Presently she said, “And Horace Boiler?”
“He put two and two together about your aunt.” Perhaps it hadn’t been such a perfect murder after all. “He couldn’t have known what really happened. Just that there was something wrong.”
“And he paid the price.”
“He knew what he was doing, miss.” For Horace Boiler anyway Sloan didn’t feel too much pity…
Detective Constable Crosby was waiting in the car for him outside Collerton House. Sloan climbed into the passenger seat and shut the door with quite unnecessary vigour.
“A nasty case,” he said.
Crosby started up the engine.
“Three murders,‘ said Sloan. The only saving grace had been that a wicked man’s cupidity had not succeeded…
“Mr. Basil Jensen,” said Detective Constable Crosby, “wants us to meet him over at Marby.”
Detection demanded many things of a man. A working knowledge of eighteenth-century ships was obviously going to be called for.
“All right,” growled Sloan. “Get going then.”
Crosby pulled the car away from the front door of Collerton House and settled himself at the wheel. He put a respectable distance behind him before he spoke.
“Sir…”
“What is it now?”
“What sits at the bottom of the sea and shivers?”
In the grip of powerful emotion and with an awful fascination Sloan heard himself saying, “I don’t know what sits at the bottom of the sea and shivers.”
“A nervous wreck.”
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Catherine Aird had never tried her hand at writing suspense stories before publishing The Religious Body—a novel which immediately established her as one of the genre’s most talented writers. A Late Phoenix, The Stately Home Murder, His Burial Too, Some Die Eloquent, Henrietta Who?, A Most Contagious Game, Parting Breath and Last Respects have subsequently enhanced her reputation. Her ancestry is Scottish, but she now lives in a village in East Kent, near Canterbury.
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