Judge Thee Not by Edith Maxwell

Author:Edith Maxwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: prejudice, amateur sleuth, childbirth, women sleuths, religious mystery, massachusettes
Publisher: Beyond the Page Publishing

Twenty-nine

I pedaled out High Street after Annie and I left the Barclay home. I had much to think about. Aoife’s claim that Irvin poisoned his first wife. Learning of his debts, and that he’d been related by blood to Mayme Settle. Could he somehow have poisoned Mayme’s nightly drink, too?

I headed toward the Settles’ home, hoping I could grab a word with the cook there. But under what auspices? I turned onto Whitehall Road. I was almost there and needed to think fast. When I was fifty yards distant from the house, I slowed to a stop. Lake Gardner was to my right, and even though the fog was gone on Powow Hill, here it still lay atop the water. It looked eerie, almost like steam rising. Brambles grew at the lake’s shore on this side, and their fresh green color contrasted with the murky look of the lake. The color of the water was not unlike the yarn I’d been knitting with the night I’d been at the Settles.

An excuse for a talk with the cook popped into my brain. I would claim I’d left a knitting needle at the house. Such a reason for a visit would get me in the door. And as soon as Kevin arrested the killer, I’d quit with the white lies. Every single one seemed like a stain on my integrity. I rode on to the Settle home. The windows on the front were draped in black, making the house look like a dowager in deep mourning.

I knocked on the servants’ door at the back of the house. When no one opened it, I tried again. Finally I twisted the knob and found the door unlocked. I stuck my head into the kitchen.

“Hello?” I called.

Unlike the fragrant kitchen, lit and warm, I’d left a little while ago, this one was clean, darkened, and still. No meat roasted in the oven, no soup simmered on the stove, no pies cooled on the table. Men’s voices sounded somewhere in the house and grew louder with the clatter of feet on stairs. They seemed to pause on the other side of the kitchen door. Both spoke with vehemence, clearly arguing. Except I couldn’t make out a word of what they were saying. It had to be Merton and his long-lost brother shouting at each other in Polish.

I wasn’t going to learn a thing from them. Since the cook was absent, I thought I’d better leave before I was discovered snooping in someone else’s house. The voices stilled and I heard a thud from the hall. Had the speakers come to blows?

The door from the hall pushed open and a thin man hurried into the kitchen. He resembled Merton but was younger. The cut of his clothes and the style of his hat marked him as foreign. He had to be the Polish brother. He stared at me like I was an apparition, then rushed past and out the back door.

I had my hand on the swinging

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.