Medi-Evil 3 Read Online Free

followed. The two men tried to force entry, but the door was locked from the other side. They knocked and shouted, but received no answer. By now, Lord Lightbourne , Lady Foxworth and Judge Prendergast had also appeared, huddled in their caps and bed-robes but white-faced in the early morning chill. Cedric, on the orders of his mistress, went for a hammer and chisel, and they finally broke the door down.
      Inside, the once elegant room was more like an abattoir.
      Even from the low fire in the grate and a guttering candle on the mantel, it could be seen that blood daubed everything: the bed-hangings, the curtains on the window, the Persian rug. Lord and Lady Chillerton lay like broken mannequins in a heap of bedclothes, their faces frozen rictuses of agony. In each case, a deep and fatal wound had been gouged across the throat.
      Lady Foxworth promptly fainted into Cedric’s arms. The other would-be rescuers stood there with stunned disbelief. Numerous items were out of place: a night-stand had been thrown over, its garments scattered; a chamber-pot was broken, its odious contents seeping into the floorboards. Despite that latter, rather foul detail, another stench was in the air – something pungent and carrion-like – though the intruders were too appalled by what they were seeing to even comment upon it. In truth, utter confusion and Bedlam followed. No-one could make sense of the situation.
      “Here’s a curious start to your loyalist fight-back!” Lord Lightbourne shouted, rounding on O’Calligan . “Cutting the throats of your own toraidhe companions!”
      The Irishman stared at him uncomprehendingly. It was Lady Foxworth , who’d now recovered somewhat, though her pallor was sickly white, who retorted. “Lord Lightbourne !” Her voice quavered with emotion. “I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from making wild accusations.”
      “And I’d appreciate it if you’d put this Irish devil-dog under lock and key!” Again, Lightbourne rounded on the soldier. “Tell me, O’Calligan , isn’t it true that as a young trooper you pursued the brigand Colonel Blood through the Wicklow Mountains, then later through the marshes of the Low Countries? That you also hunted robber bands in Scotland who’d disguised themselves as Covenant rebels?”
      O’Calligan said nothing. But it was true; they all knew it.
      “Isn’t it also true that you’ve developed something of a talent for clandestine warfare?”
      “My experiences served me well,” O’Calligan said.
      “So I see!” Lightbourne bellowed. “Throat-cutting must come second nature to you.”
      “Randolph, this is your prejudice speaking,” Lady Foxworth chided him.
      “Is it, Hannah? So why, pray, is O’Calligan the only one among us dressed?”
      And that was true. Everyone, with the exception of Cedric, who was back on duty in an hour anyway, wore nightgowns and slippers. But O’Calligan , though he’d loosened his oil-black hair so that it hung past his shoulders, had only stripped to his shirt and breeches. He even wore his boots.
      In actual fact he had spent the night seated by his fire, smoking pipe after pipe as he brooded on his future in a Williamite Britain, but, unused to being questioned, he now remained stubbornly tight-lipped.
      “This is absurd, Lightbourne ,” Judge Prendergast put in. “Why should O’Calligan murder the Chillertons ? They were Catholics and Jacobites , like him.”
      “Maybe he viewed them as collaborators,” Lightbourne said. “Maybe he’ll view you the same way.” Lightbourne was a tall, sturdy individual, only in early middle-age but beetle-browed and angry-faced, and he gazed at O’Calligan with fanatical dislike.
      Judge Prendergast’s viewpoint was more measured. “Whoever’s responsible, he’ll be punished, but might I suggest we find the miscreant first rather than the nearest convenient scapegoat.”
      “And might I suggest we start hunting for him