Strangeways to Oldham Read Online Free Page A

I had my nose to the carpet, and I’d have had to be very rude to her, and told her I was trying to trace the smell of wee that pervades the home.’
    â€˜Proof of what?’ asked Hugo, referring back to something Amanda had said, almost in passing.
    â€˜Why, proof that Reggie Pagnell was murdered, of course. Don’t be so dense, Hugo! She even asked me, when I was arranging your escape, if I’d noticed how many glasses there were on his bedside cabinet, so I told her, of course, that I’d only seen one. Let her look amongst her own staff for the phantom cocktail glass snaffler!’
    â€˜That’s taking two and two and making five, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Rot! Reggie’s gaga. He gets three visits from a nephew who can’t exist. The “nephew” always brings a cocktail for them to share. Reggie dies suddenly, after the third of these visits. I turn up, and smell something suspicious in the glasses. Ergo, he was murdered, but by whom, and why?’
    â€˜But both the glasses had something nasty in them, you said.’
    â€˜Hence the stain on the floor. He had to pour out two drinks, just like he’d done before, and then, when Reggie had drunk his, he must have poured the other back into this hip flask. Have you ever tried pouring anything into a hip flask without a small funnel? It’s impossible not to spill something. Hence the spill on the floor. Hence, murder. QED, Hugo.’
    Lady Amanda sat with her arms folded, eyeing her old friend with a mutinous glare. ‘Well, Hugo?’
    â€˜Actually, I think you might be right, after all you’ve told me. But what are you going to do about it, eh?’
    â€˜You mean, “what are we going to do about it”, Hugo. Well, firstly, I’m going to ring for Beauchamp, and tell him to put this glass somewhere very safe … I suppose, actually in my safe would be the best bet.’
    â€˜I wondered why you’d been holding it in your hankie like that. And secondly?’
    â€˜That’s the bit I don’t know yet. I think we’ll have to sleep on it, but it’ll probably involve going to the police station and seeing if I can get anyone to believe my story.
    â€˜And now I believe it is a couple of minutes past the Cocktail Hour, so what can I get you?’
    â€˜I haven’t the faintest idea. I don’t know much about cocktails. You choose!’
    â€˜Then we’ll have what I consider to be the cocktail of the day. Beauchamp ! A couple of Strangeways to Oldhams, if you please.’
    And thus, Lady Amanda Golightly stumbled into her first ever experience of murder: innocent, guileless, but with the inherited cunning that had kept her family in Belchester Towers for a great many generations.
    And she had used the ‘m’ word: murder. Lady Amanda didn’t believe in beating about the bush, as has been mentioned before, and she wasn’t going to tolerate murder amongst her friends and acquaintances. That was absolutely beyond the pale!
    Although she had been aware of its presence in the trailer at the rear of the Rolls the day before, Lady Amanda was shocked and dismayed, the next morning, to see Hugo shuffling along the corridor propelling a Zimmer frame in front of him, on the way to breakfast.
    â€˜I say, old crock. I didn’t know you were as bad as that!’ she declared, as he finally reached the breakfast room door.
    â€˜â€™Fraid so, old stick. Doctor says there’s nothing to be done about it, though,’ he replied ruefully.
    â€˜Who’s your doctor?’ she asked, abruptly.
    â€˜Old Anstruther,’ he replied, concentrating on getting his frame over a crack in the flagstones.
    â€˜Anstruther? Why, he must have been Methuselah’s doctor! Have you had a second opinion? Been to the hospital for X-rays? Had blood tests?’
    â€˜He says there’s no point, Manda.’
    â€˜No point? The silly old coot. He was