The Body under the Piano by Marthe Jocelyn & Isabelle Follath

Author:Marthe Jocelyn & Isabelle Follath
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tundra
Published: 2020-02-03T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

A PROFITABLE EXCHANGE

CONSTABLE RUSHTON’S TONGUE, broad and pink, met the white dust for a tentative appraisal. At first touch, the taste was slightly sweet, but as he greedily slobbered on the paper, his mouth began to burn. Too late, the policeman groped for water, his scorched tongue taking on a yellow hue, darkening to purple as foam bubbled up from the wretched man’s throat…

“Did he die?”

Of course he had not. Constable Beck would not have been in such good humor if he’d been telling the tale of a colleague’s demise.

“It was paper from a square of Turkish delight!” cried Constable Beck. “He’d brought us a sweetie wrapper! We had a good laugh about that, we did.”

Oh, poor Hector! A warm flush swept up my neck on his behalf. How foolish he must have felt! First, how determined and brave in approaching the police, and then how small and foolish. I hated Constable Beck just then, and I hated Constable Rushton even more.

I bristled on Hector’s behalf. “I suppose your investigation is tearing along, and you have a suspect behind bars?”

“I think you know perfectly well that I am not at liberty to discuss the case,” he said. That sounded to me like a phrase he’d practiced in front of the mirror, making himself feel important. “But it won’t be long, Miss Morton. Not long now.”

Not long now? Getting some answers would be the best revenge for Hector’s humiliation. I mustn’t back down. When might I have another chance to interrogate a police officer?

I waited until we reached a flat bit of road.

How to begin? I knew what Grannie Jane would say. No man has yet been born who does not like to be admired for what he knows.

“Miss Graves…” I managed.

“Oh, yes?” said Constable Beck.

“She speaks of you.” She never did. Not out loud. But I fancied I knew what she was thinking. “A policeman’s job is terribly difficult, she says. Catching robbers, being kind to old ladies, keeping clues straight in your head. You can do it all, Miss Graves says.”

Constable Beck grunted. He was sweaty but not scowling.

“Miss Marianne was not the killer,” I blurted.

“We know that, do we?” puffed the constable.

“I believe it to be certain,” I said.

“And why is that?”

“If I lived with a person I wanted dead,” I began, “I should contrive a convenient death at home. Preferably an accident.” I refrained from sharing my full catalogue of creative murders. “Would you not do the same?”

Constable Beck grunted again, most unhelpfully.

I persisted. “Would it not be wiser to avoid the complications of using a public place?”

“If you drops your corpse in a public place,” said the constable, “you’ve saved yourself the trouble of disposal.”

Chopped up in a suitcase, shoveled into a well, hurled from a clifftop, locked in a cupboard…

“An excellent point, constable!” Why had that not occurred to me already? “If you do it at home, I suppose the suspect list is cut down to those who live there with you.”

“That’s why the Mermaid Room was a clever choice.

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