The Eighth Detective by Alex Pavesi

Author:Alex Pavesi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

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At the far end of the room, two doors led through to a decadent lounge, which ran along the side of the house at a right angle to the dining room. The windows here had deep-red curtains, like thick smears of blood. All of the furniture either looked out through them, over the waves toward the coast, or pointed at a fireplace in the center of the opposite wall. Blood-red upholstery was everywhere, like spilled wine.

The center of the room was covered in ash; a feathery semicircle of gray smudges spread out from the fireplace and covered the tabletops and cushions. Sarah followed the trail of burnt debris inward. She found animal hairs and charred splinters of wood scattered across the floorboards, pieces of coal and several small fragments of white card.

One of the accusations must have been thrown on the fire.

“Look at this,” she said, taking a log from the basket beside the fireplace and holding it out toward Charles. A small opening had been drilled in one end and filled with a gritty black powder.

He touched it, then held his forefinger to his nose. “Gunpowder. I would know the smell anywhere.”

“A nasty trick to play on someone. It would burn normally for a few minutes and then explode.” Sarah ran her hand across the chair nearest the fireplace and felt a mass of wooden shards poking out of the cloth, only vaguely visible against the dark fabric. “There’s no blood here; it seems that nobody fell for it.”

“It’s lucky the whole house didn’t burn down.”

“This tells us the violence wasn’t necessarily targeted. Anybody could have been killed by this, which means they were all brought here to die.”

“Then who was their accuser?”

She considered the question. “Let’s keep looking.”

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