A Mourning Wedding Read Online Free PDF Page B

sobbing.
    â€œShe’s dead!” she gasped. “Murdered!”
    The head housemaid glanced into the room, turned pale, and swayed. As Daisy hurried towards them, the elder visibly pulled herself together. She shook the younger by the shoulders.
    â€œGo and tell Mr. Baines,” she ordered, giving the girl a shove towards the back stairs. “Get along with you, right this minute.” Head averted, she fumbled behind her for the doorknob and pulled the door to, scraping shards of broken china into the corridor.

    Montagu Fotheringay, massive in a crimson silk dressing-gown, advanced from the opposite direction. “What the deuce is going on?” he demanded. “That’s Eva’s room.”
    Lady Eva! Of course, Daisy thought, if anyone in this house was going to be murdered, it would have to be Lady Eva Devenish, the collector of secrets. But perhaps the maid was mistaken. Perhaps the old lady was merely ill.
    â€œWho screamed?” That was Nancy, Lucy’s sister-in-law, pattering down the stairs from the second floor. “Is someone hurt, Daisy? I was a VAD nurse in the War.”
    â€œIt’s Lady Eva. I don’t know … . The maid seemed to think she’s dead.”
    â€œHer ladyship’s dead,” the elder maid confirmed grimly, still very pale. “And if you’ll excuse me, madam, I’m going to sit down for a minute.” She sank to the floor beside the table where a tray of tea things awaited distribution to the bedrooms.
    Nancy knelt beside her and forced her head between her knees. “Breathe deeply, Merton,” she advised.
    Montagu, frowning, reached for the doorknob. “I’m going to—”
    â€œNo.” Stopping him was rather like tackling a tank but Daisy managed to hold him back. “You mustn’t go in there, Mr. Fotheringay. Nancy, would you take a look at Lady Eva and make sure there’s nothing we can do for her? No, Mr. Fotheringay, you really must not. I’m afraid the girl spoke of … of murder.”
    â€œM … m …” Montagu’s mouth opened and closed but he couldn’t get the word out.
    Stepping over the smashed tea things, Nancy Fotheringay slipped past him into the room. She came out again after a few seconds, very white about the mouth. “No question of it. Daisy, the police will have to be sent for.”
    Obviously Lucy had told at least some of her family about Daisy’s involvement with several of Alec’s cases, Daisy realized with resignation. Now she was going to be expected to deal with the police. Well,
she wasn’t going to ring them up without being sure of her facts. It was too late to worry about fingerprints after the two maids and Nancy had all touched the handle. She opened the door Nancy had shut and peeked in.
    For a moment all she saw was a snowstorm. A pillow had been ripped and feathers were all over the place, a few floating in the draught between the door and the open window. Amid the drifts, Lady Eva sprawled on her back, head and shoulders hanging over the side of the bed. Her face was purple, her tongue sticking out, eyes glaring. One hand was at her throat, as if plucking at something tied around it.
    Feeling sick, Daisy turned her back on the dreadful sight. What she wanted to do was sit down beside the maid and put her head between her knees, but she knew from unhappy experience that action was the best antidote. She took the key from the inside of the door, closed the door again, and locked it. “I’ll ring the police. Absolutely no one must go in there till they come.”
    She was not prepared to trust the stricken Montagu with the key, but several more people had arrived by now. Among them she saw Nancy’s husband, the Reverend Timothy Fotheringay, in a brown flannel dressing-gown over blue-and-white pyjamas. His arm around his wife’s shoulders, he was listening gravely to her quiet explanation. Daisy had always