The Blue Girl Read Online Free PDF

imagine a croaking voice from somewhere up ahead—
Turn back, turn back, you pretty thing
—but it was only the wind in the trees. Gas lamps were lit all along the path and I followed them to the massive front door, a single panel of oak that must have been imported at great expense. The brass knocker in the center of the door was in the shape of a wolf’s head. I rapped three times and waited, and after several long minutes I heard footsteps from within and the door swung open. A small, silent man in an inexpensive dark suit stood looking out at me. I handed him my calling card and he beckoned me inside. The door closed behind me and I was ushered through a vast entrance hall hung with a handful of colorful tapestries. Between the hangings were rectangular patches of dark bare stone. A chandelier dangled inches above my head and I noticed that the brass arches of it were coated with a heavy layer of dust. The place smelled as if it had needed a good airing out a year or two before and had now given up.
    The man asked me to wait and went ahead of me into a dim room. I caught just a glimpse of dark wood and brown furniture before the door closed in my face. I waited. After a moment, the door opened again and the little fellow waved me in before disappearing back down the hall.
    A man stood behind a desk across the room from me. He was surrounded by heavy floor-to-ceiling shelves, all stuffed with dusty books. A mirror in a gilt frame the size of a small carriage filled half of the wall to my right and magnified the effect of the books across from it. I took a quick inventory of those books. The old priest would have been shocked by the number of marbled spines among them. I recognized the well-worn cover of a book on his desk before the man started speaking and demanded my attention.
    “Inspector Pringle?”
    “Sir.”
    “So good of you to come by.”
    The man stepped around the side of the desk and held his hand out for me to shake. He seemed to have been expecting me. I noted the excellent tailoring of his earth-colored suit. He wore a cravat at his throat and his new brown shoes were stiff and polished to a high sheen. I took his hand.
    “I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch your name,” I said.
    “But you’re in my house. I assumed you knew who you were visiting.”
    “You’d be Mr Cream, then?”
    “Indeed, I am. Geoffrey Cream.”
    “That book,” I said, “I recognize it.” I pointed at the familiar blue cover of
Marriage, Custom and Practise
on his desk. “Robert Cream, the author . . . was he related to you?”
    “Our father,” he said. It sounded like the start of a prayer.
    “Then you’re just the man I wish to speak to,” I said.
    Geoffrey Cream took his hand from mine and smoothed the front of his waistcoat before leaning against a corner of the desk. “Yes?”
    “I’d appreciate a few moments of your time, if it’s no trouble.”
    “Of course. Please forgive me if I don’t seem awfully friendly. I’ve had a rather befuddling night and haven’t had a chance to catch up yet. I’m even wearing yesterday’s clothing.”
    “I can’t imagine.” I really couldn’t.
    He raised an eyebrow and nodded. If he hadn’t slept, he had at least taken the time to groom. His hair was oiled and brushed straight back from his wide brow, and his mustache had been waxed and shaped. He looked like an illustration from a men’s adventure magazine. Or something from that fairy tale about the wolf in human guise.
    “Why such a hard night, Mr Cream?”
    “My wife’s disappeared. Is that why you’ve come, Inspector? You have news about her?”
    I took the blue girl’s portrait out of my pocket and unfolded it. I handed it to Cream. He swallowed hard and dropped the paper on the desk beside him.
    “That’s her,” he said.
    “What was her name?”
    “
Was?
She’s dead?” He seemed, in that moment, like a man genuinely concerned about his wife. The moment passed. He started to fold his arms, then