Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

I frowned and studied my whiskey for a moment. “So the inference was that he had been shot from a sitting or squatting position, at a distance.”

“That’s right, but it was clearly impossible because, as I say, the windows were all locked from the inside, as was the door. Charles, as I said, had had to smash the lock when he went in.”

Dehan looked at me, frowning and smiling at the same time. “Son of a gun!” She looked back at the major. “And the cops confirmed that the door had been locked…”

“Oh yes, you could see very clearly where the latch had burst through the wood.”

I said, “You were there?”

He nodded. “I was a friend of the family at the time, part-time PA to Old Man Gordon. There was no question but that the door had been locked from the inside.”

I smiled. “Secret passages? Secret doors…?”

“Not uncommon in these old castles, at all. But the police searched high and low and there was nothing. Two walls give onto the outside, a third onto the entrance hall and the fourth gives onto the ball room.”

Dehan gave a little laugh. “A true locked room mystery, whaddya know?” Then she laughed out loud. “This isn’t something you lay on especially for American detective guests?”

He chuckled. “A police variation on the Canterville Ghost! No, no! I’m afraid not. That is exactly how it happened. You can read it in the John O’Groats local papers. It also made the national press, briefly. You can probably find the papers in the library.” He pointed behind him at a door in the paneled wall. “Through that door.”

Dehan grinned. “I might have a look tomorrow.”

I raised an eyebrow at her, then smiled at the major. “We run a cold cases unit in New York. We specialize in unsolved homicides.” I looked back at Dehan, who was still grinning. “But we’re supposed to be on honeymoon, remember?”

The major laughed. “Oh dear! I should have kept quiet, shouldn’t I?” Then he shrugged. “But of course, strictly, this is not a cold case. It was closed, as a suicide.”

Dehan made a face. “And that’s probably what it was. The absence of GSR and burns may have a perfectly simple explanation. Easier to explain that than how the killer got out of a locked room.”

“And an explanation,” I said, setting down my glass, “that we are not going to provide.” I stood. “Come along, Mrs. Stone. I am dead beat.”

And we went up, arm in arm, to our ancient, Scottish bedchamber.

FOUR

We rose early. It’s hard not to when the sky starts lighting up at 2 AM. Dehan luxuriated in her free-standing bath with clawed feet while I showered, shaved and dressed. She wasn’t done by the time I’d finished, so I went down while she soaked.

I found Brown in the hall and he told me breakfast was served in the dining room and when I went in, the sideboard was set with coffee and tea, and hotplates loaded with everything you’d expect of a British breakfast: bacon, eggs—scrambled, fried and poached—kidneys, mushrooms, fried tomatoes and pork sausages, plus bread and an electric toaster.

I helped myself to some bacon and eggs and some coffee and was sitting down to eat when Charles bustled in.

“Ah! Excellent! Good morning!” He gestured at the sideboard with both hands. “I see you found your way to the grub! An Englishman is never served at breakfast! That is true,” he added as he piled food on his plate, “of all Britons, not just Englishmen. Not true, on the other hand, when we go abroad. When in Rome, what!” He sat and didn’t so much start eating as tackle his breakfast. “What are your plans for today?”

I sipped my coffee. “Not a lot. Take a walk, explore the island, maybe have lunch at the inn in the village.”

“Excellent plan. The grouse is good, as is the duck, though technically not in season.” He laughed. “They claim to have it frozen, but it tastes awfully fresh.”

We ate in silence for a moment. Then he dabbed his mouth with his napkin, took his cup of tea and sat back. “I couldn’t help overhearing the major last night, filling you in on our little mystery.”

I nodded. “I hope you don’t mind. Dehan—Carmen, my wife—was curious. We work cold cases back in New York, so it tickled her curiosity.”

“Not at all. My father always swore Grandfather had been murdered, and the chap from Scotland yard… um…”

“Inspector Henry Green.”

He glanced at me. “Yes, how clever of you to remember.”

“I knew him.”

“Good lord! What a coincidence!”

I shrugged. “Not really. I was there for a year and a half. We did a kind of exchange program. While you guys were trying to make your policing methods more American, Giuliani was trying to make New York policing more British.” I smiled. “Our crime stats went down and yours went up. I spent some time at Scotland Yard. They moved me around a couple of times and I got to know a few people. Henry was one of them. He was a good detective. Very intuitive, but he always followed up with sound methodology.”

He was staring at me with wide eyes. “How fascinating,” he said, then blinked. “Well, he was inclined to agree with father, that there had been foul play. But realistically…” He shook his head. “It was simply impossible that there was anybody else in the room with him.”

I smiled. “Eliminate the impossible, my dear Watson, and whatever is left is the truth.”

“Ah, quite so, Holmes! Yes indeed!”

Dehan appeared in jeans and a white T-shirt with her hair tied in a ponytail. She grabbed a slice of toast and a black coffee standing up and spoke with her mouth full. “You weady, big gumph?”

I smiled at