Murder in a Mask: A Golden Age Historical Cosy Mystery (1930s Partners in Spying Mystery) by Rose Donovan

Author:Rose Donovan [Donovan, Rose]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Moon Snail Press
Published: 2024-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter

Eighteen

Pixley banged on the door to Chidden Park.

I pressed the bell.

After a few moments, Pixley thumped his fist against the wood again.

The door finally swung open, revealing a barefoot Callum wearing a loose, unbuttoned shirt. A whisky aroma floated from the doorway.

“What’s the matter? What a stushie,” he slurred. He wasn’t drunk but he had definitely been drinking. Then he looked us all up and down. “And what happened to the three of you? Have you taken to sleeping rough?”

“Where’s Lady Geraldine?” asked Ruby, pushing past him into the foyer.

“Upstairs, sleeping.”

“And Nurse Kattos?” I asked.

“She went to the shops – in Oxford,” said Callum.

“I’ll just look in on Lady Geraldine.” Ruby began to limp up the stairs.

“We’ll all go,” I said. Pixley and I each took one of Ruby’s arms and we all made our way upstairs.

Callum padded behind us in his bare feet and tapped on the door. “Auntie? Time to wake up.”

He pushed the door open slowly, as if expecting someone to be standing behind it. It swung to the side, revealing an empty room. Crumpled linen lay on the bed, and the window was open a crack. Lady Geraldine’s wheelchair stood dejected in the corner, with her droopy shawl thrown over the back of it.

The whistling wind drew my attention to the window. I ran across the room and pushed it open. Directly below it sat a flower bed with soft indentations, presumably made from the ladder the skeleton had used the night before. Perhaps the skeleton had returned and carried off Lady Geraldine. Perhaps this really was one of those cases of a madman wandering the countryside. Perhaps⁠—

“What the tarry has happened to Auntie?” Callum paced in his bare feet, staring at the floorboards for answers.

“Where’s your ladder?” I asked.

His hair flopped over one eye. “We do have a ladder – somewhere in the garden.”

Pointing to the window, I said, “Someone must’ve propped it against the house and carried away Lady Geraldine.”

He ran to the window. “But then where’s the ladder? And why would they do such a thing?”

“They must have hidden it,” I said.

Ruby put a hand on Callum’s arm. “Would you have heard anyone entering or leaving the house?”

“I was in the room farthest from here, so normally I’d say yes, but⁠—”

“If someone were quiet enough …” put in Pixley.

Callum pushed back his hair, revealing the fine worry lines on his forehead. “I’ll call the police. She might have wandered off. Senile people do wander, don’t they?”

But we all knew Lady Geraldine couldn’t wander anywhere without her wheelchair.

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