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

at me with big, round blue eyes. “Dear boy, she was not in love with him. She was just having fun. She never for a moment believed that it would lead anywhere. She was the publican’s daughter, for heaven’s sake! He, even though he was an American, was to all intents and purposes the Laird—the Lord of the Manor. She fully expected that they’d have their summer of shagging and then he’d be on his merry way. Instead of that, he proposed to her!”

I raised an eyebrow. “A fairy tale…”

“Precisely! And it only works in fairy tales. Suddenly this happy-go-lucky live wire was presented with the chance of becoming the lady of the manor. Her life was turned upside down. Of course she went for it, but all her priorities changed overnight. Suddenly she was concerned with appearances, form, manners, behavior!” She grunted. “By the time they were married, she had become the stuck up old prig she is now.”

I made a face and nodded. “A cautionary tale.”

“Indeed.”

Dehan asked, “So, if you don’t mind me asking, what happened to your sister?”

She took a deep breath. “She was a frail little thing. Delicate constitution, you know. She became very depressed and died within a few months. They said she died of a broken heart. I think that’s all tosh and nonsense. I believe she topped herself and Daddy hushed it up.”

Dehan narrowed her eyes. “Topped herself?”

I said, “Committed suicide.”

“Wow…”

Before she could say any more, Bee flapped her hand. “Never had much sympathy, really. It’s a harsh world, Carmen. If you’re not strong you go down. That’s the way it is.” She grinned. “I knew he’d grow tired of Pam before very long, so I hung around in the wings and waited for him to notice me. It didn’t take long.” Dehan’s jaw dropped and Bee started to laugh. “That is why Pam can’t stand me. Stupid woman should be grateful I’ve taken him off her hands.”

She patted my arm. “I shan’t keep you any longer. You take your lovely wife to lunch. But take my advice, Mr. Stone, don’t let that rake near her. He is insatiable!”

She turned and made her way up the drive toward the house, with a saucy swing to her hips. We watched her a moment, then Dehan took my arm and we started down the road toward the village.

“Can you believe that woman?”

“I think she’s a gas. The world needs more people like that.”

“You could be right. But what a set up, Stone…”

“I know what you were doing, Dehan.”

“What?” Her face was a picture of innocence.

“You were fishing for motives.”

She looked away, frowning. “No, I wasn’t. Not as such.”

“And you didn’t find one. Bee’s resentment for her sister’s death, if she felt any, would have been directed entirely toward Charles, not his father. If anything, she would have felt some sympathy with his father.”

“You’re getting into this as much as I am, you fraud. OK, so she has no apparent motive to kill the dad. But if the son is a rake, who’s to say that was not learned behavior, or hereditary? And if the dad was as much a rake as the son, then maybe he upset somebody on the island.”

I made a face that was skeptical. “You’re speculating.”

“Yeah, but we’re not on a case, Detective Stone, and we are not going to arrest anybody, so I can speculate if I want to.”

“In that case, it is possible.”

We had entered among the trees, mostly tall, whispering pines that seemed to arch over the road like the nave of a cathedral. There was a soft, green light in the air and our voices acquired a muted echo. I took hold of Dehan’s arm and stopped her gently. She smiled at me.

I said, “Don’t make any sudden movements. Very gently turn around and look.”

Through the pines I could see a glade, dense with ferns maybe three or four feet high. A shaft of sunlight was leaning in through the canopy above and, caught in its beam, there was a stag with great, spreading antlers, motionless, watching us. It was a scene of perfect beauty and it made Dehan gasp. The quick intake of breath alarmed the stag and it turned and bolted, leaping through the ferns until it had vanished among the trees.

She didn’t say anything. We walked on in silence, going ever down, deeper into the woods without speaking until after twenty minutes or so we came upon the first house, an old stone cottage with flowerpots suspended beside the door, set back a little from the road. After that, the houses became more numerous and the woods fell back until we came to a large clearing with a green, a post office, a grocery store, and an inn.

The inn was half timbered with a red slate roof and a tall, red brick chimney. A sign swinging outside proclaimed that it was the Gordon Arms. We pushed open the door, a bell clanged, and the warm sound of conversation greeted us, along with the good smell of roasting meat and baking pies.

There were a few men at the bar drinking dark brown beer with no froth. I leaned on the counter and the publican, a cheerful, round-faced man in his forties grinned at me and said, “What’ll it be, sir?”

“Two pints of best, and we’d like to have lunch.”

“Nay problem. Thus the dining room though thar. I’ll bring yer pints to yiz.”

I followed the direction he’d pointed in through an open door into a long room with a large, open fireplace and a dozen tables set with cutlery. Only one of them was occupied. It was occupied by a woman who sat staring at us. She attempted to smile, but failed.

Dehan came up beside me. “Hello, Mrs. Gordon,” she said. “Are you