The Resurrection Mystery by Karen Charlton

Author:Karen Charlton [Charlton, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Historical, Thrillers
ISBN: 9781916292840
Publisher: Famelton Publishing
Published: 2024-03-07T04:00:00+00:00

Laven­der spent the next few hours in­ter­view­ing the ser­vants at Bev­er­ley House. It was a frus­trat­ing and fu­tile ex­er­cise. None of the earl’s be­wil­dered staff knew any­thing about the count­ess’s jew­els be­ing in the strong­box and the but­ler con­firmed the young mas­ter had never asked him to re­turn them to the bank. No one had seen any strangers loi­ter­ing in the vicin­ity of Bev­er­ley House and ev­ery­one, ex­cept the cook, de­nied telling any­one that the earl and count­ess had gone away to their coun­try es­tate.

The cook had a round, ruddy face with scared, blink­ing eyes. ‘I ’ave to tell the butcher and the gro­cer’s that I’ll be needin’ less food in my or­ders fer a week,’ she ex­plained. ‘I don’t re­mem­ber par­tic­u­larly sayin’ “they’ve gone away” but they’ll know what I mean when I tell ’em I need less.’

Laven­der sighed and closed his note­book. This damned case was hope­less.

Be­fore vis­it­ing the bank, he de­cided to take his bad tem­per out on that bloody news­pa­per. It was time to take a tougher stance with those rogues.

He strode an­grily into the crowded hall­way of The Times of­fices, whipped out his tip­staff and held it aloft. ‘De­tec­tive Stephen Laven­der from Bow Street.’ The crowd of peo­ple queu­ing by the desk moved aside and he found him­self face to face with a star­tled bearded clerk in an ink-stained apron.

‘I’ve ur­gent busi­ness with your ed­i­tor, Stod­dard. I de­mand to see ei­ther him or your owner, John Wal­ter, im­me­di­ately.’

‘But…’

‘No buts. Tell me where they are now – or I’ll have you clapped in irons for im­ped­ing the course of jus­tice.’

The clerk pointed a shaky fin­ger to­wards a nar­row, twist­ing stair­case at the rear of the hall­way. Laven­der took the steps two at a time and found him­self on a dark oak-pan­elled land­ing, faced with sev­eral half-open doors. Through one of them he saw a long, smoky room, full of men hud­dled over desks piled high with pa­per and scat­tered with ink bot­tles and quills.

He strode to­wards them and al­most bumped into Vin­cent Dowl­ing, who ap­peared out of nowhere and blocked his en­trance.

‘De­tec­tive Laven­der!’ Dowl­ing said loudly. ‘What a pleas­ant sur­prise! How goes your in­ves­ti­ga­tion into the stolen Bev­er­ley di­a­monds?’ His pock­marked face broke into a wel­com­ing smile.

‘Let me past, Dowl­ing. I need to see your bloody ed­i­tor.’

‘Of course, De­tec­tive Laven­der!’

Why was the damned man shout­ing? Be­hind him, ev­ery re­porter in the room had turned to watch this scene.

‘Just give me a minute and I’ll see if Mr Stod­dard is avail­able to see you, De­tec­tive Laven­der.’

Laven­der heard the sound of a chair be­ing hastily shoved back and a door open­ing.

He forced Dowl­ing aside and strode into the room just in time to see a far door clos­ing be­hind the booted heels of a slight – and very fast – young man.

Dowl­ing protested at his rough treat­ment and the other men in the room rose to their feet in alarm. An el­derly well-dressed man, with white hair and a sil­ver pocket watch chain swing­ing from his waist­coat, walked to­wards them, frown­ing.

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