Murder to Music - a Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery by Lesley Cookman

Author:Lesley Cookman [Cookman, Lesley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Mystery, British Detectives, Cozy, Culinary
Amazon: B008C2C65K
Publisher: Accent Press Ltd
Published: 2013-12-11T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

‘IT’S OBVIOUS NOW THAT’S what the music has all been about. But there’s some connection with the estate agents, too,’ Libby went on.

‘Yes, that’s why I need to find out who’s trying to sell it. Your Ian told me.’ Rosie gave a shaky laugh. ‘I don’t know what to call him, now. You always say Ian, and I have to say Inspector. He’s a bit scary, isn’t he?’

Fran smiled. ‘He can be. But he’s a real charmer underneath that dark exterior.’

‘Oh, I can see that,’ said Rosie, with an answering smile. ‘All pent-up passion underneath his saturnine mien.’

‘Gosh, that’s the novelist in you,’ said Libby.

‘If I wrote like that I’d be dropped like a hot potato,’ said Rosie with another, more natural, laugh.

‘So does he still want to get to the bottom of the music?’ said Libby. ‘He hasn’t told us much.’

‘I expect he will,’ said Rosie. ‘He seems to keep you informed.’

‘Not always, but I suppose we put him on to this, so he might,’ said Fran.

‘You said you had a phobia about cellars,’ Libby mused, her eyes on a corner of the ceiling.

‘Yes?’ Rosie looked surprised.

‘Do you suppose the cellar at White Lodge had anything to do with it?’

Fran and Rosie looked at each other. Fran raised her eyebrows and shook her head.

‘You said Ian hadn’t found a cellar,’ said Rosie slowly.

‘That doesn’t mean it isn’t there to be found,’ said Libby. ‘It’s in the records.’

With another quick look at Rosie, Fran said, ‘I should think it’s been blocked up by now.’

‘Was there anything in those records to say there had been an earlier building on the site?’ asked Rosie after a moment.

‘Yes, there was, wasn’t there Libby? Didn’t it say fourteenth century?’

‘Yes, it was burnt down, or something. Didn’t we already know that?’

‘Yes,’ said Rosie, ‘but I don’t think we knew what period it had been.’

‘Oh, and we know the sixteenth-century building was timber-framed, and then tile-hung in the seventeenth, and then Lutyens had a go in the early twentieth, so that must have been when it turned into the Princess Beatrice,’ said Libby. ‘The Poor Board, or whoever they were, wouldn’t have paid out for a Lutyens re-design.’

‘So it’s had a very chequered history,’ said Rosie. ‘No wonder there are stories of hauntings.’

‘We still don’t really know anything about that,’ said Fran. ‘It’s all hearsay. And it must have been around the time you were visiting.’

Rosie frowned. ‘I know. It’s so frustrating. I still feel that the house is friendly and warm, so I must have got on well with my uncle, yet the minute I try and get further than that I get this feeling of dread and my stomach turns to water.’

‘Well,’ said Libby robustly, ‘we shall have to find out why. Ian’s looking into it, so he’s bound to turn up something. Meanwhile, at least part of the mystery is solved.’

‘Yes.’ Rosie looked uncertain and Libby suddenly didn’t want to hear any more. She stood up.

‘Come on, Fran,’ she said, ‘I think we ought to leave Rosie to come to terms with everything on her own.

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