Posted to Death

by Dean James

  Giles raised an eyebrow interrogatively when I mentioned my engagement, but I didn’t enlighten him. He didn’t need to know everything I was doing, secretary or not I shooed him out the door, then went upstairs to change into more comfortable clothes. I really cannot write, or even read long enough to do any research, unless I’m wearing the right clothes. In this case, “right” means shabby, worn, and comfortable.

  Back at my desk, I turned on my computer, and when it had booted up, I clicked on my word-processing program and called up the most recent bits I had written. I read back over them to get myself into the proper mood, but for some reason, it wasn’t working. The voice wasn’t coming to me as it should. Frowning, I stared at the computer screen as if willing it to start talking.

  Sighing, I turned away from the monitor and propped my head in my hands, leaning my elbows on the desk. I knew what the problem was. The scent of Giles’s cologne, subtle, warm, and masculine, lingered in my office. Not to mention that the scene with Lady Blitherington was still echoing in my head.

  Giles was disturbingly attractive, and in a very short time, he had taken to occupying too much time in my thoughts. I had little doubt as to my ability to withstand him physically. That organ I could easily control. It was another part of my anatomy that worried me. (And, yes, we do have them; that’s why driving stakes through them can kill us.)

  More than likely, as is occasionally the case with me, I was putting the horse several leagues ahead of the cart. Giles appeared sincere in his interest in me, but he could be just another gold digger. I had met a few of those already, ever since my books had begun attracting attention—and serious money. Time wounds all heels, they say, and that might be the case with Giles. I’d just have to watch myself and take things slowly.

  If I didn’t throttle his damned mother first, that is. I thought back over her reaction to the news that Giles was working for me. Ridiculous as it was, it proved one thing: If she reacted that strongly to her son’s working as a secretary to someone like me, then she might truly kill to keep even more humiliating secrets as quiet as the grave.

  Upon that conclusion, I decided I was once again in the mood to write a murder mystery, and I turned back to the computer monitor and keyboard with grim determination.

  When Giles returned from lunch, I was so engrossed in what I was writing that I acknowledged his quiet greeting with a grunt, and then I was lost again in the story I was creating. Giles may have made noise as he worked, but I was so involved in my work that I didn’t notice.

  At some point, the haze lifted, and I came back to the present I saved my document expelled a long sigh, and turned to find Giles offering me a cold drink.

  “Thank you, Giles,” I said gratefully. “This is exactly what I needed.” I glanced at my watch after I downed the drink. Oops! I had only a few minutes to get dressed, take my dose of medicine, and be at Jane Hardwick’s door to accompany her to Colonel Clitheroe’s cottage for tea.

  I shouted an explanation over my shoulder as I moved quickly out from behind my desk, around Giles, out of the office, and up the stairs. I was back downstairs again in seven minutes flat neatly attired in public clothes once again, not a hair out of place.

  “Amazing,” Giles commented, his eyes wide in surprise. “Are you entirely certain you’re gay, Simon?” he asked with a laugh. “I’ve never known a gay man who dresses as well as you do who could dress that quickly and still look so good.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere, Giles,” I said, trying to appear stern, but pleased nevertheless. I couldn’t tell him that as a vampire, I could move more quickly than a human, but not at the speed of light like a comic book superhero.

  I gave him instructions on locking up, presenting him with a spare key. I forbore to admonish him about using it for nefarious purposes, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t try anything like waiting in my bed for me again.

  “See you tomorrow, Simon” was all he said as I left him.

  Jane Hardwick was waiting impatiently outside the gate of her cottage. She took my proffered arm and hurried me along the lane and down the High Street to Colonel Clitheroe’s cottage. As we trod the flagstones of his walk, approaching the front door, I admired his garden. It did look militarily precise, every flower, every bush, every tree exactly in place, nothing sticking out at an odd angle, all neatly arranged as if by a master clockmaker. The colors vibrated brilliantly in the hot summer air. If the colonel could help me achieve something similar, I might really have someone redesign my garden.

