Murder Most Actual by Hall Alexis

Author:Hall, Alexis [Hall, Alexis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Romance, Contemporary, Adult
ISBN: 9781774536278
Goodreads: 59068082
Publisher: Kobo Originals
Published: 2021-11-09T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Lady Tabitha, in the Library, with the Dagger

Sunday evening

Most of the guests had opted, it seemed, for seclusion, but they found the colonel and Sir Richard in the billiard room, putting the tables to their intended use.

“Another game, old man?” asked Sir Richard, cheerfully handing a stack of folded banknotes to his opponent.

“Feels bad to keep taking your money,” Colonel Coleman replied, sipping his brandy.

“Oh, pish posh, don’t think of it. Got heaps of the stuff. Besides, bound to lick you one of these days, eh what?”

Noticing the Blaines’ arrival, the colonel nodded a sharp greeting, and Sir Richard raised his glass cordially.

“Ah,” said Sir Richard, “ladies. Perhaps you’d consider joining us for a game of doubles.”

Liza stared at the table. “Aren’t you missing a lot of balls?” There were only three: one red, one white, and one yellow.

“Billiards,” said Colonel Coleman by way of explanation. “Not pool. Not snooker. It’s a three-ball game.”

“Doesn’t that end rather quickly?” asked Liza.

Hanna stepped in with her I-speak-posh hat on. “You take the balls out the pockets after you pot one. It’s a point system.”

“First to three hundred,” added Sir Richard.

That seemed like a lot to Liza. “Three hundred? How many points do you get for a pot?”

“Two,” said the colonel. “Tell you what, we’ll show you. Line ‘em up.”

Sir Richard set the balls back on their spots. “Another hundred on it?”

“I’d really rather—” the colonel began.

“Oh, come on. Give a chap a chance to win a bit back.”

They started playing. And people started scoring points for things that, ordinarily, Liza wasn’t used to people getting points for in this kind of game, like banging a ball into a different ball. But she guessed that when you were running a chronic ball shortage you needed some extra options to spice things up.

They lingered for a while, not quite sure how to grill either of the players on their whereabouts last night and/or if they were a criminal genius. But there was a … not lead exactly, more a thread, that Liza wanted to follow up on. So she and Hanna waited and watched while balls clicked and went into and out of pockets until finally, realising that there was never going to be a perfect moment to start throwing suspicion around, she launched straight in.

“I don’t suppose you remember Vivien Ackroyd having any kind of argument with your aunt, do you?”

Sir Richard stood back and chalked his cue. “Come again?”

In a hole and with no option but to dig, Liza dug. “I heard a … Somebody mentioned to me that your aunt had a fight with Vivien Ackroyd yesterday. I was wondering if you knew what it was about.”

Liza would have loved to pretend that she could read faces like the quirky detective in a police procedural. That she could look at somebody and go, “Dammit, Malone, I know you’re hiding something.” She couldn’t, of course, but she did get the sense that this was news to Sir Richard.

“I understand the impulse, old girl,” he said after what Liza was convinced was a moment’s incomprehension.

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