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.They all looked marginally relieved they hadn’t been allocated the messy end to deal with.We got him onto the stretcher easily enough; although when I lifted the body by the shoulders the head was resting against me and I finished up in a fairly gory mess.I could tell by what little I had chance to see of the injury that the back of Beaumont’s head had taken the brunt of the attack.The skull appeared to have been crushed.We got the body to the stables but I insisted on taking several close-up shots of the crushed skull before we left the makeshift mortuary.Even though I had remained calm throughout I was more than happy when Tony locked the stables door; leaving Beaumont lying in state in a room that, I discovered later, had once been home to a Grand National winner.I followed the other three back inside the castle.I was shocked to see how bloody my clothing and hands had become; so too were the others, to judge from the way they avoided looking at me.‘Is there another way upstairs?’ I asked Tony.‘I’d rather avoid everyone until I’ve had chance to get cleaned up.’He showed me a servants’ staircase I hadn’t noticed earlier that ran from a door at the end of Rathbone’s pantry.I wondered how we’d come to miss it during our earlier search.I was in my room about to start washing my hands when the door opened.I glanced over my shoulder to see Eve hobble in.‘You shouldn’t be walking around, you ought to be resting that leg,’ I told her.She sat on the bed.‘I came to see if you’re OK,’ she said quietly.‘I will be when I get cleaned up.At the moment I feel like Lady Macbeth.How are things downstairs?’‘All the others are in the sitting room at Tony’s order.They’re staring at each other as if the person next to them is Jack the Ripper.’‘Hardly surprising, I suppose.I can’t say I feel too much sympathy for them.’I turned to the washbasin and took the soap from the dish and began washing the blood from my hands.I went to replace the soap on its shell-shaped receptacle and stopped.I peered at it closely.‘That’s odd,’ I said, half to myself.‘What’s odd?’ Eve asked.‘Here, on the soap, what do you think that is?’Eve hobbled across and stood looking over my shoulder.She was wearing a gently musky scent that I found mildly disturbing.She looked at the bar of soap I was holding, ‘Those bits, you mean? What do you think they are?’‘They feel like grit to me,’ I said, having rubbed one of them between my fingers.‘That’s strange; I wonder how they got there?’‘Have you been handling stone at all?’‘No, you were with me until we went out to photograph and move the body.That’s just what we did; which to my mind seems to indicate that the grit was mixed with the blood.That’s the only way I can think that it could have got onto my hands.’‘What you’re saying is that whoever murdered Beaumont hit him over the head with a stone?’Eve was still standing close to me.I picked up the towel and began drying my hands.‘You’ve got blood all the way up the sleeve of your sweater.’ She took my hand and was pointing to it when the door opened.I suppose to anyone looking from a few yards away it must indeed have looked as if we were holding hands.‘I came to see if you were all right,’ Polly said.‘But I see you have company,’ – her lip curled – ‘of a sort.I didn’t realize your preference was for jailbirds.’I winced as the door slammed into the frame.Fortunately, both were of solid oak otherwise I reckon they’d have splintered into matchwood under the force of Polly’s ill-tempered departure.‘Oh dear, I think I’ve spoiled her little scheme,’ Eve said.I looked at her in mild surprise.The Eve I’d met yesterday would have been raging with fury by now.‘Does that upset you?’ I asked.‘Not in the slightest,’ she replied.‘More to the point, has it upset your plans?’‘Certainly not, contrary to popular belief round here.’ Eve grinned as I continued, ‘I have absolutely no plans.Not for Polly or anyone else.What was the jailbird crack about?’We were suddenly both aware that we were, to all intents and purposes, still holding hands.Eve didn’t seem in any hurry to let go and I wasn’t either.‘That woman should have a Government Health Warning tattooed on her forehead,’ Eve said, ‘that or a skull and crossbones.’‘What is it between you two?’ I asked.‘She hasn’t a good word to say about you and she certainly isn’t at the top of your popularity poll.’‘I think she detests me because I’ve been moderately successful in life,’ Eve said thoughtfully.‘I think she believes I did it on the back of father’s money but that isn’t true.Everything I have is down to what I’ve earned.I resent her influence over Harriet.I don’t think it’s a healthy one and I dislike the way she uses people, men in particular; then casts them aside when she’s had what she wants from them.’I released her hand and turned to take my bloodstained sweater off.‘There, and I thought you were fighting over me,’ I joked.Eve’s reply was so quiet I didn’t hear it, but I was looking into the mirror and I’ve always been a fairly good lip reader.Maybe I got it wrong.The mirror was a little distorted but as far as I could tell Eve had said, ‘Maybe that’s true also.’ Or perhaps that was just wishful thinking on my part.It was only later that I realized Eve hadn’t answered my question about Polly’s jailbird statement.Tony was waiting for us at the foot of the staircase when we reached the ground floor.To all intents and purposes we must have looked like an old married couple as we came down the flight of shallow steps.The handrail was on the wrong side to be of any use to Eve, so I offered her my arm for support; which she was glad to accept.‘Adam, I want a word in my study; Eve can wait in the sitting room with the others,’ Tony said tersely even before we’d finished our descent.I let him go a couple of paces before I spoke.‘You’ll have to wait a while,’ I told him.Whether it was my tone or the fact that I’d contradicted him that pulled him up I wasn’t sure.He turned and for the first time I saw a tinge of anger in his cheeks.‘We need to start work as the police have asked,’ he told me shortly.‘Yes, I accept that; but Beaumont’s dead.A few minutes here and there isn’t going to make any difference to him.In the meantime if you want me to try and find out what happened to him and if you’re serious about me investigating this curse business; we’ll do it my way, thank you.The first thing I’m going to do is find a suitable walking stick for Eve to use.She insists on walking about when she should be resting, so at least we can get her a bit of help.Secondly, I want to know how young Charlie is after his ordeal.Then, when we do start taking statements, I want Eve in the study taking notes.She and I are the only ones who do shorthand.’I’m not sure if anyone had ever spoken to Tony that way before.I wanted to get the ground rules straight before we started.I also wanted to see if his annoyance would flare into anger.Tony smiled.‘Sorry,’ he said mildly.‘I was getting above myself.The whole mess has got to me a bit, I’m afraid.You see to Eve, then come along and we’ll make a start, shall we? Doing it your way,’ he added.I was pleased that my opinion of Tony had been so rapidly endorsed.‘You were a bit hard on him, weren’t you?’ Eve asked as I helped her choose a walking stick of the right length.‘I want to run this my way; that was one reason.I also wanted to test a theory.’‘What, another theory?’ Eve arched her eyebrows in ironic mock surprise.‘Yes, believe it or not I have more than one [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]