Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

ground floor of a single-storey building that abutted the yellow brick loggia of Cambridge Railway Station. To the left lay a waiting room and Miss Morrison’s office. To the right lay the rooms of the two partners, Clive Morton and Stephen Staunton.
    On arrival, Sidney was somewhat surprised by the appearance of the victim’s secretary. He could not remember seeing her at the funeral and was now guilty of a presumption. He had been expecting a cliché: a woman in a green tweed skirt with her hair pinned into a neat bun; someone who had been educated at Girton and now lived with her mother and a couple of cats. What he discovered instead was an elegant and petite woman in her late thirties with swift eyes and finely angled features. She was dressed entirely in black and white and wore silver jewellery that matched her elegantly styled grey hair.
    ‘Miss Morrison . . . I don’t think we’ve met.’
    ‘I scurried away after the service, I am afraid. It was all too upsetting as I am sure you must appreciate.’
    ‘I can imagine,’ Sidney began, already regretting the fact that he had come.
    What was he doing getting involved in all this? he thought to himself. As an ordinand he had imagined the tranquil lifestyle of a quiet country parson, but now here he was, poking his nose into other people’s business, involving himself in matters in which he was plainly out of his depth. He had to concentrate on the official reason for his visit: the acquisition of Stephen Staunton’s will.
    ‘I hope I am not calling at an inconvenient time?’ he asked.
    ‘There is still so much tidying up to be done. But my job is half of what it used to be and I am not sure whether we will be getting another partner . . .’
    Sidney looked down at Miss Morrison’s desk, with its papers scattered beside a well-used typewriter. A bag of lemon drops rested on top of what appeared to be a thick Russian novel.
    ‘What can I do for you?’ she asked
    ‘I have come on behalf of Mrs Staunton,’ Sidney began. So far this was, approximately, true. ‘As you can imagine, she is not feeling particularly strong at the moment. I offered to enquire as to whether her husband had left a will.’
    ‘I have thought about this, Canon Chambers, and it is an odd thing. He did not. Like many solicitors they may be good at drawing up instructions for other people but they are absent-minded when looking after themselves.’
    ‘And Mr Staunton needed a bit of looking after?’
    ‘My employer was not the most methodical of people.’
    ‘But you kept his diary, managed his appointments, that kind of thing?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘You organised his life?’
    ‘Not entirely.’
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘He liked to be mysterious at times.’
    ‘I suppose most people like to have an area of their life that is private. I know I do myself.’
    Miss Morrison began to explain. ‘Mr Staunton kept his own pocket diary and so if people spoke directly with him then he would write it down there and it often led to confusion. If he made arrangements in the evenings, for example, and then didn’t tell me the next morning, we would have a number of double bookings; but, in general, we rubbed along very well.’
    ‘So he didn’t always tell you everything?’
    ‘He liked his privacy. And he did not want to be pinned down by too many appointments.’
    Sidney found the matter-of-fact tone unconvincing. ‘I am sorry to have to ask this, Miss Morrison, but was your employer a difficult man?’
    ‘He wasn’t easy but when you’ve been with someone for so long you get used to their ways.’
    Sidney was about to ask a leading question about the state of Stephen Staunton’s mind at the time of his death but a train steamed past so loudly that it shook the windows. ‘Good Heavens,’ he said.
    ‘It’s only the express that makes that much noise. They’re every two hours so it isn’t too bad. You get used to it.’
    Sidney had planned to return to what he hoped