In the Frame - By Dick Francis Page 0,5

the front door.

‘They will, once they’ve seen you,’ I said. And sucked you dry, and spat out the husk, I thought.

He shook his head tiredly. ‘I simply can’t.’

It felt like living through a siege.

We went eventually again upstairs to bed, although it seemed likely that Donald would sleep no more than the night before, which had been hardly at all. The police surgeon had left knock-out pills, which Donald wouldn’t take. I pressed him again on that second evening, with equal non-results.

‘No, Charles. I’d feel I’d deserted her. D… ducked out. Thought only of myself, and not of… of how awful it was for her… dying like that… with n… no one near who I… loved her.’

He was trying to offer her in some way the comfort of his own pain. I shook my head at him, but tried no more with the pills.

‘Do you mind,’ he said diffidently, ‘if I sleep alone tonight?’

‘Of course not.’

‘We could make up a bed for you in one of the other rooms.’

‘Sure.’

He pulled open the linen-cupboard door on the upstairs landing and gestured indecisively at the contents. ‘Could you manage?’

‘Of course,’ I said.

He turned away and seemed struck by one particular adjacent patch of empty wall.

‘They took the Munnings,’ he said.

‘What Munnings?’

‘We bought it in Australia. I hung it just there… only a week ago. I wanted you to see it. It was one of the reasons I asked you to come.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. Inadequate words.

‘Everything,’ he said helplessly. ‘Everything’s gone.’

2

Frost arrived tirelessly again on Sunday morning with his quiet watchful eyes and non-committal manner. I opened the front door to his signal, and he followed me through to the kitchen, where Donald and I seemed to have taken up permanent residence. I gestured him to a stool, and he sat on it, straightening his spine to avoid future stiffness.

‘Two pieces of information you might care to have, sir,’ he said to Donald, his voice at its most formal. ‘Despite our intensive investigation of this house during yesterday and the previous evening, we have found no fingerprints for which we cannot account.’

‘Would you expect to?’ I asked.

He flicked me a glance. ‘No, sir. Professional housebreakers always wear gloves.’

Donald waited with a grey patient face, as if he would find whatever Frost said unimportant. Nothing, I judged, was of much importance to Donald any more.

‘Second,’ said Frost, ‘our investigations in the district reveal that a removal van was parked outside your front door early on Friday afternoon.’

Donald looked at him blankly.

‘Dark coloured, and dusty, sir.’

‘Oh,’ Donald said, meaninglessly.

Frost sighed. ‘What do you know of a bronze statuette of a horse, sir? A horse rearing up on its hind legs?’

‘It’s in the hall,’ Donald said automatically; and then, frowning slightly, ‘I mean, it used to be. It’s gone.’

‘How do you know about it?’ I asked Frost curiously, and guessed the answer before I’d finished the question. ‘Oh no…’ I stopped, and swallowed. ‘I mean, perhaps you found it… fallen off the van…?’

‘No, sir.’ His face was calm. ‘We found it in the sitting-room, near Mrs Stuart.’

Donald understood as clearly as I had done. He stood up abruptly and went to the window, and stared out for a while at the empty garden.

‘It is heavy,’ he said at last. ‘The base of it.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘It must have been… quick.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Frost said again, sounding more objective than comforting.

‘P… poor Regina.’ The words were quiet, the desolation immense. When he came back to the table, his hands were trembling. He sat down heavily and stared into space.

Frost started another careful speech about the sitting-room being kept locked by the police for a few days yet and please would neither of us try to go in there.

Neither of us would.

Apart from that, they had finished their enquiries at the house, and Mr Stuart was at liberty to have the other rooms cleaned, if he wished, where the fingerprint dust lay greyish-white on every polished surface.

Mr Stuart gave no sign of having heard.

Had Mr Stuart completed the list of things stolen?

I passed it over. It still consisted only of the diningroom silver and what I could remember of the paintings. Frost raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips.

‘We’ll need more than this, sir.’

‘We’ll try again today,’ I promised. ‘There’s a lot of wine missing, as well.’

‘Wine?’

I showed him the empty cellar and he came up looking thoughtful.

‘It must have taken hours to move that lot,’ I said.

‘Very likely, sir,’ he said primly.

Whatever he was thinking, he wasn’t telling. He