Time Rovers 03 Madman's Dance Read Online Free PDF Page B

evidence he’d uncovered would overturn Keats’ arrest warrant. It had not come to pass, even though he had proved that his friend was too short to have murdered the Hallcox woman. The legal machinery, once in motion, was very hard to stop.
    “Doctor?” the constable called, waving him up the stairs.
    That came more quickly than expected. Alastair squared his shoulders and marched upward.
    “Ah, Dr. Montrose,” Fisher greeted, rising from behind his desk. Keats’ superior was immaculate, his beard and moustache well groomed. He was always that way, no matter the time of day. The instant he saw Alastair’s ravaged face, he winced. “Please sit. We have some matters to discuss.”
    The other man in the room wasn’t someone the doctor relished. Inspector Hulme, the local inspector in charge of the Hallcox murder investigation, eyed him glumly.
    “Doctor,” he muttered.
    Alastair nodded in reply. Fisher leaned forward, his eyes full of morbid curiosity. “You are definitely singed around the edges, Doctor.”
    “To be blunt, it was a hellish night.”
    “So I hear,” Fisher replied. “I must thank you for coming to us. You were not at your boarding house this morning, and your landlady was unsure of your location.”
    “I stayed the night with Dr. Bishop. I was too exhausted to return to my own bed.”
    “I see. Do tell us what happened, will you?”
    Alastair related the evening’s events, or at least the parts he thought the police might accept. Telling them that Miss Lassiter was actually from the future would only earn him ridicule and render his other testimony suspect. He hardly believed it himself at times.
    “What of the fire itself?” Fisher quizzed.
    “I have no notion how it began. I went to fetch a constable and when I returned, the building was ablaze.”
    “Where is Miss Lassiter now?” Fisher asked.
    “I am not sure. She does tend to wander,” he remarked, hoping with all his might that it was true this time.
    “Indeed. What were you doing there?”
    “I was looking for Keats.” As you asked me to.
    “So why was Miss Lassiter there?” Hulme jumped in.
    Alastair had wondered how long the inspector would hold his silence.
    “She was particularly interested in Effington, ever since the assassination attempt at his party. She’d heard that he was skimming goods off the top of his customers’ loads and hiding them in one of his own warehouses. She wanted to investigate the claim.”
    Hulme scowled. “I suppose it never occurred to her that there is a paid constabulary in this city.”
    The doctor swore he heard a chuckle from Fisher.
    “Miss Lassiter is single-minded, Inspector,” Alastair explained. “Once she has the bit in her teeth, there is no means of stopping her.”
    “I will vouch for that, Hulme,” Fisher added. “I’ve spoken at length with the woman, and she is quite tenacious.”
    “So it seems,” Hulme grumbled.
    “Is she still residing at the Charing Cross Hotel?” Fisher asked.
    “No,” Alastair replied. “She’s staying in a room at Pratchett’s Bookshop in the Strand.”
    “Why?” Hulme challenged.
    “You’ll have to ask her.”
    “From what I gather,” the chief inspector interjected, “they’re still digging through the remains of the warehouse, but they have not found any further corpses.”
    “Thank God,” Alastair murmured.
    “Did you kill Hugo Effington?” Hulme asked.
    Alastair’s eyes widened. “No.”
    “Set fire to the building?”
    “No. Why do you think I would do such things?”
    Hulme only smirked for an answer, making Alastair’s gut churn. Does he know about what happened in Wales?
    “We put these sorts of questions to anyone who may have been at the scene of a crime, Doctor,” Fisher remarked.
    “Even when you know what the answer will be?”
    “Of course. Sometimes you receive a reply that surprises you,” the senior officer replied. “Who do you think might have killed him?”
    “Given his egregious behavior,