Murder in the Drawing Room by C.J. Archer

Author:C.J. Archer [Archer, C.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: C.J. Archer

We returned to Harry’s Soho office to discuss the evidence. I told him to go up ahead while I bought two coffees from Luigi. When I entered the office of Armitage and Associates, Harry was drawing up a list of suspects.

“Have you had a proper look at the photographs yet?” I asked as I handed him a cup.

He glanced at the drawer of his desk. “I have.”

“And?”

He picked up the pen and dipped it into the ink pot. “Mrs. Warrington’s face is clear; the lover’s is not.”

“Is he turned away from the camera?”

“His head is cut off at the neck.”

“What about distinguishing features? Was he tall, for example?”

He wrote something on his notepad. “It was hard to tell.”

“Why? Wasn’t he standing next to her? Mrs. Warrington was average in height—”

“He wasn’t standing.” He picked up his cup and gulped a mouthful of coffee before turning his attention to the notepad once more.

He was avoiding looking at me. Those photographs must be inappropriate indeed.

I set my cup down and waited.

A moment later, Luigi burst into the office without knocking. “Harry! Harry, come quick! The café’s on fire!”

“Bloody hell.” Harry sprang up and raced out of the office behind Luigi.

I didn’t have much time. I opened the top drawer and spilled the contents of the large envelope onto the desk. There were three photographs in all, and each one made me blush fiercer than the last. Mrs. Warrington’s face was only clear in one of the images, and her lover’s face couldn’t be seen in any. Indeed, he only appeared in two. One of the photographs showed Mrs. Warrington standing in front of a tropical beach scene alone, her face obscured by a large hat. In the second, she stood beside a man, but the photographer had cut off their heads. In the third, Mrs. Warrington was lying down on the sand covered floor, facing the camera. The man lay behind her, his arm around her and his hand cupping her breast. Positioned behind her like that, his face wasn’t visible.

The subjects were completely naked in all the photographs. If one of Mr. Warrington’s political rivals got hold of them, it would be disastrous for his career.

I felt they contained a certain beauty, however. Mrs. Warrington looked amused, with a spark of mischief in her eyes as she stared at the camera. To think, these photographs could exist forever, a reminder of the spirited woman who’d agreed to be photographed naked. One day, when she was long forgotten and her murder was a distant memory, I hoped these photographs would be considered beautiful, not disgusting.

“That was a low act.” Harry strode into the office and snatched up the photographs.

“I thought it rather clever. You fell for it easily enough.”

“Luigi is a convincing actor. When I saw the flames, I thought the building would go up.”

I gasped. “He truly set fire to the café?”

“Just an old rag which he placed in a copper pot.” He beckoned me to get out of his chair. “You should be ashamed of yourself using your feminine wiles to get him to do your bidding.

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