Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) Read Online Free PDF Page B

parishioners, did he ever mention anything you thought an odd circumstance or out of character?”
    Tam’s brow furrowed. “Mr. Blackwell’s conversation was always full of questions for me. What I was doing. What I thought of going abroad. He was always urging me to keep on with my studies. He wanted me to finish my apprenticeship. He didn’t like the idea of me being a servant. No offence to you, sir.”
    “None taken. Did you know Mr. Blackwell had quit Old St. Jude’s lane?”
    “Yes, sir. He sent a note about two months ago, just after Mr. Halsey and I went on our last visit to one of his parishioners; a wainwright with two broken fingers. Mr. Blackwell wrote he was going to greener pastures . I don’t know what he meant by that.” Tam screwed up his freckled nose. “Come to think on it, sir, he didn’t give a forwarding direction.”
    “Did you hear from him again?”
    “No, sir. Perhaps he wrote again while we were in Paris? But we weren’t in Paris long enough for letters to cross on account of—” Tam faulted under his master’s unblinking blue-eyes and lowered his gaze to the Oriental rug. On account of you having a falling-out with Mrs. Jamison-Lewis , was what Tam had been about to say. But it wasn’t his place to mention his master’s Titian-haired mistress. Just as it wasn’t his place to remember how every night for a week he’d been kept awake by their torrid lovemaking in the next room.
    “You may write your memoirs when I’m dead and buried. Not before,” Alec said sternly and was pleased the boy had sense enough to remain po-faced. “Tell me: Is it within the realms of possibility that Blackwell was poisoned?”
    “But who—?”
    “That is something to think about if and only if you think it possible.”
    “It wouldn’t be an easy thing, sir.”
    “To poison him or to make it look as if he’d had a heart attack?”
    “Let me explain, sir. It would be an easy thing to poison him. Something slipped into his wine, or sprinkled on his food, or his handkerchief could’ve been soaked in Oleander water. When Mr. Blackwell came to use it during the evening the poison would be absorbed through his nose and go straight to work on his brain. He would almost certainly have died within minutes. But…”
    Alec came round from behind the heavy mahogany desk and propped himself on a corner while Tam paced the rug thinking aloud. “But?” he prompted.
    “It’s got to be the right poison in the right form to produce the right effect. Mr. Blackwell died of a heart attack, so says the physician. So we need to be looking for a poison whose effect imitates that of a heart attack. We need to know the form of that poison to know how it was administered.” Tam looked up at his master. “It wouldn’t be easy, sir.”
    “I realize that, Tam. But look into it for me, would you?”
    Tam swallowed something in his throat. “Yes, sir. It’s just that… It’s just that if it wasn’t Mr. Blackwell I’d feel better about it. I’d probably even enjoy the challenge, but...”
    “Of course,” Alec said with an understanding smile. “It is not easy when the victim is someone you know; someone you care about.”
    Although he nodded his agreement, Alec’s reassurances didn’t make Tam feel any better. “I still don’t understand why anyone would want to poison Mr. Blackwell.”
    “Nor do I. Yet, if Blackwell’s death wasn’t from natural causes, I mean to make it my business to find out why someone would want dead a seemingly good and harmless man of God.” And to Alec’s reckoning, if he hoped to learn more about the Reverend Blackwell he would have to know more about the Duke of Cleveley. But how to get close to a man whose very nature precluded closeness?
    “Sir,” said Tam, a glance at the mantle clock, “I’d best see to your clothes if you still intend visiting that picture exhibition...?”
    “Ah, yes,” Alec sighed. “Must needs support new talent. Oh, Tam, before you