No Rest for the Dove Read Online Free PDF

the large house, on his way back to the Blue Boar.
    “This thing may well have one or two points of interest,” Longfellow mused, looking more closely at the moist coins in his hand. “Will you come, Lahte? Good. Cicero? I thought not. Mrs. Willett, will you wait for us here or return to your own chores?”
    “If we’re to suppose this unfortunate man traveled here to meet someone, as you say,” she replied, “then it might be better if I went with you. For what if he came to see me?”
    “To buy a pound of butter? Unlikely, but as good a reason as any, I suppose, to examine a corpse. Come along then, Carlotta. But wait a moment….”
    Longfellow strode past Cicero into the kitchen. On his return, he carried a small box of coals.
    “For fumigation,” he explained. “Now I believe we’re ready.”
    With that, the small party started off across the fields, leaving Cicero sitting silhouetted under the cool green vines, finishing the plate of pears.
    * Roughly,
“How rare, gentle, and worthy of love, this dear shade.”

Chapter 4

    I T’S A CONVENIENCE built this spring,” said Richard Longfellow as they walked between weathered headstones, along a shaded path.
    He went on to explain that the subterranean chamber behind the burial ground had seemed a useful idea, when suggested by a pair of men in need of work. The selectmen had gladly approved the digging of a temporary site where they might leave the dead, when circumstances kept the unfortunate souls from being immediately interred in the churchyard. Everyone knew it was no easy thing to take a pick to frozen earth; nor did anyone want to worry about the spread of putrid fever in warmer weather.
    “Down these steps, and leave the door open; I’ll just touch this scrap of paper to the coals, and light the pair of candles. No, I don’t know this man. Do you, Mrs. Willett?”
    Charlotte, too, descended into the close, timbered space, where the aroma of damp earth vied with something less wholesome. She saw the body lying on a trestle table, and looked instinctively to the closed eyelids, then at the waxy face. The man’s pale features suggested someone of perhaps forty-five, possibly fifty. Clearly, this wasn’t a farmer who’d spent his days in the sun. His oily hair had a reddish hue, as did the short curls on the knuckles of his smooth, unbruised, and unadorned hands. The nails were surprisingly clean—a benefit of long gnawing by their owner. She speculated he was a person whose fortunes had fluctuated. Though his apparel was quite worn, it seemed to be made of thin-stranded and tightly woven fabric, surely not home-loomed. It looked as if the cut of the coat was original, and the stitchwork good; yet there was something unfamiliar in the proportions of the garments, as well as their finishing details. Over much of this clothing there was a dark stain—which accounted for the smell.
    Looking up, Charlotte at last shook her head to Longfellow’s question, while noting that Signor Lahte stared hard into the stranger’s face, as she had. He then pulled himself together with a start.
    “Can it be,” Longfellow asked in surprise, “that
you
know this man, Gian Carlo?” A brief wave dismissed the idea. But Longfellow persisted in his concern.
    “You seem unwell. The stench is strong, and the stagnation of the air may have caused it to lose its potency—er—well. Perhaps we should move on.”
    Lahte now attempted an explanation of his own. “Richard, a man of art … of strong feeling … he can be—” The musico suddenly fumbled for his handkerchief, and held it tightly over his distressed features.
    “Something of a shock, I would agree. I, too, have little stomach for viewing death. Though something tells me Mrs. Willett will linger a while longer.”
    Charlotte looked up from examining a marred hat she’d found on the beaten dirt of the floor. “Surely, offering a prayer would be appropriate?”
    “Hmmm,” Longfellow responded as he led