Read Online Christmas is Murder by C. S. Challinor - Free Book Online

his bed upstairs, he had two murders to mull over.
    “Ring Around the Rosie,” Charley chanted, encircling the girl’s waist with his arm as she approached the card table.
    “Watch out, I’ll drop the tray!” Laughing, she refilled his cup. “Would you like some more coffee?” she asked Yvette.
    “No, thank you very much,” the newlywed replied with icy dignity, staring furiously at Charley.
    “Not for me, thanks, Rosie.” Helen glanced over at Charley. “You’re in high spirits,” she said, knitting needles clicking.
    It sounded like a reproach to Rex, though the delivery was neutral enough.
    “What’s the point in wallowing in doom and gloom? Like that pair over there,” he added under his breath, just loud enough that Rex heard.
    Rex glanced to the other side of the room where Anthony sprawled despondently in his usual armchair by the fire, which had petered out, leaving a mound of cooling ash in the grate.
    Rex stepped toward him, careful not to spill his coffee. “You look a wee bit under the weather, Anthony.”
    “I’m going to have nightmares tonight. I keep seeing her staring eyes. It’s as though she’s reproaching me.”
    “I have something you can take to help you sleep,” Patrick said in soothing tones. “It’s all-natural and quite safe.”
    “I’m glad you never saw her,” Anthony told his partner.
    “Aye, but the best thing we can do now is find out who did it. Yvette, are you ready with that talcum powder?” Rex gave Rosie instructions as to the other items he needed, including the tray she was holding, which he asked her to clean top and bottom.
    Lowering himself onto a tapestry footstool in front of the fire, he asked Anthony to describe the scene at tea the previous afternoon. He thought it might help get Anthony’s mind off Miriam and provide additional information while they waited to see what clues, if any, the candlesticks revealed.
    “The old man served himself coffee by mistake,” Anthony recounted. “He was already sitting down and since I was going to get more tea for myself, I offered to get him some as well. We were discussing how bad sugar was for the health, and he mentioned wearing dentures from eating too much of it. I noticed he was spooning the icing out of his tart. Why are you asking? Has this anything to do with Miriam?”
    Rex stirred his coffee. “Possibly.”
    “You’re suggesting that Lawdry was murdered too, aren’t you?”
    “We don’t know for sure.”
    A brief chat with each of the other guests who had been present at tea corroborated Anthony’s account and that of Patrick earlier that day. All the guests had been in the drawing room except Charley and Yvette Perkins. Lawdry helped himself to the coffee and iced tart. Anthony was on his way back from the table with Lawdry’s cup of tea when the old man succumbed to a seizure. Patrick came to his assistance first. Anthony left to get Charley from the honeymoon suite. By the time the medic reached the old man, he was dead.
    As Rex recalled, the cook had mentioned Anthony and Miriam coming into the kitchen on occasion, but anyone could have snuck in, just as Clifford had managed to smuggle the sherry and dog past her. And yet, if someone had tampered with the tart, how could that person have known whose plate it would end up on? Just as perplexing, the old man didn’t appear to have any personal connection to Ms. Greenbaum. Perhaps a dusting of the candlesticks would produce the necessary leads.
    “Rosie, would you be kind enough to fetch the rest of the staff?”
    With everyone in attendance, Rex proceeded to sprinkle the talc from the tin of Yardley’s over one of the candlesticks. A sweet smell of rose tickled his nostrils.
    “What a lovely fragrance,” Helen said to Yvette. “I’ll have to get some.”
    Taking extreme care, Rex blew away at the powder until it adhered only to where oil had been left by someone’s fingers. He then taped over the prints, which he peeled off and