Death by the Mistletoe Read Online Free PDF Page B

o’clock. When Doctor Black showed him the body the professor didn’t hesitate a moment. Saw the red marks right off, and said ‘Murder!’ in that squeaky voice of his. I believe they found traces of salt around the marks, though what good that will do them I can’t just understand. But I heard Professor Gregory complimenting Doctor Black upon having thought of looking for them. Old Black is certainly a smart lad!”
    “Very!” agreed James dryly, remembering that on the previous night Constable Wallace had been too busily engaged with his measurements to overhear his own short conversation with Dr. Black on this very subject. “Anything else of interest?”
    “Doctor Black thinks Archie Allan could not have been dead for more than an hour and a half at the most when Stewart found the body. It was still warm when we got it out to Lagnaha.”
    “You didn’t find anything yourselves?” asked James cautiously. “I mean — a pointer to the murderer, or murderers?”
    “That’s the damned thing!” replied Constable Wallace frankly, wrinkling his broad forehead. “There’s not a clue that we can discover. Our work last night amounted to nothing. Of course. Sergeant MacLeod may find out something to-day. He’s making inquiries up at Archie Allan’s house in Dell Road, and the housekeeper may give us some information.”
    “There’s the sprig of mistletoe,” suggested James. “You deserve a medal for pointing out what kind of plant it was, my son! Nine times out of ten it would have been overlooked altogether.”
    Constable Wallace’s strained face brightened.
    “You didn’t know I was a bit of a natural history-man?”
    “If the berries had been on it, I’d have known it at once. But the queer thing is that there’s no mistletoe growing wild in Kintyre, and there’s certainly not a spot of it to be had in local shops at this time of the year.”
    “Perthshire is the great place for mistletoe in Scotland.”
    James pondered.
    “What’s Inspector McMillan doing about the business? Is he asking for outside help?”
    “Depends on the Fiscal and the Chief Constable. The old man ’phoned up Lochgilphead last night, but the Chief was away from home — in Edinburgh, We got in touch with him, however, later on, and he’s expected here any minute now. The Fiscal’s very keen on getting two C.I.D. men down from Glasgow.”
    “Things are moving!” said James, with a secret smile.
    And, indeed, things at that moment were moving rather more swiftly than even that astute young man imagined, though not in the direction to which he was referring; for late that afternoon James was within an ace of death, and, had it not been for an extremely attractive young lady, his soon-to-be-famous article on The Mistletoe Murders would not have been included in the morrow’s issue of the Gazette .
    *
    He left the police station in somewhat of a brown study, and decided to prosecute his inquiries still further at the home of the murdered man in Dell Road. He was on friendly terms with Miss McMurchy, the housekeeper, and ran little risk of being snubbed. Furthermore, he would find Sergeant MacLeod there, and James had an idea that a short “crack” with that shrewd and level-headed Highlander would prove of some value. But before carrying out his project he wandered down in the direction of the harbour, partly to get some fresh air after his tiring morning, and partly to marshal his chaotic thoughts into some semblance of order for the article which he intended shortly to write.
    After the storm it was a perfect summer’s day. The still waters of the loch shimmered vaguely in the heat, and the sky was a clear dome of blue — the blue in a MacTaggart landscape — against which the wheeling seagulls flashed white. The fishing fleet was in, and the masts of the skiffs, which lay in closely packed, irregular ranks, rose like a forest on one side of the quay. James noticed absent-mindedly that on many of the trim little