Gentlemen Formerly Dressed Read Online Free PDF Page A

this is the right suite?” Rowland asked.
    â€œI called on him here yesterday,” Wilfred replied.
    â€œCould he be…?”
    Wilfred shook his head, disgusted. “Quite possibly.” He turned to go.
    But there was something about the woman’s voice. Rowland tapped again.
    â€œMadam, are you all right?” he called through the door.
    Sobbing. Hysterical screaming wails.
    Immediately Rowland tried the handle and, finding the door unlocked, pushed it open.
    The sitting room seemed undisturbed. There was a crystal tumbler, half-filled with brandy, perched on the plush arm of a club seat and the secretaire was open, but otherwise the room was ordered and neat.
    Rowland glanced at his brother. Wilfred gathered himself grimly, and they followed the wailing through to the adjoining bedroom.
    Barely through the doorway, they faltered.
    â€œBloody hell!” Rowland murmured.
    They stared speechless. A man lay on the bed. Rowland could tell it was a man only because the frilled nightdress was pulled up above his waist to reveal those parts of him that were unmistakably male. His face, frozen in some final grimace, was made up like a woman’s and a curly wig sat askew on his head. Whatever the original colour of the lace on the nightdress, it was now red… blood-soaked. One of the man’s hands was clawed around a sword, which had impaled him to the bed, as if he had been trying to remove it before he died.
    A young woman, who seemed barely out of adolescence, stood by the body. She screamed when she saw the Sinclairs, clasping her cut and bloodied hands to her breast and recoiling in terror.
    Rowland waited for his brother’s lead.
    Wilfred spoke evenly, sternly. “Miss Dawe,” he said. “It’s Wilfred Sinclair… we met yesterday. This is my brother Rowland.”
    The young woman stopped screaming and, once reminded, she seemed to recognise Wilfred. “How do you do?” she choked before she crumpled by the bed, crying.
    Wilfred let her be. He motioned Rowland aside. “I’m going to fetch help. Lock the door behind me and admit no one till I return.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œRowly this is Alfred Dawe, the Viscount of Pierrepont. That he is dead is difficult enough without the rest of this getting out.”
    â€œBut…”
    â€œJust stay here and keep Miss Dawe calm if you can. Give her some brandy. I shouldn’t be long.”
    Given no other choice, Rowland did as his brother asked, though he did wonder fleetingly if he’d just bolted himself in with a murderess. He poured a generous brandy for the young woman who he coaxed into the sitting room. He put down the glass so that he could retrieve a handkerchief from his pocket.
    â€œWe will have to find you a doctor,” he murmured, glancing uneasily at the bloody handprints on the bodice of her dress.
    She wrapped the monogrammed square of cloth around her right hand, which was the more seriously cut.
    â€œHow did you hurt yourself?” he asked gently.
    â€œHow did you?” she snapped, then seemed almost immediately regretful. “I was trying to get the sword out… so I could cover him up. I didn’t want anyone to see him like that.” She laughed harshly, maniacally. “You see, the man in the negligee and lipstick is my uncle.”
    At a loss as to how to comfort the girl, Rowland passed her the glass of brandy. She grasped it in two hands, both shaking, and lifting the tumbler to her lips, she downed the fortifying liquid in a single swig. She finished gasping.
    There was knocking on the door and a shout through the keyhole. “I say, is everything all right in there? The chaps and I heard the most frightful racket… Bunky? Are you all right, old bean?”
    Rowland pulled his arm out of the sling, struggling out of his jacket to place it around the shaking girl’s shoulders. He poured her another brandy, ignoring the shouts of,