Read Online Ellis Peters - George Felse 12 - City Of Gold and Shadows by Ellis Peters - Free Book Online

sometimes.’
    ‘Freelance? It sounds a little risky. Supposing there weren’t enough clients?’
    He smiled, rather engagingly, she admitted. ‘I’m retained by quite a big outfit. And there’s never any lack of clients.’
    It was at that point that the stranger entered the dining-room, and stood for a moment looking round him as if in search of an acquaintance. Charlotte had seen him turn in the doorway to speak to Mrs Lane, whose placid smile indicated that she knew and welcomed him. He looked like a local man, at home and unobtrusive in this comfortable country room as he would have been in the border landscape outside. He was tall and thin, a leggy lightweight in a dark-grey suit, with a pleasant, long, cleanshaven face, and short hair greying at the temples and receding slightly from a weathered brown forehead. He was of an age to be able to wear his hair comfortably short and his chin shaven without eccentricity, probably around fifty. Middle age has its compensations.
    There were only a few people left in the dining-room by that time, two elderly men earnestly swopping fishing stories over their brandy, a young couple holding hands fondly under the table, and a solitary ancient in a leather-elbowed tweed jacket, reading the evening paper. The newcomer scanned them all, and his glance settled upon Charlotte and her companion. He came threading his way between the tables, and halted beside them.
    ‘I beg your pardon! Miss Rossignol? And Mr Hambro? I’m sorry to intrude on you at this hour, but if you can give me a few minutes of your time you may be able to help me, and I’ll be very much obliged.’
    Charlotte had assented to her name with a startled bow, but without words. Gus Hambro looked up with rounded brows and a good-natured smile, and said vaguely: ‘Anything we can do, of course! But are you sure it’s us you want? We’re just visitors around here.’
    The stranger smiled, still rather gravely but with a warmth that Charlotte found reassuring. ‘If you weren’t, you probably wouldn’t come within my—strictly unofficial—brief. We locals don’t frequent Aurae Phiala much, we’ve lived with it all our lives, it doesn’t excite us. I gather from the visitors’ book that you were both there this afternoon, that’s the only reason for this visit. May I sit down?’
    ‘Oh, please!’ said Charlotte. ‘Do excuse us, you took us so by surprise.’
    ‘Thank you!’ he said, and drew up a third chair. His voice was low, equable and leisurely; so much so that only afterwards did it dawn upon Charlotte how very few minutes the whole interview had occupied. ‘My name is Felse. Detective Chief Inspector, Midshire C.I.D.—I mention it only by way of presenting credentials. Strictly speaking I’m not occupied on a case at the moment, and this is quite unofficial. If you were at Aurae Phiala this afternoon you probably saw something of a party of schoolboys going round the site with a teacher in charge. A coachload of them from Comerbourne.’
    ‘We could hardly miss them,’ said Gus. ‘They were loading up to leave just when we came out.’
    ‘Including a senior, a boy about seventeen, who was probably subjecting his teacher to a certain amount of needling?’
    ‘Name of Boden,’ said Gus. ‘We had a modest brush with him ourselves. Incidentally, they’d lost him—the coach set off without him in the end.’
    ‘Exactly the point,’ said Chief Inspector Felse. ‘He still hasn’t come home.’ He caught the surprised and doubtful glance they exchanged, and went on practically: ‘I know! He’s perfectly competent, well supplied with money always, and it’s no more than a quarter past nine. Probably you’d already gathered that it isn’t the first time he’s played similar tricks, and that he’s a law to himself, and comes and goes as he pleases. The simple fact remains, he’s never yet been known to miss a meal. Suppose you tell me exactly where and how you last saw him.’
    They