6 Fantasy Stories Read Online Free PDF

Relaxing your guard can lead to sudden death. "
    Lady Crenshaw sighed loudly. As I turned to continue pacing, I saw her blow a huge cloud of smoke in my direction. "Is this the only reason you've come over, then? To talk about your wife ad nauseum?"
    "Of course not." I brushed aside her question with a swipe of my arm. "When have I ever let her come between us?"
    "Perhaps I should bring one of my boyfriends into the conversation." Lady Crenshaw laughed, puffing out three rings of smoke. "But which one shall it be? "
    Ignoring her baiting, I spun and pointed a finger at her. "I must investigate. Treat this as one of my cases...my puzzleventures. "
    "Leave off it, Algie." Lady Crenshaw took a drag on her cigarette, then blew out more smoke. "This is bloody London , home of the illustrious Wanderers' Club. Can't imagine a worse place to try to hide a naughty little secret, thanks to you lot."
    I grabbed the gold boar's-head handle of my ebony cane from the back of the red velvet chair on which it hung. "It has been my experience," I said as I gave the cane a twirl, "that the quieter the savannah , the closer the lions. "
    "Oh, dear." Lady Crenshaw crushed her cigarette in the bowl of a crystal ashtray on the marble table. "You've got the scent , haven't you?"
    I grinned and reached for the doorknob. "What does your female intuition tell you, darling?"
    "Something about people in glass houses throwing stones," said Lady Crenshaw just before she rolled over and turned her back on me.
    *****
    When it came to cold trails, this one was positively frozen.
    After leaving Lady Crenshaw's apartments, I set out to retrace Bess's footsteps from earlier that day...all for naught. Everything appeared to line up properly with the tale she'd told me.
    Surreptitiously interviewing our household staff, I found that each and every one of them backed up her story. Yes, she'd gone with them to the market. On the way home, she'd stopped off to visit Lorna Farnesworth, and they'd continued on without her.
    Unsatisfied, I probed further. Setting out after supper for an evening constitutional, I swung by the Farnesworths' residence three blocks away. A knock of the boar's head handle of my cane brought a butler to answer the door.
    "I come in search of a glove, my good man." I held up one of Bess's pale blue satin gloves, which I'd pocketed before leaving home. "This one is terribly lonely. Did my wife happen to leave behind its mate when she was here earlier today?"
    The butler sniffed distastefully and shook his head once. "You have come to the wrong place, sir."
    For a moment, I thought the trail was heating up. "My wife was here, wasn't she? Bess Hogshead?"
    The butler cleared his throat and lifted one eyebrow. "Do you take me for an imbecile, sir?"
    My heart pounded in my chest. I felt it, the thrill of the hunt, blazing through my veins like liquid fire. "Do you mean to say my wife wasn't here?"
    The butler stared for an instant...then shook his head. My breath caught in my throat as I stood on the verge of confirming this vital intelligence. As I stood ready to catch my wife in a lie.
    And then the butler deflated me. "Yes, she was here, and no, she left nothing behind. I saw to her wrap and gloves myself."
    I couldn't help feeling disappointed. "Ah. I see then. Jolly good."
    "Thank you and good day, sir," said the butler as he withdrew into the house.
    And then he shut the door in my face, just as he had shut the door on this avenue of my latest puzzleventure.
    *****
    My next step was clear to me. If the beast's tracks would not lead me to the truth, I would have to shadow the beast itself. I would have to follow it, as I would an antelope to its watering hole, and watch it interact with its natural habitat.
    This, of course, would require camouflage, but I was up to the task. For someone who'd followed the giant spider-gators of Bandu Shoga for hundreds of miles to the hidden treasure of Voxinian the Indignant, this would be child's play.
    That