  Colonel Clitheroe answered Jane’s knock immediately, as if he had been waiting just the other side of the door. He stepped aside and motioned us inside. The cool dimness of the interior was a welcome change from the heat of the August afternoon.

  The colonel steered us through a short, narrow hallway into his sitting room and gestured us into our seats. He had seated Jane beside a tea tray, and she took on the duties of playing mother with good grace. I let my eyes rove over the room while Jane chatted at the colonel, who as yet had very little to say.

  I wasn’t quite sure what I had expected. The decor was not at all reminiscent of service in India or Africa, as I had feared it might be. No elephant’s foot hat stands or grimacing native masks or life-size statues of the goddess Kali or anything at all pukka sahib. (I suppose I had read too many of a certain sort of English novel once upon a time.) Instead, the room was furnished in what I would call comfy English country. The colonel was either less of a caricature than he let on or he had had the sense to hire someone to decorate his cottage for him.

  I tuned back in to Jane’s flow of conversation.

  “... was such a shock to all of us who knew her, naturally. Don’t you think?” Obviously, Jane was speaking of the murder, the number-one topic in Snupperton Mumsley these days.

  “Didn’t surprise me in the least,” said the colonel, taking a sip of his tea. “Only surprised it hadn’t happened years ago. Whoever did it deserves a medal, I’d say.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “That seems to be the general opinion,” I observed mildly to the colonel and Jane. “Not one person I’ve talked with since the murder happened has had anything very positive to say about the late, and definitely unlamented, Miss Abigail Winterton.”

  The colonel harrumphed into his tea, while Jane urged me on with one raised eyebrow.

  “The question that pops into my mind,” I continued, “quite naturally, I think, is why did everyone dislike the poor soul so much? What did she do that was so offensive?”

  The colonel gave me rather a nasty look over his teacup. Perhaps he might not be terribly forthcoming with gardening tips, after all.

  Clearing his throat, the colonel said in his surprisingly high voice, “She was a busybody, that’s why. Damned, interfering snoop.” He ducked his head briefly in Jane’s direction. “Pardon the strong language, ma’am. The woman was a sight too interested in everyone else’s affairs. Had this sly way of asking questions.”

  “Such as?” I prompted when the colonel fell silent.

  In a rumble eerily reminiscent of the late, unlamented’s voice, he said, “ ‘So you’re a widower, Colonel. I suppose your late wife probably succumbed to one of those nasty tropical fevers among those heathens out in India. Such a terrible waste, I’m sure.’ ”

  “Oh, dear, Colonel,” Jane said, “that was rather nasty, wasn’t it?”

  The colonel laughed grimly. “M’wife was run over by a lorry in Islington, which is what I told the damned idiot woman after she asked me that fool question.” He snorted. “Exactly what she wanted all along. She’d say something outrageous, then tilt her head like a bird waiting for a bug, and you’d end up answering her question, whether you wanted to or not.”

  I set my tea aside for the moment. “I couldn’t help but notice, Colonel, even in my brief time in the village, that Miss Winterton seemed inordinately interested in several people.” I had done no such thing, of course, but the colonel didn’t nee
d to know I was lying. “She seemed quite fascinated by the vicar and Mrs. Butler-Melville, for example, not to mention Trevor Chase.”

  The colonel looked carefully down at his hands, which trembled slightly. He, too, set down his teacup. “Vicar and his wife are a happily married couple. Abigail Winterton envied that, always trying to wedge herself in somehow. No one had ever seen fit to marry her. Had to get her claws into anyone who was happily married.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” I said; then, struck by some sort of weird inspiration, I went on. “But the odd thing was that she kept going on and on about skiing holidays in one conversation I overheard.” I affected a puzzled look while casting my eyes sideways at the colonel’s face.

  The skin seemed to have tightened all across the colonel’s face. Otherwise he gave no sign that he knew what I was talking about. The man had iron control.

