Read Online Who Killed Charmian Karslake? by Annie Haynes - Free Book Online Page B

House,” said a little man who had been standing at Stoddart’s elbow ever since he came in. “I never thought of her when you began to talk about Karslakes. An’ yet I used to do bits of gardening jobs for her, time gone by. Her little wench, I heard her mother call her Lotty time nor I can remember.”
    â€œLotty!” The inspector thought a minute. “That will be short for something, surely. A pet name you might say.”
    â€œAy, like enough! But I don’t know what it might be,” the first speaker went on. “I never heard her spoken of as anything but Miss Carslake; Charlotte the word may be.”
    Charlotte and Charmian. The inspector’s heart felt perceptibly lighter. Things were beginning to shape themselves much as he had expected.
    â€œWhere are they now, Mrs. Carslake and her daughter?” he questioned. “I presume they have left Hepton.”
    â€œAy. They are not here now,” the old man quavered. “A matter of going on for twenty years it is now. Mrs. Carslake, she never left it, I should say. Carried out of her house she was and into the old church and put in aside of her father, back o’ the church. That’s how Mrs. Carslake left the Red House. She didn’t never leave Hepton.”
    Stoddart took another drink before he went on.
    â€œAnd Miss Karslake, what became of her?” he asked at last.
    The old gentleman scratched his head. “Don’t know as I ever heard. Went away from Hepton, she did, with her brothers, before her mother was cold in her grave you might say. Ondaycent other folks called it. Word came back to Hepton that one of the lads, the youngest, was killed in the War. But Miss Lotty, I never heard what come o’ Miss Lotty. Maybe she got married. Fine, upstanding, personable sort of wench she were.”
    â€œI was just about to ask you what she was like. Good-looking, was she?”
    â€œAy. You would call her that. Like one of they young larches in the copse down Homer way. Tall she was, and a pair of bootiful eyes, I mind. T’ young men would be after her soon enough, I reckon.”
    â€œAnd her hair – light or dark?” the inspector asked, striving to keep the eagerness out of his voice.
    â€œWell – er, I don’t rightly remember much o’ that,” the old fellow acknowledged. “Lightish like, I should say, and long down her back, not cut off like these young girls nowadays.”
    â€œHer golden hair was hanging down her back,” murmured the inspector’s first friend, who was evidently by way of being facetious.
    â€œStill, twenty years ago, or eighteen years ago is not so long but that there must be some people in Hepton who would remember Miss Carslake and know what has become of her.”
    â€œDare say there are,” assented the other man in a listless tone, apparently losing interest in the subject. He picked up his empty glass and looked into it reflectively.
    The inspector took the hint for both his loquacious friends. He got little more out of them, however, except the remark that old Dr. Brett, him as had give up doctorin’ and gone to live retired in a house on the Bourton Road – he’d know all there was to know of the Carslakes.
    At any rate there seemed to be little more to be gleaned at the “Moreton Arms.” A glance at his watch showed Stoddart that there was time to spare before lunch, and after a moment’s indecision he made up his mind to seek an interview with Dr. Brett. If the old doctor had retired, probably time hung heavily on his hands and he would welcome a visitor and a chat over old days.
    Just past the “Moreton Arms” the main street divided itself into two roads, one, that on the right, going on past what was known as the high causeway to the range of hills overlooking the wide level ground that stretched over to Lichfield. These hills running more or less continuously to the Welsh