Jemima Shore at the Sunny Grave Read Online Free PDF Page B

concentrated desperately on what Joseph Archer was telling her, the picture he was re-creating of the night of the murder. The shock of learning that Tina Archer had also been present in the house when Miss Izzy was killed was irrational: she realized that. Hadn’t Tina promised the old lady to stay with her?
    Joseph was telling her that Miss Izzy’s body had been found in the drawing-room by the cook Hazel, returning from her sister’s wedding at first light. It was a grisly touch that because Miss Izzy was wearing red silk pyjamas (“her Daddy’s”), and all the furnishings of the drawing-room were dark red as well, poor Hazel had not at first realized the extent of her mistress’s injuries: the blood which was everywhere as her little body lay slumped in the centre of the room. Not only was there blood everywhere, there was water too, pools of it. Whatever—whoever it was had killed Miss Izzy had come out of the sea. Wearing rubber shoes—or flippers—and probably gloves as well.
    A moment later Hazel was in no doubt about what had hit Miss Izzy. The club, still stained with blood, had beenleft lying on the floor of the hall (the cook, deposited by Henry, had originally entered by the kitchen door). The club, although not of Bo’lander manufacture, belonged to the house: it was a relic, African probably, of Sir John Archers travels in other parts of the former British Empire, and hung heavy and short-handled on the drawing-room wall. Possibly Sir John had in mind to wield it against unlawful intruders; to Miss Izzy it had been simply one more family memento. She never touched it. Now it had killed her.
    “No prints anywhere. So far. That’s what Sandy Marlow told me.”
    “And Tina?” asked Jemima with dry lips; the idea of the pools of water stagnant on the floor of the drawing-room mingled with Miss Izzy’s blood reminded her only too vividly of the old lady when last seen: soaking wet in her bizarre swimming costume of shirt and shorts, defiantly sitting down on her own sofa.
    “The robber ransacked the house. Even the cellar—the champagne cases Miss Izzy boasted about must have been too heavy, though. He drank some rum. The police don’t know yet just what he took—silver snuff-boxes maybe, plenty of those about. Hazel hated to clean them.” Joseph sighed. “Then he went upstairs.”
    “And found Tina Archer?”
    “In one of the bedrooms. He didn’t hit her with the same weapon—lucky for her—as he’d have killed her just like he killed Miss Izzy, Left it downstairs and picked up something a good deal lighter. Probably didn’t reckon seeing her or anyone there at all. Thought the house would be quite empty with Hazel going away. ’Cept for Miss Izzy that is. She must have surprised him. Maybe she woke up: robbers—well, our island is a good place, Jemima, even if like everywhere in the whole wide world it holds some badpeople too. All I can say is that robbers here don’t generally go and kill people unless they’re frightened.”
    Without warning Joseph Archer slumped down in front of her and put his head in his hands. He murmured something like, “When we find him, who did it to Miss Izzy—”
    It was not until the next day that Tina Archer was able to speak even haltingly to the police. Like most of the rest of the Bow Island population, Jemima Shore was informed of the fact almost immediately. Claudette, manageress of her hotel, a sympathetic if loquacious character, just happened to have a niece who was a nurse … but that was the way information always spread about the island, no need for newspapers or radio. This private telegraph was far more efficient.
    Jemima had spent the intervening twenty-four hours swimming rather aimlessly, sunbathing and making little tours of the island in her Mini. She was wondering at what point she should inform Megalith Television of the brutal way in which her projected programme had been terminated and make arrangements to return to London.