To The Rescue. Jean Barrett

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      He was to ask himself the same thing a moment later about another mystery when, pausing as they arrived at the top of a spiral stairway, Jennifer turned to the monk with a sober “Brother Timothy, I have another question for you.”

      “If it’s about my days in the ring…”

      “No, nothing like that.” She hesitated before asking what was clearly a self-conscious “Have there…well, ever been any tales about Warley Castle being haunted?”

      Leo stared at her. Hell, was she serious?

      The monk looked amused. “A ghost at Warley? Never heard of any ghost being sighted here. But if one was to turn up, I don’t see our Abbot Stephen tolerating him. Mind the stairs now. They’re a bit steep.”

      There had been her interest in Brother Anthony, Leo thought as they descended the coiling flight. And now she was worried about a ghost? She seemed too levelheaded for that one, but something was up.

      Okay, this made two more questions, among all the rest, that he intended to put to her when they were alone again. He just wished that, breakfast or not, he didn’t have to wait to ask them.

      When they reached a landing less than halfway down the flight, Brother Timothy opened a door on the right and led them through a stone archway into the guests’ dining parlor. Leo could see why it was named that. There was a sitting area at the far end of the long room. It was furnished with easy chairs and a sofa.

      The seven people who occupied the room were all gathered at this end, which served as the dining area. Some of them were busy helping themselves from a breakfast buffet laid out on a sideboard while others were already seated with their plates at a long trestle table.

      Leo was surprised. Considering the weather, he hadn’t expected to find these number of guests at the castle. Or maybe it was just because of the weather that they were here. He could feel glances of curiosity directed at Jennifer and him.

      “No need to go and worry about names,” Brother Timothy assured Jennifer and Leo. “Time for that when you’re settled with your plates.”

      Of all the company, only one of them hovering near the sideboard wore a habit. Leo noticed, however, that he lacked a monk’s tonsure. Brother Timothy asked the young man to join them.

      “Here now, this is our Geoffrey,” he said. “A novice, Geoffrey is, who has yet to take his final vows.”

      Which explained why the young man with his fair hair and pale, melancholy face didn’t have a tonsure yet, Leo guessed. But it didn’t explain why he looked so unhappy when Brother Timothy turned them over to him with a hasty “I’m off to prime.”

      “Prime is one of our daily communal prayers,” Geoffrey said when the monk had departed. “I’m excused. It’s because of Patrick.” He indicated another young man who waited for him at the sideboard. “Patrick is here because he wants to join our order, but he isn’t permitted into the monastery side of the castle until he’s certain of his calling. Father Stephen has asked me to look out for him.”

      And Geoffrey, Leo decided, isn’t any more happy about playing nanny to Patrick than he is about Jennifer and me.

      “Don’t worry, Geoffrey, we can take care of ourselves.”

      An introduction to the breakfast buffet wasn’t a problem anyway. There were more than enough dishes to choose from when he and Jennifer helped themselves at the sideboard. Oatmeal, scrambled eggs, sausages, toast and fish. Why the English had a taste for fish at breakfast was something Leo had never understood. He took some of everything but the fish and the oatmeal. Jennifer, he noticed, had very little on her plate.

      An introduction to the others when they joined them at the table was another matter. They struck Leo as a quirky bunch. Edgy, too, if he wasn’t mistaken, and his work as a P.I. had taught him to be fairly accurate in his observations about people. But the weather was probably responsible for that edginess.

      “Any of you have a working mobile phone?” the woman seated across from him asked. “Mine absolutely refuses to cooperate.”

      The others shook their heads.

      “Well, there you are. We’re not only stranded here, we’re stranded without communication.”

      “Have a battery-operated wireless,” a man down the table said. “A lot of crackle on it, but I was able to raise a weather forecast. More of the same filthy stuff on the way, I’m afraid.”

      “Then we might as well make the best of it.”

      Ignoring Jennifer, she smiled at Leo across the table. A smile that was more than just polite. Hell, was the woman flirting with him? Well, she was attractive enough, if you went for the brittle, consciously elegant type. He wasn’t interested. And wouldn’t have been, even if she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

      “Sybil Harding,” she introduced herself. “And this is my husband, Roger.”

      She indicated the man beside her. He had a moustache and wore a stolid expression on his lined face.

      “Once upon a time Roger was one of the brothers here,” she went on to explain, “which is why he comes back to the monastery on retreat twice a year. A bit excessive, but I think he regards it as a holiday from me. One can only imagine his disappointment when, after dropping him off, a blocked road forced me to turn back.”

      Roger Harding’s face reddened. “These people aren’t interested in hearing this, Sybil.”

      “Dear heart, we’re all in this together, so why not be friendly?” She turned her attention back to Leo. “Let me see now. You’ve already met Geoffrey and Patrick, haven’t you?”

      Leo glanced in the direction of the two young men. He hadn’t noticed it before, but the novice had shadows under his eyes, as if he’d slept badly. His charge beside him, skinny, round-shouldered and with a face suffering from acne, looked equally miserable. Maybe because he was painfully shy or because Geoffrey pointedly ignored him.

      “And the other couple there,” Sybil went on, “are the Brashers. Fiona and Alfred, I believe.”

      A timid-looking pair, they nodded by way of acknowledgment.

      “If they have an exciting tale of their own,” Sybil said, “then we have yet to hear it.”

      Alfred Brasher cleared his throat before responding with a quiet “Just travelers on our way to the coast and caught on the road like the rest of you.”

      The group seemed to have already been told beforehand who he and Jennifer were, Leo thought, helping himself to more coffee from the pot on the table. And maybe how they had ended up at Warley themselves. No one asked, anyway.

      “And our friend with the battery-powered wireless,” Sybil continued, gesturing toward the balding, thick-waisted fellow at the end of the table, “is—”

      “Harry Ireland,” he introduced himself. “In sales. I call at the monastery every few months to take orders on goods the brothers like delivered to their gate, then move on to the next place. Some people still like the old-fashioned door-to-door service.” A laugh rumbled out of him. “Couldn’t move on this time, what?”

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