WHO KILLED CHARMIAN KARSLAKE? (Murder Mystery Classic). Annie Haynes

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      "Don't talk such nonsense," Mrs. Richard reproved.

      She was a typical-looking American: slim, smart, with a wonderfully tinted skin, bright, restless eyes, elaborately dressed hair, and a frock that was the latest fashion from Paris. It was extremely short, extremely skimpy. Her long, thin legs, in their silk stockings, were crossed as she leaned back against the high wooden mantelpiece, and her little feet in the suede shoes were tapping restlessly on the floor, their elaborate buckles twinkling as they moved.

      "What gun?" she went on in her high-pitched voice. "If she had been playing about with one it would have been found there on the ground or in her hand. Besides, who locked the door and took the key away?"

      "Was the door locked and the key taken away?" Lady Moreton inquired.

      "I should just about think the door was locked and the key taken away," Mrs. Richard mimicked. "Really, you British are the limit. Now, in the States, we should be just frantic. Hurrying up the police in every way we knew and going mad until the right man was in the Tombs. And you—you just sit on that chesterfield, and stare up at me—'was the door locked and the key taken away?' you say. I declare I could shake you."

      "It would not do any good if you did," said Lady Moreton, listlessly. "Oh, it is all horrible!" She shivered from head to foot. "I wish I had never asked her here."

      "Yes. That is just the sort of thing you would wish," Mrs. Richard observed. "But it doesn't help matters much. I dare say Charmian Karslake would have been shot anyhow. I have no doubt that the criminal followed her down from town, and just came and mixed with your guests till he saw his opportunity and then concealed himself till the lights were out, and then went up and shot her. Ugh! Ugh! What do you make of it, Miss Galbraith?"

      Thus directly appealed to, the third member, Paula Galbraith, turned from the window against which she had been leaning.

      She was a tall, slim girl, with a pretty, shingled head, with hair of the hue her friends called golden, her enemies, of which pretty Paula had few, sandy. Her skin was of the clear, pure white that goes with the hair, and with a faint rose-flush in her cheeks that flickered deeper and fainter as she talked.

      As she glanced at Mrs. Richard a momentary look of fear flashed into her blue eyes, which did not escape the astute young American.

      "I don't know at all," she hesitated. "I have never been mixed up in anything of the kind before, and I don't understand—"

      "Bless my life! We have none of us ever been mixed up in a murder before," Mrs. Richard said impatiently. "But that doesn't prevent us using our wits now we have encountered one. What puzzles me, is that nobody seems to have heard the shot. Dick and I were pretty near, but not a sound reached us. Reached me—I should say—for Dick's dressing-room is on the other side, farther away from Miss Karslake's than mine. For that matter, I must have been one of the last people that saw Charmian alive.

      "My door was open, and I was looking out for Dicky when she went by. 'Good night! Miss Karslake. Some dance, wasn't it?' I said, and she called back, ''Yes, wasn't it? They do these things better here than we can in the States.' 'I say, I want to look at your mascot,' I said. 'Why?' She just laughed and held it out to me. 'Oh, I wish to see if it tells me anything of your future,' I said, and took the chain into my hand and looked right into the sapphire ball. I have what you people over here call 'psychic powers,' and I have seen some queer things in these balls."

      She stopped and helped herself to a cigarette from a box on the mantelpiece and lighted it very deliberately.

      "Go on, Sadie! Go on!" her sister-in-law said impatiently. "What did you see?"

      "Why, nothing," said Mrs. Richard slowly. "That is to say, the thing clouded over at first, as it always does, and then I saw a lot of things all mixed up. Soldiers, and it looked like people being killed and all that, and then I saw Charmian herself. She was all smiling as if she was beckoning somebody. Then something came along right between us. It seemed like a man's back and it seemed that I ought to know whose back it was, but I couldn't remember. Anyhow, it blotted out Charmian, and look as I would I couldn't see her any more. I suspect that it was the man who shot her. 'Well,' she said, ''what have you got to tell me?' 'Nothing,' I said, 'I was just looking at you, and a man came right between, and I couldn't tell her any more.' I think she was disappointed, but she laughed and nodded and said good night, and went on, poor dear, to meet her doom, not knowing—"

      She paused as a footman entered the room.

      "If you please, my lady, Sir Arthur sent me to say that the police from Scotland Yard have come. They are in the library and they want to speak to you, please, my lady."

      "To me!" Lady Moreton drew herself up out of her corner and pushed back the hair that was falling over her forehead. "I don't know why they should want me," she went on fretfully. "And why did not Sir Arthur come himself?"

      "He is in the library, my lady, with the other gentlemen. They all came to the door together as I was coming by, and I heard Sir Arthur say, 'I will tell them,' and the other gentlemen said, 'No, send someone and ask her ladyship to come.' And then, Sir Arthur, he sent me."

      Lady Moreton got up. "Oh, well, I suppose I must."

      "Of course; we shall all have to go," Mrs. Richard said. "We will come with you now."

      She turned to follow her sister-in-law, but the man interposed.

      "If you please, ma'am, Sir Arthur said I was to say the gentlemen particularly wished to see her ladyship alone."

      Sadie turned up her pert little nose. "Very well, I am sure he can. Come, Miss Galbraith, you and I will talk things over and see if we can think of anything." Lady Penn-Moreton did not hear Miss Galbraith's response as the door of the morning-room closed behind her.

      "You wanted to see me—to ask me something?" The inspector bowed. "If you would be kind enough to tell us all that you know of Miss Karslake. How you made her acquaintance, in the first place, and what you saw of her after her coming to Hepton?"

      Lady Moreton bit her lip.

      "That amounts to practically nothing. A hostess has so little time for individual guests on the eve of a big entertainment, and Miss Karslake did not come down until the late afternoon train. As to how I made her acquaintance, a small child met with a terrible accident in the street. Miss Karslake and I were both passing. I was in the car and she was walking, and we both went to help the little thing. Eventually we took it to the nearest hospital—the Midland. Then we went to fetch the mother and drove her there. When we had done all we could, I asked if I could drive her home. On the way Miss Karslake talked of her interest in all sorts of antiquities, and finally accepted an invitation to come to Porthill Square and see some of the old prints of the Abbey. I had recognized her, of course, at once. I found her just as charming and delightful as rumour had declared her to be. When we decided to have this dance to welcome Mr. and Mrs. Richard on their return, I determined to send her an invitation. I was pleased, and, yes, perhaps a little flattered, when she accepted."

      "Why flattered?" The inspector glanced at her keenly. "I should have thought that Lady Penn-Moreton's invitation would have been considered an honour."

      Lady Penn-Moreton smiled faintly. "Charmian Karslake had refused invitations from much more important people than I am. I believe that she came here because she wanted to see the Abbey, principally."

      The inspector looked at his notes and frowned. "Yet there are other houses as old and as interesting to the antiquarian as СКАЧАТЬ