Gift Wrapped by Peter Turnbull

Author:Peter Turnbull [Turnbull, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2013-03-07T05:00:00+00:00

FOUR

Monday, 5 June, 10.00 hours – 19.45 hours

In which Reginald Webster acts upon a whim and by thus doing causes an interesting development, and the courteous reader is privy to another demon in George Hennessey’s life, but also to the joy therein.

‘So ...’ George Hennessey leaned forward, placed his elbows on the surface of his desk and clasped his hands together, ‘what has happened, somewhat embarrassingly,’ he looked down as he spoke, addressing his assembled team of Yellich, Pharoah, Ventnor and Webster, ‘is that we pursued a man for the murder of James Wenlock, even unto the point of charging him, and it has subsequently transpired that he is proven innocent of that murder. But by means of compensation, in the process of pursuing him for the murder of Mr Wenlock, we have in fact proved his guilt in respect of another murder – an earlier murder – which we did not know had happened because up until last week Henry Hall was known only to be a missing person. So ... to use Carmen’s phrase we have avoided getting “egg all over our faces”, but we are still no nearer to the solution of the mystery of the murder of James Wenlock than we were one week ago tomorrow when Mrs Bartlem presented at our enquiry desk with a collection of postcards.’

‘It does mean that we have to give full credibility to the postcards, sir. That’s a step forward in itself.’ Yellich cradled a mug of tea in his hands. ‘The fact that Shane Bond was in custody when James Wenlock was murdered was never made public. It probably, in fact almost certainly, means that the person who wrote, or rather typed, the postcards knew only that Shane Bond was not the person who did murder James Wenlock because that person knows the identity of the actual killer.’

‘Yes, good point.’ Hennessey looked up and smiled at Yellich. ‘Good point indeed, Somerled. So we accept that the sender of the cards knew not only where we could find the corpse of James Wenlock but must know, must also know, the identity of his murderer ...’ Hennessey paused. ‘And typewritten postcards ... any thoughts there, anyone?’

‘Typewriters went out with horse-drawn transport,’ Pharoah offered, ‘the only place you’d likely to be able to buy a typewriter these days is a charity shop or a curio shop ... or you’d have to take one down from the attic, dust it off and hope to blazes that the ink in the ribbon hasn’t evaporated because you can’t buy typewriter ribbons any more ... at least, I assume you can’t.’

‘Significance?’ Hennessey asked, appealing to the group. ‘Come on ... throw anything into the pot, any thoughts at all.’

‘The most likely significance of using a typewriter is that the person who typed the postcards wanted to disguise their handwriting,’ Pharoah replied thoughtfully, ‘which probably suggests that they are close, they are linked in some way, to the perpetrators of the murder. You couldn’t use a word

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