  “I couldn’t imagine what she was going on about since she didn’t look like the skiing type to me, but you never know. She could have been quite the sports-woman, as far as I knew.” I babbled on for a moment, waiting for further signs of reaction, but none came.

  “I don’t imagine that anyone would have called Abigail a sportswoman.” Jane finally entered the conversation again. “I cannot imagine, either, why she would be so interested in skiing. But perhaps she was merely inquiring about someone’s holidays.”

  “Certainly likely to do that,” the colonel agreed. He held his cup out to Jane for more tea.

  “And then one time,” I went on mendaciously, “I heard her talking to Trevor Chase about his teaching experience. I of course hadn’t known that he had been a teacher, but I suppose it should have been no great surprise to me.”

  This time the colonel didn’t seem to react, or else he had schooled himself to hide any further reactions. I kept nattering on about various inconsequential things, slipping in teasers about Samantha Stevens and her husband and the Blitheringtons, but the colonel never batted an eyelash. He was not going to confide in Jane and me about his son’s death, that seemed obvious. Jane and I would have to dig further for the truth of what happened.

  The colonel had little to add to the conversation, so Jane and I did our best to fill the void with friendly chatter. At a signal from Jane, I asked the colonel if I might avail myself of his facilities, and rather curtly he directed me upstairs to the first-floor landing.

  On the way up the stairs I glanced quickly around for any signs of family photographs, anything that might give a clue to the colonel’s past. There had been nothing in his sitting room, not even a regimental photo. I opened the bathroom door, waited a second, then closed it with a bit of a bang. Then I tiptoed across the hall into what looked to be the colonel’s bedroom, hoping that the floorboards wouldn’t squeak and betray me.

  For a moment, I thought this room, like downstairs, was totally devoid of any kind of memorabilia. Then I espied one small frame on the dressing table. I moved quickly and silently over to it and picked it up.

  Two faces stared back at me, the colonel’s and his son’s. At least I presumed it was the son, but the young man in the photograph looked nothing like the colonel. Perhaps he favored his mother. I glanced around the room again. There were no other photographs in evidence. Odd. I would have thought that the colonel would display at least one photograph of his late wife.

  Time was ticking by much too quickly. I needed to be back downstairs. I glanced at the photo again. The colonel looked much younger in this one. Most likely it was taken not long before the son’s death. His clothes looked vintage for the early 1970s, at least. The face was not handsome but had at least enough character to keep it from being plain. His hair was cut so short, he looked almost bald. His nose was rather big and slightly hooked, I thought. If it weren’t for that, he would have been almost good-looking.

  I put the picture down and tiptoed back out onto the landing. I opened the bathroom door silently, shut it behind me, then flushed the toilet I ran water in the basin for a moment, then opened the door again and clumped back downstairs.

  Jane had the colonel safely on the subject of gardens, and I chimed in, offering several sincere compliments on his own garden. The colonel thawed enough actually to offer to come and give me some advice on my garden. He even said he could recommend someone to do the work for me if I wished.

  I definitely wished. I didn’t want to grub about in the dirt myself. There are times when a vampire wants to cover himself in soil, but this wasn’t one of them.

  Jane indicated that it was time to end our little visit. We thanked the colonel for the tea and for his advice, and he accompanied us to the front door. He pointed out several plants in the garden, and I praised their color and vitality.

  Then Jane and I were walking down the High Street again toward her cottage.

  “So?” Jane said when we were at her gate again. “Did you find anything upstairs?”

  “One photograph of the colonel and his son, I assume.” I described it to her. She agreed that it was most likely Lester Clitheroe in the picture.

  “There was something familiar about him,” I said. “I can’t quite place it, but I think I’ve seen him somewhere before.”

  “But if he’s dead, Simon, how could you have?” Jane asked reasonably.

  “I don’t know, Jane,” I looked at her sharply. “But what if he’s not dead?”

  “What if he and Neville Butler-Melville faked the accident, you mean?” Jane said.

  “Exactly! What if Lester Clitheroe is alive and well and living here in Snupperton Mumsley? Or somewhere nearby?”

