Mistletoe and Murder by Carola Dunn

Author:Carola Dunn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2011-04-06T16:00:00+00:00

11

The night was clear. The air had a frosty feel when Alec and Miles took up their positions on either side of the chapel by the river. As Alec had expected, Miles was quite willing to assist in the apprehension of Cedric Norville. After all, if his sister’s young man turned out to be the murderer, the Brockdene Norvilles would be freed from suspicion.

Alec had managed a brief, preliminary interview with each of them in the course of the evening. Now, waiting in the cold, unable to walk about for fear of alerting his quarry, he had plenty of time to think over those interviews.

Miles had provided more information about the Helstone Norvilles. The Mr. Norville of that branch of the family was Lord Westmoor’s second cousin, the grandson of the fifth earl’s younger brother. He had another son besides Cedric, and two or three daughters. They lived on a small estate belonging to the earl, just across the river from Brockdene, in Devon.

“Under other circumstances,” Miles had said wryly, “we might have been good neighbours and even friends. As it is, I’ve seen them occasionally in Calstock and received a distant nod—never the cut direct, I’ll give them that—but there was no closer communication. Until Flick ‘took up with’ Cedric. I suppose they met last summer. I wish she hadn’t been meeting him secretly, especially at night, but I can’t blame her for not telling the parents.”

“They would have forbidden the association?”

“I don’t know about that. It seems to me it’s jolly difficult nowadays to stop girls doing exactly as they please. But they would have been upset. After all, the Helstone lot have been gently snubbing us for decades. We’re not quite respectable, you know.”

“So Cedric’s parents would have been even more upset?” Alec hazarded.

“Indubitably,” Miles confirmed. “I say, suppose his father discovered they were meeting at the chapel, came over, found a clergyman there, assumed he was going to marry them secretly, and killed the messenger, so to speak?”

“A nice theory, if a little far-fetched.” At that moment, Alec had caught Daisy’s eye—she was still taking notes—which had reminded him of his occasionally unwarranted dismissal of her wilder conjectures. “Mind you,” he said hurriedly to Miles, “I’ve seen too many far-fetched theories turn out to be the truth to dismiss it outright. I’ll keep it in mind. By the way, why didn’t you tell your parents about young Lord Norville’s death?”

“Partly because by the time the medicos finished with me I simply didn’t want to think, let alone talk, about the War. Mostly because it could only upset everyone, make a long-standing grievance more grievous, if you will. I mean, it was one thing as long as we had little to gain by proof of Gran’s marriage, but if Uncle Victor should have been Westmoor’s heir …”

“Yes, I see what you mean.”

“I’m all for a quiet life, though I don’t seem to be having much luck that way.”

“No. I have to ask, where were you between eleven thirty and five last night?”

“Sleeping the sleep of the just.

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.