Tomb-yard Follies by Jim Webster

Author:Jim Webster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, mystery, adventure, romance, Land of the Three Seas, Benor, Port Naain, murder, conspiracy, walking dead, demons
ISBN: 9781785383885
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2016
Published: 2016-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

Benor moved gently sideways across the bed and slipped out without disturbing the blankets. He dressed quickly and glanced down on Sarenna, who was still sleeping. ‘Innocent and sweet’ her husband had called her. Benor begged leave to doubt the ‘innocent’ and if pressed would have suggested ‘playful’ as an alternative. That being said he was perfectly happy to accept ‘sweet’ as long as it didn’t bring with it connotations of ‘cloying’ or ‘sickly’.

He had told her that he would slip away before dawn, so she wouldn’t have to worry about him being there if her husband returned. Hence he didn’t expect her to wonder where he was when she found him gone. As silently as possible he crossed the room and carefully closed the door behind him. There was a room he wanted to see; she’d referred to it as ‘my husband’s study’ when they’d passed the door. It was at the foot of the stairs so he could visit it on his way out. The study door, when he tried it, was not locked. This Benor approved of. Locking a door in a house where you have a wife or female staff merely draws attention to the fact you have something to hide. A gentleman is better advised to present a picture of unbearable dullness. Mindan had decorated his study walls with over a score of prints showing previous chief clerks to the Council of Sinecurists. This struck Benor as a sign of genius.

Benor lit the stub of candle in his purse and made a slow circuit of the room. He studied the contents of the bookshelf. His guess would be that his man would leave much hidden in plain sight, secure in the knowledge that most people wouldn’t recognise what was and what wasn’t important. The first thing he spotted was a leather bound volume with the words, ‘The enigma that is Tizah’ embossed on the spine. He took it out and flicked through it. It was an apparently scholarly little book, written perhaps a century or two ago. He slightly rearranged the other titles on the shelf so that there was no obvious gap, taking care to do no more than a maid might do when dusting.

With that book pocketed he continued his circuit but found little else to interest him. Then he stopped at the desk. He methodically checked the drawers on each side. One side seemed to be mainly official papers brought home to work on. The other side seemed to be personal papers relating to family finances. At first glance they promised nothing but unmitigated tedium.

He pulled the bottom drawer right out; it was the same length as the desk, so there was no secret panel there. The other drawers all seemed to be the same size. Swiftly he checked through the papers in each drawer to make sure there was nothing interesting hidden among them. Time was pressing and he was getting nowhere. He turned his attention to the chair. The underside of the seat was solid.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.