Read Online Murder at Midnight by C. S. Challinor - Free Book Online

window.
    The professor’s slightly stooped shape retreated around the door and his footsteps shuffled down the hall. Everyone waited in almost complete darkness amid growing anticipation as they listened. In the absence of voices and music, the clock could be heard striking the quarter hour even as the wind outside whipped up a frenzy. Rex heard the front door open. A draught swept down the hallway. There appeared to be an exchange of muted conversation, covered by the wind.
    “I hope it is a tall, dark, handsome stranger,” Julie remarked. “As tall and handsome as Drew. I’d love to give Mister Harper a taste of his own medicine.”
    “I wonder why a dark-haired man is considered so lucky. Why not blond?” Helen said.
    A few more minutes passed before the front door slammed shut, causing Rex to jump.
    “Who is it?” he called out to Cleverly.
    “Nobody,” the professor called back. His form reappeared in the living room doorway, his face an eerie orb glowing in the candlelight. Rex made his way toward him and took the candle. “I went outside and looked around,” Cleverly said. “The climbing vine outside your door was knocking on the wood. There’s a gale blowing.”
    “I thought I heard voices.”
    “Just the murmur of the wind, I expect.”
    “I’ll get the oil lamp,” Rex said. A drop of melted wax dripped onto his hand from the candle.
    “Careful, hold it steady,” Cleverly warned.
    Rex retrieved the lamp from the kitchen pantry and took it to the living room. He lit the lamp wick with a match, replaced the glass cover, and stirred the embers in the fireplace, piling kindling on top and blowing with the bellows. Once he got flames going, he added a small branch from the log holder. A fire leapt to life and he added the large piece of wood from the shed.
    Swiping the soot from his hands, he got up from his kneeling position and brushed the fallen embers from his corduroys. Peering closely at Ace Weaver, he saw the old man was fast asleep, his face undoubtedly handsome in youth now slack and crosshatched with deep lines, and his long body broken in his wheelchair. Rex picked up the lamp by its handle and placed it at the center of the coffee table so that a pool of light radiated from its wick. Like moths drawn to a candle, the guests, stumbling in the outer darkness, drew close and began seating themselves around the table, cheerful and slightly drunk for the most part.
    Rex took note of each guest in turn. “Where are Catriona and Ken?” he asked whomever might be listening.
    “Catriona passed out on that armchair,” Alistair said pointing into the room. “She tripped back into it with a gasp and then settled in quite comfortably.”
    John chortled. “She was tipsy. I saw her fall back and conk oot. It was actually quite funny.”
    Rex, ever the solicitous host, went to see that she was in fact comfortable and, viewing her peaceful form, draped a throw rug over her lap, since the cold was creeping into the room now that the central heating had gone out. He lit the dead candles and, taking one, proceeded into the hall, almost bumping headlong into Jason who was groping along the walls.
    “Have you seen Ken Fraser?” Rex asked the student.
    “I haven’t. He’s not in the cloakroom. I’ve just come from there.”
    “That’s odd. Did he go oot?”
    Jason shrugged and continued on his way. Rex continued on his and discovered, to his annoyance, that he could not get the electricity to turn back on. “Blast it,” he muttered. He tried again to no avail and shut the small metal door. He called the power company on his cell phone to report the outage and found himself on hold for fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, he could hear voices and laughter coming from the living room. At least his guests were having a good time, but that could not be expected to last once the house got really cold and all the candles and lamp oil ran out.
    He reflected on how much firewood he had stockpiled in the shed and