairly trapping me when I had simply dropped in at Brunswick Lodge to leave a message about a booking for a meeting of the Archaeological Society. ‘I want Michael to go in his Land Rover and pick up a bookcase and a small table from the Shelbys – they’re expecting him on Saturday morning so if he can just give them a ring to let them know what time he’ll be coming.’
‘I don’t know if he’s free on Saturday …’ I began, but Anthea had already turned to greet someone.
‘Sheila, this is Donald Webster,’ Anthea said, indicating a tall, good-looking middle-aged man. ‘He’s recently moved to Taviscombe.’
‘I’ve just retired,’ he said. ‘I used to live in London …’
‘Donald is going to be very useful,’ Anthea said enthusiastically. ‘He’s agreed to take the auction for us. Isn’t that splendid?’
Her victim gave me a slight smile but said nothing.
‘Such a good way to join in things,’ Anthea said, ‘get to know people.’
She moved away to interrupt a conversation between Matthew Paisley and another of the helpers.
‘Did you actually volunteer to do the auction?’ I asked.
Donald Webster laughed. ‘Not in the strict sense of the word,’ he said.
‘You mustn’t let Anthea bully you. She’s absolutely ruthless when it comes to Brunswick Lodge and people who’ve just retired are thin on the ground at the moment. A lot of the volunteers are getting on a bit and don’t have the energy they used to have, so new blood, as it were, is irresistible as far as Anthea is concerned.’
He smiled again, a rather charming smile that went with an easy manner.
‘Actually, she’s right. It is a good way of getting to know people, plunging in at the deep end, you might say.’
‘Do you know anyone in Taviscombe?’ I asked ‘Or have you any connections down here?’
‘We used to come here on holiday a lot when I was a child. My father was a great walker and used to love exploring Exmoor. That was the only reason, really. I had to move about a lot because of my job. I just had a base in London, it was all a bit stressful and when I did retire I didn’t want to stay there. For a while I couldn’t decide where to go and then I remembered how peaceful it was down here – all the open spaces, the moor and the sea … Well I just decided. I saw an advertisement for a rather pleasant house just outside Dunster, came down and looked at it and bought it on the spot.’
‘What did your wife say about that!’
‘My wife died some years ago.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s been quite a while.’
‘So have you settled in?’
‘Yes. I’ve always had to travel light so there wasn’t much extraneous stuff – I’m a great one for throwing things away – and the furniture fitted in very well. So I’m quite straight now.’
I thought of Eva’s boxes and considered how different people were – though, in my experience, it is usually men who are the greatest hoarders. I remember my late mother-in-law saying tentatively to Peter, when we had been married for many years, that she’d be grateful if he’d move all his old text books and school reports from the cupboard on the landing of the family home.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘welcome to Brunswick Lodge. But, as I said, don’t let Anthea bully you.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I think I can manage, Anthea.’
‘And I rather think he can,’ I said to Rosemary later on. ‘He has an air of quiet authority, if you know what I mean. Do you know anything about him?’
‘Well, Mother says that her friend Harold Porter says Donald Webster was quite high up in one of the big multinationals. He doesn’t know which one yet, but he’s working on it.’
‘Goodness. He must be very well off.’
‘And a widower,’ Rosemary said. ‘Mother’s already got him married to half the unattached females in Taviscombe.’
‘Oh, I think he’s quite capable of avoiding designing females. He seems very nice and he’s certainly made Anthea happy. Meanwhile I’ve got to break it to Michael that he’s expected to collect that furniture from the Shelbys’ on Saturday.’
Michael said he had a shoot on Saturday and there was no way he was going to cancel that for Anthea, but Thea (who also drove their ancient and ill-tempered Land Rover) said she’d do it if I’d go with her to lend a hand with the furniture.
The Shelbys are a local family who live in a large house just outside Taviscombe on the edge of Exmoor. I didn’t know them particularly well but Michael knows Maurice Shelby who is a fellow solicitor, though his practice is in Taunton.
‘I think this is the turning,’ I said doubtfully. ‘I’ve only ever been here once when they opened the garden for the Red Cross. Yes, that’s right, I remember that farm track on the left.’
Alison Shelby watched anxiously as we lifted the bookcase and table into the Land Rover. ‘Are you sure you can manage? Oh dear, you shouldn’t be doing that. I’m sure it’s too heavy for you. I did hope Maurice would be here, he could have done it, but he had to go into the office – something important, I don’t know what – but, of course, he would have been only too happy … Oh, do be careful, that shelf is slipping! Do let me …’
Finally, much impeded by her help, we got everything loaded up but were then obliged to stay for coffee and more lamentations about Maurice’s absence.
‘I’m exhausted,’ Thea said when we finally got away.
‘She does go on a bit,’ I agreed.
‘When we’ve dumped this lot, come and have lunch. I’ve got to collect Alice at the stables and I know she’s longing to tell you about the gymkhana.’
The auction duly took place and was deemed a great success, even Derek having to admit reluctantly that the sum raised was more than he expected, though still reserving the right to question the use to which it would be put. Anthea was full of praise for Donald Webster, who had, indeed, conducted the whole affair with great competence and flair.
