Murder at the Manse (The Falconer Files Book 5) by Andrea Frazer

Author:Andrea Frazer [Frazer, Andrea]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781783751556
Published: 2015-01-06T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Sunday 20th June – morning

I

When the two detectives arrived at the Manse the following morning, Falconer noticed what had failed to attract his attention the night before. At the bottom of the flight of stone steps to the entrance doors stood two stone lions, life-sized and magnificent, and all along the front of the house were old lichen-covered and weather-beaten marble urns and troughs, overflowing with the bright colours of summer annuals. The effect was enchanting, and for a moment he felt a stab of envy. This wasn’t ‘banjo country’ this was definitely ‘string quartet’ territory. But he had things to do, and people to interview, and this sort of thinking wouldn’t get him any further forward.

Inside the hotel, a hue and cry was in the process of setting its sails to the wind. ( Author’s note: I do like a picturesque mixed metaphor now and again, don’t you?) In the shock and confusion of the night before, no one had noticed the absence of the remaining Freeman twin. The staff had assumed that he would be with management and the police; Jefferson, that he would be with the staff in the library, and it was only when he had not made an appearance at breakfast that Beatrix Ironmonger had been sent to rouse him from his supposed slumbers.

Getting no reply to her knocks and discreet calls, she fetched Grammaticus, who used his pass key to enter, only to find the room empty, the bed un-slept in. A quick check of the other twin’s bedroom – one never knew – confirmed that neither of them had made it to their rooms the previous evening, Jerome because he had been lying dead in the billiards room, Jocelyn, for no known reason whatsoever.

A few brief enquiries revealed that he had said nothing to any of the other members of staff, and Jefferson summoned Henry Buckle the gardener to check the outbuildings specifically, and then do a rough visual search of the grounds before the police were informed. A head count of the guests would reveal whether he could possibly have made an assignation the night before, and had spent the night otherwise engaged, but it was a slim chance, and could only involve a few snatched hours in an out-of-bounds attic bedroom, due to the presence of husbands. How the mind threw out explanations and solutions when one didn’t want to think the worst!

There being no call for spirituous liquors at this time of the morning, Steve Grieve was dispatched to the unused floor of the hotel, so that it could be stated, quite honestly, that every possible place of concealment had been searched.

By eight-twenty-five, there had still been no sign of the second missing footman, when a call sounded from the kitchen. ‘I’ve got ’im ’ere with me, Mr Grammaticus. ’E were in the summerhouse, with a couple of empty wine bottles, clutching a picture of ’im with some woman or other.’

In the kitchen, a completely dishevelled figure had been

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