The Mystery of the Polite Man by C.M. Rawlins

Author:C.M. Rawlins [Rawlins, CM]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-10-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Two girls on two different missions, walking together in the dead of night, all the way down the drive to the squat stone lodge house where Mr and Mrs Bush slept, their eighty-five-year-old limbs wrapped around each other. Carefully now, not to wake the dogs, Bertie and Bunter; the lodge dogs were always Bertie and Bunter, tradition dying very, very slowly in north west Oxfordshire. On they go to the village edge, where our two darkly wrapped figures separate, one going left to the police station, the other straight on for the dowager house. Mother and daughter, dressed to fade into the dark night, a slight moon preventing stumbling on roots and stones, two people and two missions.

“Lady Darriby-Jones,” a voice hissed from the bushes.

“Is that you?” But Lady Darriby-Jones knew it was him, her navigator for the night.

“I had to swap my roster,” Frank said. Lady Darriby-Jones knew that but pretended surprise, showing gratitude for the action to accommodate her own personal search of the dowager house. Yet wondering two things. Why everybody thought this personable young constable was frankly useless and what it was that she knew about the Hoosish family. Something from the past haunted her.

“Follow me,” Frank whispered as they walked down the stubby drive of the dowager house. “No, not the front door, around the back. That’s open already. It’s the best way in. Do you know when the house was last occupied?” he continued in half-whispers, as if a self-appointed tour guide for a sacred place.

It was sacred, Lady Darriby-Jones thought, because it was where Matthew had last been fit and well. A war hero had been murdered here and it was her self-appointed duty to find out who committed the heinous crime.

Yet half her mind wasn’t on the job at all. The other half was across the village at the police station, sharing the adventure Alice was having with Sergeant ‘Haddock’ Fisher on duty.

On the other hand, she knew that Lady Alice wouldn’t stop for one minute to think about her mother, or for any other living creature for that matter. Her daughter’s mind boasted razor sharp focus on the assignment in hand; even though it had some pretty nasty aspects, Lady Alice would have to endure to get through to accomplish the mission now underway.

The first part of Lady Alice’s assignment, as Lady Darriby-Jones later learnt from both Lady Alice and Sergeant Fisher (with Alfie making a contribution as to subsequent events that night), was relatively easy, simply a matter of following directions. Sergeant Fisher let her in at the side door, the one that was usually bolted from within; she wouldn’t later use that for her escape because it would give them away, at least the collusion from within, for how else would a bolted door be unbolted? She and Alfie would have to leave brazenly by the main entrance when the time came. First things first, the sergeant clicked open the cell door and went inside to rouse a surprised Alfie.

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