Dead Man's Dinner - Una Gordon Page 0,2

occasions only, but knew of his death. He was puzzled by the invitation and stood staring at it. Why should he be invited to dinner there when he had scarcely known the man when he as alive? He presumed it must be for the reading of the will or some sort of meeting of friends of Derwent. He was unlikely to have been left anything in the will and he could hardly be counted among Derwent's close friends. He was unaware that Derwent had no close friends.

He knew how easily upset Diana was these days and he decided to say nothing to her even before he noticed the scrawl at the foot of the card. They had waited a long time for this baby and it would be catastrophic if something went wrong now. Not a devious man by nature, Gary had already started thinking of excuses he could make to be out on the 22nd. Strangely it never entered his head to refuse the invitation. He was curious as to why he had been invited. When Derwent had thought this plan up, he knew none of them would be able to refuse the invitation. Much as most of them disliked him, they would all wonder what he was up to.

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The fourth invitation caused more than a ripple in the small, luxurious dockland flat where it arrived. Peter Dewey always hovered near the door when he thought the post would arrive. He was one of the world's big spenders and he usually thought it prudent to protect his wife, Bianca, from the almost continuous onslaught of final demands which cascaded through their letterbox. If he had been more honest with himself, he would have admitted he was more anxious to protect himself from the verbal onslaught of his wife than he was to protect her in any way. Even as he picked up the post, her high-pitched, nasal voice echoed through the flat, “Anything for me?”

“No,” Peter replied, his interest already caught by the thick white envelope. He quickly stuffed the obvious bills in his pocket and opened the invitation. When he read it, he whooped with glee. “Bianca! Bianca! Look at this.” He had not even noticed the scrawl. “I've been invited to dinner with the dead.”

“What are you talking about?” Bianca read the invitation thrust in her face, She was too worldly to be shocked or even to be mildly interested. “What does he intend to do? Get you all to hold a séance and send messages from the other side as to how you can get your hands on his lolly? Cryptic messages.” She laughed harshly.

“Don't you see, darling?” The endearment was one of usage rather than affection. “Don't you see? You know how keen Derwent was on having a little joke. He'll have devised some plan and the one to solve his little puzzle will win the jackpot and boy will it be a jackpot! Derwent must have been worth millions. I wonder who else is going.” Derwent was dying to know what Derwent's competition was. He was not averse to this kind of thing as long as he was the winner, but then neither was he averse to a little cheating and he wanted to know who else would be present, so that he would know who he had to outdo by cheating and what chance he had of getting away with it. It was only when Peter looked at the card again that he saw the handwritten scrawl. It didn't bother him that he hadn't played by the rules; he never did. He also found the name of the solicitors to whom he had to reply. He looked at the time. Too early yet to phone, but when he did, he was told very politely that he would find out who else had been invited on the night if he attended. Well, he could wait and he'd go along. The chances were that the odd million would come his way and could he do with it! He was getting no younger and sometimes he had to keep all his wits about him to survive and a little bit of the needful would come in very handy even if the only purpose it served was to keep Bianca quiet – the shrew. Her parents had called her after the wrong Shakespeare sister; she should have been called Katherine the way she went on and on.

“Why can't we have this? Why can't we have that? Why