Agatha & the Scarlet Scarab by Karl Fish

Author:Karl Fish [Fish, Karl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-11-08T22:00:00+00:00

*****

Aggie struggled to sleep. Whether it was the couch in the drawing-room or the temperature that plummeted during the night, she didn’t really know. She had tossed and turned for hours now and Uncle Gideon had not returned. What little, precious sleep she had been afforded had been interspersed with the recurring claustrophobic nightmare where insects crept and crawled over her body and animal masks whirled and danced hypnotically in front of her.

The mantelpiece clock chimed to inform her it was 5 am. Daybreak would be another couple of hours yet. She wrapped up tight in a patchwork blanket and revisited her mother’s face peering back at her from the photo. Amazingly, the magnifying glass still presented a dim circle of light. Aggie moved it in and out until a small circumference perfectly surrounded the missing crest on her mother’s Priory jacket.

‘Why did you destroy it?’ she asked her mother in the photo. ‘What made you so angry you ripped the school colours from your very own blazer?’

Her mother offered little response. Aggie knew all too well of the anger and fury that would erupt in her. Throughout her short fourteen years, it had been suggested that it was proof she was her mother’s daughter alright. Henrietta Huntington-Smythe was the latest to have fallen victim to it. But with good reason, she reassured herself.

‘You wake already?’ came the surprised voice entering the room. Aggie jumped and screamed in horror.

‘Nan, don’t do that. You made me jump.’

‘I sorry. Did not mean it,’ Nan replied ‘You hungry? Come, I make breakfast.’

‘Nothing from Uncle Gideon?’ Aggie questioned her.

Nan offered a shrug and nothing more.

‘Do you remember my mother?’ Aggie asked, holding the photo aloft.

‘I sorry.’ Nan shook her head ‘I come after your mother.’

‘Miss Dove said that Sister Harvey or Nelly Parker may know.’

Nan laughed sarcastically.

‘What’s so funny?’ Aggie enquired.

‘Miss Dove,’ Nan replied ‘Oh, special Miss Dove. She be here five minutes and think she know everybody.’

It was a peculiar reaction, Aggie thought and pressed the housekeeper. ‘Has she upset you?’

‘No, she no upset me. But why Ambledown WI accept her with open arms? Residents of Ambledown only, they say to me. Miss Dove, here five minutes and she running WI.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Aggie replied. She could see Nan was upset.

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