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

floorboards seemed to creak more than usual, and bumps sounded in the attic above. He checked all four bedrooms and the two bathrooms. Ken was nowhere to be found.
    He brought down extra layers and gloves for the search, as well as the flashlight he kept by the bed. He gave it to John while he donned the additional clothing.
    “I have a more powerful torch in my car,” Alistair said.
    “Good, we’ll need it.”
    When Rex opened the front door, sleet flew in his face, stinging his eyes. Cautiously, he walked into the courtyard and looked about him. Black ice and wet gravel glinted among the guests’ vehicles. The station wagon belonging to the Weavers stood closest to the front door, the Frasers’ dark blue sedan just beyond it. Alistair’s silver Porsche, then Drew’s white BMW, the professor’s Morris Minor, and the students’ old jalopy were positioned in receding order of arrival. Helen’s Renault and his own car were parked in the old stables that had been converted into a garage. The exposed area of driveway was crisscrossed with tire tracks, the snow fluted at the edges like pastry crust where he had cleared it that afternoon.
    The biting cold served to wake him up even as his extremities went numb. How much he would have preferred not to have been out on this particular night looking for an errant guest! The wind chill made the experience all the more miserable, and he felt rotten about having to subject three of his guests to the unpleasant task, especially as there was no knowing what they might find.

6
a grim find
    On the steep, wooded hillside around him loomed dark Scots pines, dripping birch trees, and junipers. Ghostly contrails of mist floated among the tall trunks. The moon was barely visible through the glowering clouds, casting the lodge and outbuildings in dense shadow, the front door under the stone porch a solid black rectangle. Had the electricity been on, the mysterious caller might have rung the bell—unless nobody had been outside to begin with. The wind rapped the branches of the overgrown vine against the door, but not as loudly now. The gale seemed to be dying down.
    Alistair and John had diverged to search the stables and the back of the house and loch. Rex shivered to think of the wind-rippled wavelets in the gray lake. No one in Ken’s state could survive the chill of the water for long. Alistair, who had taken his powerful flashlight, re-joined him with a hopeless shrug of the shoulders. He played his beam around the recesses of the courtyard and between the parked cars. Diamond crystals glinted in the orb of his light on the ground sheened with frost at their feet.
    “No sign in the stables or meadow,” he reported, his breath fogging in the cold air. “I searched every nook and cranny. What’s a cranny, anyway? Sod this sleet,” he cursed, swiping at his eyes with a gloved hand.
    John came up shortly afterward, shaking his head ensconced in a black beanie hat. “I don’t think he’s oot here. If he is, I hate to think what state he’ll be in, especially if he went into the loch. I couldn’t see far because of the mist.” The medic clutched his mitted hands together for warmth.
    “Perhaps we should all three search the loch and walk a short way up the shore,” Rex suggested. “Just to be certain. Where’s Drew?”
    “He stayed behind to explore the house first, the canny beggar,” John said, clearly miffed.
    “He’s taking his sweet time about it,” Alistair remarked.
    The men moved off in the direction of the loch.
    “I’ve found him!” Drew yelled from the front door. “He’s in the broom cupboard. He must have crawled in there to keep warm.”
    “Is he okay?” Rex demanded, turning back, gruff from anxiety and cold, but relieved they would not have to search by the open loch, fully exposed to the wind.
    “I cannot tell. I think he’s unconscious. Perhaps John should come and take a look.”
    The trio trooped back inside the lodge, stamping the slush