A Tall Dark Stranger Read Online Free

particularly unusual, with the London Season in full swing.
    “He said he was from Bath,” Aunt Talbot told her. “Amy caught him out in a black lie. He didn’t know a thing about Bath. It’s pretty clear the fellow was up to no good.”
    “But what was he doing here?” Mrs. Murray repeated.
    “He said he was on a walking tour,” I told her. “Actually, he was looking for relatives in the graveyard. Fanshawe was the name, Rupert and Marion. He said they’d died in the last century. There are no Fanshawes hereabouts other than yourself. You were a Fanshawe before marriage.”
    She paused a moment. “What did he look like?”
    “He was young, tall and thin, with fair hair and blue eyes. He seemed gentlemanly. Very well dressed.”
    She thought a moment, then shook her head. “No, I don’t know him. There are no Stoddarts in my family. Such a pity when a young man dies,” she said, rubbing her ugly club thumbs against her fingers. “Well, I was going to take my leave, but since I’ve lent my gig to your footman ...”
    We did the polite thing and had the horses put to to drive her home.
    “I thought she’d never leave,” Aunt Talbot exclaimed when the front door closed. “She seemed mighty interested in that corpse, didn’t you think?”
    “Yes, I noticed she asked twice who he was.”
    “I believe she was worried about her fate line. I hope I didn’t worry her unduly by mentioning it, but there was a noticeable break in her fate line. I judged it to occur near the end of her third decade. It will be a comeuppance for her after having her bread buttered on both sides since her marriage.”
    I shan’t venture into the intricacies of the fate line. Timing its irregularities is a tricky business.
    “Let us go down and keep Lollie company,” she continued. “It can’t be pleasant for him, sitting with a corpse. And there’s no saying the murderer won’t return.”
    She was keen to get all the details of the murder firsthand and I was becoming fretful at having left my paint box behind, so I went with her back to the scene of the crime.
     

Chapter Three
     
    “That there man’s been murdered” was Monger’s verdict when he beheld the sodden corpse. Monger, a graying man with an undistinguished face and bad teeth, had been a solicitor’s clerk until he was dismissed for incompetence, at which time his cousin, McAdam, had appointed him to the post of constable.
    “We are not blind, Monger,” Aunt Talbot said, glancing at his hands. Despite his earth hands, he displayed nothing outstanding in the way of common sense. “What are you going to do about it?”
    “He’ll have to be buried” was Monger’s reply. “That’s not my job.”
    Auntie has a low tolerance for stupidity. “Send for McAdam, Lollie,” she said.
    Monger nodded his approval. “Aye, ‘twould be best, and a sawbones to give the certificate. There’ll be an inquest into this piece of work. I’ll sit with the body till Joseph gets here.” His cousin, Joseph McAdam.
    Aunt Talbot couldn’t resist a glance at Stoddart’s hands before leaving. “A fire hand, it looks like,” she said as an aside. “Unreliable. A revolutionary, I shouldn’t wonder.”
    I recovered my paint box and sketch pad, and we went back across the flower-strewn meadow toward the house. Monger lit up a pipe and sat down on my sketching rock to await McAdam’s arrival.
    When we had gone beyond hearing, Lollie opened his hand to reveal a waterlogged note. “I got this from Stoddart’s pocket,” he said, “You just might be right about his being a revolutionary, Aunt Maude.”
    She flushed with pleasure and forgot to chide him for going through the dead man’s pockets. “What does it say, Lollie?”
    “Not much, but it looks dashed suspicious. It’s printed, for one thing. That hides the handwriting. ‘Meet me at the water meadow at six. Bring the money. We’ll exchange.’ It isn’t signed. Stoddart obviously had some agreement with the