City of Light (City of Mystery) Read Online Free

blood which presumably erupted as our victim turned and fell.  Let’s
see, what then?  Emma reenters the kitchen to find Gage rapidly bleeding to
death and the killer has just finished replacing his knife.  He recognizes that
there was a second witness but, fortunately for her, he has already abandoned
his murder weapon so this time he simply flees.”
    “Better,” said
Trevor.  “At least as far as it goes.” He checked his pocketwatch again.  “Now,
Davy, begin your eyewitness interviews. The shock has passed and the young lady
is admirably beginning to regain her memory.  Your task is to retrieve every
shred she can produce about the appearance of this man.”
    Davy promptly pulled
out a small leather notebook, an item he had purchased only because he had seen
Trevor use the same type many times, and went to sit opposite Emma at the
fire. 
    “Should I take up
the trail of footprints?” Tom asked.
    “Footprints?” Trevor
said.  “This case is designed to test wound analysis and blood splatter, not
footprints.”
    But Tom was still on
his hands and knees. “They’re small,” he said. “Most likely a woman, judging
by…”
    “Geraldine,” Trevor
bellowed, and a head popped through the door of the pantry. 
    “I’m sorry,
darlings,” Geraldine said, although she didn’t look particularly so. “But
someone has to see to dinner.”
    “I shall do it,
madam,” Gage said, raising his head.
    “Nonsense, dear,
you’re dead.  I hope everyone will be content with soup considering the recent
demise of our cook.  How soon do you anticipate finishing up your little game?”
    “We are finished,”
Trevor said, struggling to mask his irritation.  “The crime scene has been
contaminated.”
    “Our witness has
recalled something else, Sir,” Davy said from the hearth.  “She believes the
assailant was wearing boots in the manner of a soldier.”
    “She was closer the
first time,” Trevor said wearily, waving them all out of the kitchen.
     
     
    Fifty minutes later
the corpse had changed his shirt and served them a light meal of soup and bread
in the breakfast room.  Two glasses of fine claret from Geraldine’s cellar had
left Trevor in far better spirits.
    “The Tuesday Night
Murder Games Club is called to order,” Trevor intoned.  He meant the solemnity
as a bit of a joke, but the pronouncement sent silence around the table and
everyone shifted in their seats toward him.  Evidence that the others cared for
these evenings as much as he did was always gratifying to Trevor and was one of
the reasons he found himself constantly looking for ways to intensify the
challenges. 
    While planning this
latest game with Gage, Gerry, and the overenthusiastic theater boy, Trevor had
taken great pains in re-creating the crime scene precisely as Rayley had
described it in his letter.  Returning the knife to its block, drawing a jagged
wound on Gage’s throat, positioning him in the proper position, and
meticulously placing drops of pig’s blood on the floor to correspond with the
diagram Rayley had drawn.  The amount undoubtedly seemed excessive to someone
who had never witnessed the explosive force of a ripped artery, and Gage had
even raised his head at one point to look about the scene with dismay,
evidently thinking of the mess he’d be left to contend with once he’d been returned
to the world of the living.  After he had reproduced Rayley’s diagram, Trevor
had opened the parlor door to let the shaken Emma and impatient Tom and Davy
into the crime scene.  But of course the problem with such spectacular violence
is that they would all undoubtedly expect more excitement next week, and Trevor
could only hope the unopened letter in his coat pocket contained an even gorier
and more perplexing crime du jour.     
    “At the risk of belaboring
the obvious,” Trevor said.  “Rayley’s last letter was about the analysis of wound
and blood spray patterns. The test of changes in witness memory