THREE SILENT THINGS a cozy murder mystery by MAYHEW MARGARET

Author:MAYHEW, MARGARET
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books crime, thriller and mystery
Published: 2020-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

Nine

The funeral of Lois Delaney took place the following week. Arrangements had been made for her to be buried in the churchyard at Frog End and it was rumoured in the village that her tycoon husband had made a substantial contribution to the church fabric fund in order for the grave to be sited prominently near the front instead of stuck out of sight round the back. Several coaches had been laid on for mourners to travel from London and the twelfth-century church which normally had a congregation of around seventy – Christmas and Easter excepted was full to overflowing. The pathway leading up to the west door was lined with expensive bouquets and wreaths and, inside, the altar and the aisles had been decorated with masses of pure white flowers. The pale oak coffin – lying in its solitary state in the chancel – was adorned with an enormous cross of lilies.

The colonel had found a seat at the end of a side pew, next to a blonde dressed in cherry red. Few people wore black clothes to funerals these days – not even black ties which seemed a pity, he thought. The dead deserved some outward show of respect. He didn’t know the blonde’s name but her face was vaguely familiar. So were other faces in the congregation and several of them were famous.

Inserted at the end of a stiff service sheet was an open invitation to refreshments afterwards at the Chilcote Hotel. The colonel had never been there but he had heard that it was the ultimate in country house luxury. An eighteen-hole golf course; floodlit tennis courts; indoor and outdoor heated swimming pools; jacuzzis; whirlpool baths in every suite; saunas and massage parlours; fitness gymnasium . . . everything the stressed and jaded and very rich could want or need. Naomi had, predictably, deemed it the last word in vulgarity. Like the Hall, it had once been a private house, but far larger and grander – a very stately home to one family for several hundred years who had eventually fallen on hard times. Apparently, Bruce King had snapped it up when they had fallen to their lowest ebb and turned it into the luxury hotel.

The new young vicar, Naomi’s happy-clappy type, seemed overawed by the size and importance of the congregation, as well as by the occasion, and kept stumbling over his words. Fortunately, he had left his guitar behind and the village organist, Miss Hartshorne, had been ousted by a pale and long-haired stranger from London who coaxed a miraculous sound from the wheezy old instrument.

They sang beautiful hymns: Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, The King of Love My Shepherd Is and Abide With Me. A very famous actor gave a moving eulogy, praising Lois Delaney’s great beauty and talent and the pleasure she had given to generations of theatregoers. A radiant light had gone out, he said, with just the right touch of suppressed emotion in his voice, and it could never be rekindled.

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