The Glass-House Murder by T. Neilson

Author:T. Neilson [Neilson, T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Gay & Lesbian, Literature & Fiction, Fiction, Gay, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Mystery, Historical, Genre Fiction
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Published: 2014-09-07T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

“You found something,” Vera remarked as Hal was closing the door to Sayers’s car and bidding him farewell. Finished with her geraniums, she had removed the apron and looked as cool and fresh as the breeze that was coming across the field. Behind her, through the door that led into their cottage, one could see Charles making his laboured way to the door.

“Why don’t I come in and tell you all about it?” Hal asked. “Could use a couple more heads to puzzle it all out.”

They talked over a full pot of tea and into the afternoon, when the long, sloping shadows lay across the face of the hay meadow and the sparrows were swooping and diving in the yellow sunlit air.

“I hope you’ll forgive me, Lord Henry,” Vera said after he had told the tale of the trunk of clothes. “But it seems to me—Indeed it sounds very much like Caroline Bewster was seeing someone in the village. Secretly.”

Hal kept his face arranged in an attitude of polite interest. “The thought had crossed my mind as well. But I can’t make out the clothes.”

“Oh, I think that’s a simple thing,” Vera said. “He simply dressed to see her, rather the way a woman will put on a new frock for her beau.”

“I think that a little unlikely,” Charles grumbled.

“Do you?” Vera asked, a teasing smile on her lips. “What was that hair oil you bought when Margaret Miller was coming around? Lemon verbena scented, wasn’t it?”

“Well, that’s just a matter of cleanliness,” Charles replied in a bit of a blustery way. “A woman wants a tidy man.”

“Yes, she does.” Vera nodded. “A man who spends his day getting dirty, maybe a motor-mechanic or a heavy labourer, wanting to see a lady quite out of his usual circle might arrange some better clothes and keep them somewhere that no one was likely to go looking for them, especially if he shares rooms with others who are maybe not so trustworthy. It would account for their presence in the cottage, anyway,” she added.

He felt a sudden, powerful urge to sweep Vera up in his arms and kiss her on the cheek, to thank her for offering up something plausible that was not what he increasingly believed to be the truth; something he could hold up at the inquest, something to make villagers nod their heads and tut-tut their tongues and keep buried the incredibly scandalous truth. Instead he smiled at her. “Vera Holloway, I believe you are quite the Sherlock Holmes.”

She flushed with pleasure.

“Yes, it would account for the presence of the clothes. And the cheapness of them.”

“But if he was very be discreet about his liaisons, it might be impossible to know who it was,” Vera went on. “All we know is his approximate size, judging from the clothing.”

“Well, he must have been a fairly strong man,” Charles said then, straightening a bit in his chair. He cast an apologetic glance at Hal. “The coroner says she was strangled first, the ligature was still on her.

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