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

people it was like it had happened yesterday. All the passions, the relationships, the motives… They were all as alive and real today as they had been back then. And Dehan had sensed it, that was why she hadn’t been able to leave it alone. And it was why I felt the same.

Eventually I pulled on some socks and boots and a shirt and made my way down again to the drawing room. There was nobody there, so I crossed the room and tried the library door. It was open.

The room was large. Maybe forty or fifty feet square with dark bookshelves rising fourteen or fifteen feet to the ceiling. The windows were leaded and the light that came through them was dappled by leaves. There were a couple of writing desks and a nest of chesterfields around a cold fireplace. A long, dark map table occupied the middle of the floor.

It took me about ten minutes to locate the big leather-bound books that held the old newspapers. Ten minutes after that, I began to find the articles reporting Old Man Gordon’s death. There were a number of photographs. He had been a very handsome man, with intense, penetrating eyes. It’s hard to tell from a photograph, but I thought he had the eyes of a fanatic. Some of the articles gave potted biographies and I noted with a mixture of irony and interest that the old man’s wife, Gordon Sr.’s mother, had not been Scottish.

There were a couple of grainy pictures of the crime scene, too. I wasn’t surprised to find that there was no handkerchief on the floor. You don’t lock yourself in a room to blow your own brains out, and then cover your hand to avoid GSR.

Henry Green had been right. The old man had been murdered. By whom was not so hard to answer. The pool of suspects was pretty small, though the obvious candidates were not necessarily the right ones. How was the real challenge.

How do you get into a locked room, shoot somebody in the head, plant their prints on the weapon and then leave, without unlocking the door or the windows, and with no secret passages?

I read carefully through all the reports but they didn’t add anything new to what I already had. In fact, I had a bit more than the reports had. I had at least one motive nobody seemed to know about.

I got up and made my way back to the drawing room. Charles Jr. was there having coffee with the major. They looked surprised when I came in. Charles smiled.

“Ah, you’ve been exploring the library. Splendid! It really doesn’t get enough use. Did you find anything you liked? Have some coffee.”

I told him I would and sat in a chair by the fireplace. Outside, the light had dimmed and the breeze was turning into a blustery wind. He rang the bell for Brown and I said, “I was looking at the newspapers, the articles on your grandfather’s death. I hope you don’t mind.”

He laughed. “Our pet mystery. No, not at all. I doubt it will ever be resolved. If it is even a mystery at all. I suspect he’d just gone completely batty and shot himself.”

I shrugged. “You may be right, but if it had been my case, I wouldn’t have closed it. I think Henry was right to be uncomfortable. The absence of gunshot residue on his hand is very troubling. It is not possible to discharge a weapon, especially in a closed room like that, and not get GSR on your hand. The angle of the shot, also, is really, to be honest, not possible.”

They were both staring at me fixedly. Finally, Charles said, “Good lord, you’re quite serious.”

The major muttered, “My word…”

I laughed. “By all means, tell me to butt out. I’m supposed to be on honeymoon, and this isn’t even my continent, let alone my jurisdiction, but I guess it’s just professional habit. If I were back home, I’d be telling my inspector that this was a homicide that should be reopened.”

Charles Jr. stammered for a moment, then said, “Well what do you suggest I should do? The case was closed and the coroner ruled it a suicide. I’m not sure one can just…”

The door opened and Brown came in with more coffee on a tray. He poured me a cup and handed it to me, then withdrew.

I sipped. “That’s your call, Charles. Maybe it’s something you should discuss with your family. There’s probably nothing you can do without fresh evidence anyway. I’ll tell you what, though: would you object to my having a look at the room where it happened? I have to admit, this is like a red cloak to a bull for me. I can see as clear as day that it could not have been suicide, but I’ll be damned if I can see how it was done.” He stared at me and I raised a hand. “Forgive me if I am insensitive.”

“No! No, no! Not at all! I wasn’t even born at the time. Um, I’m not sure how Daddy would feel, or Mummy for that matter, but I suppose they needn’t know, need they?”

He grinned at the major who beamed and said, “Top hole!”

EIGHT

At just before four o’clock, Dehan had woken up to find I was not there.

She rose, went to the bathroom and showered, then pulled on some jeans and a sweatshirt and went downstairs. She found the entrance hall empty and silent and went to the drawing room expecting to find everybody having afternoon tea. But the drawing room was empty too, though the French windows were open and a breeze that was turning into a blustery wind carried snatches of loud conversation across the lawn to her. She stepped over and looked out.

She saw Bee sitting at a white,