  “But why?” Jane said. “Why would he have wanted to pretend to die and then take on another identity?”

  “That’s what we have to discover,” I said. “This could simply be some wild idea. I don’t know, but it bears a bit of investigation.”

  “Yes,” Jane said. “It’s not any more far-fetched, I suppose, than anything else we’ve hit upon. I tell you what, Simon. I have a friend in Oxford who can help us. I’ll ring her this evening, and if I can, I’ll go to see her tomorrow and try to dig up some of the history of Lester Clitheroe and Neville Butler-Melville before the accident.”

  “Capital idea, Jane!” I said. “But before I forget, what happened with the detective inspector this afternoon?” The self-satisfaction in Jane’s smile befit a Wimbledon champion. “Everything went according to plan, Simon. We went upstairs to look at Abigail’s books, and I picked one up off the shelf. And for some odd reason, several pieces of paper fell out of them. The detective inspector gathered them up, and I can tell you, I wouldn’t be in the shoes of the men who searched Abigail’s house.”

  “Whew,” I said in mock relief. “I’m glad the evidence is found. You’re something else, Jane, you know that.”

  “Yes, Simon,” Jane said, “I do.” With that, she turned and went up the walk to her front door.

  She definitely knew an exit line when she heard it, I mused as I wandered on to my own front door.

  I was a bit disappointed, though I was loath to admit it, that Giles had gone. The scent of him lingered on, and once I was again dressed in my writing duds, I let it settle around me as I got back to writing.

  I worked hard until sometime in the morning, pausing only briefly for a quick snack around midnight. Around three, I finally turned off the computer and went up to bed for a slightly extended nap. I was back downstairs, showered and perky, working away, by the time Giles arrived a little after nine o’clock.

  “Good morning, Giles,” I greeted him from behind my desk, hands resting idly on the keyboard of my computer.

  Giles dropped a small satchel down upon the table where he had been working yesterday. “Simon, you’ll never believe this!”

  He paused dramatically. “They’ve arrested Trevor Chase for the murder of Abigail Winterton!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Has Trevor actually been arrested, Giles?” I asked. “Or is he simply ‘helping the police with their inquiries
’?”

  Giles thought for a moment. “Probably the latter.” He deflated visibly. “It’s all over the village this morning that Detective Inspector Chase had Trevor taken in late last evening. And you know how tongues will wag and magnify.” He grinned.

  “Sit down, Giles,” I told him a bit sternly. The time had come to get to the truth of certain matters.

  Uncharacteristically solemn, Giles did as he was bid. Unsmiling, he stared at me from across the cluttered surface of my desk. I had managed to undo some of his diligent work of the day before, and Giles grimaced at my handiwork.

  “What is it, Simon?” Giles asked me when I had sat and stared at him for a moment without saying anything.

  “Do you think Trevor Chase could have murdered Abigail Winterton?”

  Giles sat back in his chair, surprised by my question. “To be honest, no, I’ve never thought of Trevor as the murdering type.” He waved his right hand in the air. “I know that probably anyone can, and will, commit murder under the proper circumstances. But Trevor, despite his penchant for obsessional behavior, has never impressed me as the homicidal type.”

  “Would he murder someone in order to spare himself great humiliation?”

  “Because of his past, you mean?” Giles said, his face clouding momentarily.

  “Yes,” I answered, watching him closely.

  “Look, Simon,” Giles said, leaning forward in his chair. “Trevor did go to somewhat abnormal lengths to be near me, to no purpose, but I think basically he’s harmless. He’d be rather upset if he were exposed to ridicule by the village, but it wouldn’t be the end of his life. He could sell the bookshop or simply close it up and move away, and he wouldn’t be in difficult financial straits. There isn’t that much tying him to this village, actually, but he does seem to like it here. I don’t think he would have had enough motive to kill Abigail Winterton.”

  “Not even if she were blackmailing him?” I asked, wanting to put it clearly to him.