Ellis Peters - George Felse 04 - A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs Read Online Free Page B

interest.
    “We’ve got a dispensation. In the interests of literature. If we miss this chance, who knows when we shall get another?” He thumped a fist suddenly and peremptorily on the oak table. “And I propose—Hear ye! Hear ye!—I propose to do the job the day after to-morrow, as ever is.”
    The whole public bar heard it, and several heads turned to grin in their direction; there was nobody among the Dragon’s regulars whom Simon did not know, or who did not know Simon. Sam Shubrough heard it, and beamed broadly over the glass he was polishing. And the girl just entering the bar by the outside door heard it, and turned towards them at a light, swinging walk, her hands in the pockets of her fisher-knit jacket.
    “Hallo!” she said, over Dominic’s startled shoulder. “What’s Simon advertising? Carpet sale, or something?”
    “Tamsin!” The men shuffled to find foot-room to rise, and Phil drew her skirt close and made room for the newcomer in the circle.
    “One thing about a man who announces his intentions through a megaphone,” she said as she sat down and stretched out her long and very graceful legs, “you do at least know where he is, and how to avoid him.”
    “You came straight here, a pin to a magnet,” said Simon promptly.
    She looked round the table and counted. “There are six of you here. Five would have been enough. Some,” she added, with a smile of candid interest that robbed her directness of all offence, “I don’t know yet. I’m Tamsin Holt.”
    Tim did the honours. She smiled last and longest at Dominic, because he was looking at her with such startled and appreciative eyes. “Hallo! Phil told me about you. You pulled her Patrick out of the water this afternoon.”
    “Did she tell you he didn’t want to come?” Dominic felt his colour rising; but the tide of pleasure in him rose with it. She was so astonishing, after Phil’s mendacious description. Glasses, indeed! The bridge of her straight nose had certainly never carried any such burden. And as for “not bad-looking ”!
    “She told me maybe he didn’t even
need
to come. But she said she’d like to think there’d always be you around whenever he even
might
need you. Take it from me, my boy, you’re in. You’ve been issued with a membership ticket.” She looked up over her shoulder, where Sam Shubrough’s granite bulk was looming like one of the Maymouth rocks, a monolith with a good-humoured beetroot for a face. Half of its royal redness was concealed behind a set of whiskers which looked early-nineteenth- century-coachman, but were actually ex-R.A.F., “Hallo, Sam! Nice night for a walk.”
    To judge by the small, demure glint that flashed from her eyes to the landlord’s, this meant more than it said. But then, she had a way of making everything a fraction more significant. Ever since she had sat down beside him Dominic had been trying to assimilate the complete image of her, and she wouldn’t give him the chance. She was always in motion, and all he could master was the lovely detail.
    “That right, now,” asked Sam interestedly, peering down at Dominic from behind the hedge, “that you fetched young Paddy out? That’s the first time anybody’s ever had to do
that
. Where’d he manage to get into trouble?”
    “Off the rocks of the point, just in the ebb, the worst time.”
    “Go on! What possessed a bright kid like him to go out there? He knows a lot better than that.”
    “He thought he saw a body being pulled out to sea there,” Dominic explained. “He went in to try and reach him. But we went in afterwards and hunted as long as we could—at least, Mr. Towne did, I didn’t do much—and there wasn’t a sign of anything.”
    “A body, eh! Not that it would be the first time, by many a one. But I’ve heard no word of anyone being missing, or of anything being sighted. No boat’s been in trouble for months, this is the best of the season. You reckon there’s anything in it, Simon?”
    “I