PRELUDE TO MURDER: A Rex Graves Mystery by C.S. Challinor

Author:C.S. Challinor [Challinor, C.S.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Perfect Pages Literary Management, Inc.
Published: 2015-01-27T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Rex’s thoughts kept him wakeful for an hour that night. Madame Mathilde’s visions had given him food for thought. And would Cheryl find anything of significance in her second reading of the journal? Would Jill’s visit to the dentist have yielded new information?

When Helen’s neighbour arrived promptly at ten-thirty the next morning bearing a prickly cactus in a small, hand-painted earthenware pot, the kitchen table was set for breakfast and the food and coffee ready to be served.

Helen thanked Jill for the gift and placed it on the window sill. “There,” she said with a pleased smile. “It certainly cheers up the view on this dreary morning.” She turned to her friend. “So how did you get on at the dentist?”

Jill bared her teeth. “Whiter, smoother, and no cavities to report.”

“And…,” Helen prompted, serving the eggs, bacon, black pudding, and tomato on the three plates lined up on the counter.

“And,” Jill said, “I did get some information out of Dr. Purvis. As much as I could, anyway, with a saliva tube stuck in my mouth. He’s quite gabby, fortunately,” she addressed Rex, “and once he got talking he didn’t stop even with his mask on. So I just lay back in the dentist’s chair and made sympathetic and encouraging noises.”

Rex brought the rack of toast to the table and poured out the coffee. “Rather you than me. I was going to make an appointment to see him myself.”

Jill laughed. “You’d actually go to such lengths?”

“We didn’t have any luck with Natalie,” Helen said, distributing the plates on the table and sitting down opposite her friend. “She was reluctant to talk to me.”

“Well, I started by asking after her and, according to her husband, she’s taking Tom’s death really hard. Finding him dead in his study and then Lydia unconscious upstairs has haunted her. She’s on sedatives, apparently. They took a trip to Portugal, which helped a little, but Dr. Purvis said she’s still very nervy, and Devin is moping about the house. They told him his dad died from food poisoning, because they don’t think he’s old enough to fully understand the concept of murder, which Dr. Purvis is convinced is what happened. He said one accidental death was believable; two was suspicious.”

“Unless one of the children gave Tom and Lydia antifreeze thinking it was juice.” Helen said, putting forward Daniel Gladstone’s theory. She passed Jill the butter dish.

“I don’t think Devin would confuse a container of antifreeze with juice,” Jill countered. “Not saying he couldn’t have stood on something and reached up to get it, but I think he’d have known better than to give it to someone to drink. Tom was quite strict with his kids from what I saw. Perhaps more so with Devin. Hannah was definitely a daddy’s girl. You could see how proud he was of her. Anyway, it’s a tragic business, whichever way you look at it. But Dr. Purvis didn’t or wouldn’t elaborate on his suspicions.”

Rex smiled at Jill. “Still, it sounds like you managed to learn quite a bit under your constrained circumstances.

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