Nest of Vipers

‘To push her claim to the Jacobson-Dupont property by looking for a lost will?’

‘Exactly. From that time onwards he suspected that she was putting her own interests before his and, with the police hot on his trail, he could not afford to have a traitor or even a dissident in his camp. I think he came more than once by night to the bungalow, no doubt to put his case. Mr Shard, the self-appointed spy, knew of those meetings and, although he refused to name the man to me, claiming that he did not know who it was, I am perfectly certain that he did know. He had attended at least two of the Satanist meetings and must have heard Bosey speak at them.’

‘But didn’t you tell me that Shard accused Piper of the murder?’

‘Mr Piper was, unwittingly perhaps, the cause of envy and jealousy. Miss Nutley seems to have done her utmost to throw suspicion on him, although I think she regretted it later and, as for Shard, well, Mr Piper is everything which Shard is not – frank, athletic, good-looking, and (more than this) very attractive to two tall women, Niobe Nutley and Elysee Barnes. Shard was once engaged to a girl whom unkind acquaintances referred to as his “beanstalk”. He broke off the engagement in consequence.’

‘Poor little runt!’

‘Pity is not akin to love, especially when it is couched in those terms.’

‘Sorry. But I am truly sad about him, same as I am about Billie Kennett.’

‘Billie Kennett? Ah, yes. The devil-marks on Elysee Barnes’s fair body were the last straw, I think. She got the truth out of Elysee and brooded on it until she was ripe for murder. Ah, well, she has been faithful to her Cynara – in her fashion.’

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[scanned anonymously in a galaxy far far away]

[converted from free-floating anonymous RTF file and reproofed cautiously, but without benefit of a printed copy for reference]

[A 3S Release— v2, html]

[April 11, 2007]