The Herring in the Library by L. C. Tyler

Author:L. C. Tyler [Tyler, L. C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9781934609767
Goodreads: 11579958
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2009-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

‘How’s it going?’ asked Elsie.

I shut the top of my computer immediately.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Just fine.’ It’s a thing I have. You don’t say any more than you have to about any work in progress. It was certainly much too soon to share it with Elsie.

‘Has Master Thomas been tortured yet?’

‘As much as he needs to be.’

‘I’m sure I could give you a hand,’ she said. ‘I’m good at plots.’

‘I can manage on my own. Thanks.’

Some time before we had written a book jointly. It was an experience I wanted to forget.

‘I’ve been thinking about this suspect,’ said Elsie, changing tack, as she so often did.

‘Which one?’

‘The guy with the blue suit and beanie.’

‘Two witnesses saw him,’ I said.

‘Two witnesses say they saw him.’

‘I can’t see that John O’Brian and Clive Brent would concoct a story together.’

‘Not when they are rivals for the attention of Mrs Shagger. Don’t pull that face – you know as well as I do that she was sleeping with one or both. But I agree – they don’t seem to be likely conspirators. So maybe there really was somebody wearing a blue suit in the grounds that evening. Of course, it doesn’t make him the murderer.’

‘It would be good,’ I said, ‘just to have some sort of independent corroboration that there was such a person.’

My mobile rang. It was Annabelle.

‘Ethelred,’ she said. ‘I’ve got some really good news. We’ve found the beanie.’

The light was beginning to fade by the time we got back to Muntham Court. Annabelle and Dave Peart were waiting for us in the garden.

‘He found it in the shrubbery,’ said Annabelle. ‘Didn’t you?’

Dave Peart, to whom this last remark had been addressed, gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘Yeah,’ he said eventually.

‘It was very clever of him,’ she added.

I took the beanie from Annabelle. It was made of black wool and looked pretty new – the sort of anonymous headgear you can pick up in any market for a fiver or so. It felt warm in my hand.

‘Show Mr Tressider where you found it,’ said Annabelle.

Dave Peart gave another shrug and set off across the lawn towards the shrubbery. We went several yards into the mass of overgrown bushes before he pointed to a spot on the ground, just short of the garden wall.

‘There,’ he said. ‘On top of them leaves there, just by the old wall, isn’t it?’

‘Right,’ I said.

‘Well, aren’t you going to examine the spot or nothing?’

‘There doesn’t seem a lot to examine,’ I said. ‘Just leaves.’

‘Thought you was some sort of detective.’

‘I’m some sort of crime writer,’ I said.

I knelt down and immediately regretted it as I felt the damp start to seep into the knees of my trousers. I gave the leaves a cursory inspection. I got up again.

‘The garden wall would be easy to climb,’ I said. ‘It would seem likely that the intruder dropped the beanie here as he was going over the wall, or maybe as he was looking for the easiest place to climb it.’

The spot was well hidden from the house, as it was from the rest of the garden.

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