The Body In the Belfry Read Online Free PDF Page A

brow. Their neighbor Pix’s husband, Sam Miller, was a lawyer and had been known to let harmless but tasty tidbits of information fall from the table.
    â€œPlease, Faith,” Tom protested, “After all this mess with my mother’s family I don’t even want to hear the word will !”

    â€œI’m sorry, sweetheart, just thinking out loud.”
    Tom’s grandmother had died the previous spring and Marian, his mother, fully expected to claim the garnet brooch, wedding pearls, cameo, diamond lavaliere, and other mementos, which her mother had indicated were her birthright since she was a little girl. It had been a shock to discover that her mother had left her house and its contents to Marian’s brother, who had moved in with his wife to take care of her seven years earlier. Even then Marian had assumed they would share and share alike as was the right thing to do. Months of wrangling and eventually a hefty lawyer’s fee trying to prove undue influence had left her without so much as a jet hat pin.
    Faith shook her head.
    â€œNo, I don’t think it was money. If she had already inherited, then it would make sense. And anyway, given Cindy, sex is a more logical motive.” She held out her empty glass. “Un peu more brandy, s’il vous plait,” she said, slipping into Tom’s eccentric French. (She had noticed that married people seemed to pick up each other’s habits, although so far she didn’t see Tom adopting any of hers.) “It helps one think so much more clearly. Except that we should be drinking Scotch and calling for Asta.”
    Tom took her glass and looked down at her reprovingly, “Have your fun tonight, Nora Charles. I’ll talk with you about all this until the cows come home, but if you have any idea of doing some sleuthing, with or without your Nick, forget it. I like you without roses stuck in your side.”
    â€œDon’t be silly, Tom. What can I do, after all? Maybe ask a few questions here and there. Do admit, this is pretty exciting. When is the last time they had a murder in Aleford anyway?”
    â€œI have no idea. Although I did hear something about one of the Hales running amok in the thirties and killing
his wife’s dog, then being prevented just in time by a neighbor from giving its mistress forty whacks as well.”
    â€œSo mine could be Aleford’s first real murder!”
    â€œI doubt it, Faith, and in any case it’s not yours.”
    â€œOurs then.”
    â€œNo, absolutely not.”
    â€œYou’re just being cranky because you’re hungry and so am I. Did we have any supper? I can’t remember. Anyway, I’m starving.”
    Faith was always starving, Tom thought happily. What a good idea it had been to marry someone who shared and satisfied his hungers so well.
    He followed her into the large kitchen and sat at the big round table while she split some bread in half and liberally covered it with chèvre and toasted walnuts before running it under the broiler for a moment. The kitchen bore little resemblance to the room Tom had used infrequently during his brief bachelor days in the parsonage. Faith had kept the old glass-fronted cabinets, but everything else had been torn out. She had actually shuddered when she saw the electric stove, vintage to be sure, and the single sink next to a small drainboard, the only counter in the room. Now with her gleaming, glass-fronted refrigerator, Garland stove, rows of hanging pots and pans, miles of white formica counters with a marble insert for pastry making, and a black and white tile floor, Faith felt at home. The table stood by a bow window overlooking the garden. As a concession to the setting, Faith had covered the window seats and chair cushions with Souleiado Provençal fabric. “But no country, Tom, nothing with cows on it and not even one dried flower wreath, please,” she had stated emphatically.
    In between crusty