The Package Included Murder Read Online Free

didn’t let little things like that stand in her way. She had learned in the hard school of personal experience that hardly anybody accepted her cooperation except under duress and the realisation that it was her vocation in life to be a private detective lent power to her elbow. A neo-Lord Peter Wimsey – that’s really how the Hon. Con saw herself. An aristocrat of the deductive process, wealthy, courageous, intelligent and completely unhindered by all those mundane considerations which prevent the rest of us from living out our fantasies.
    There was one snag in this scheme which will not have escaped the discerning reader. Small country towns (even including the outlying villages) don’t have all that many murders. Almost before she knew what had happened, the Hon. Con found herself back with her perennial problem of under-employment and after her last murder case (for the solution of which she received not one jot of credit from the local police) she was forced to turn back to sport again and for a time had tried to organise a ladies’ rugby football league. She had not succeeded and from sport she finally descended to rock bottom and announced her decision to become a writer.
    With this sort of background, it was fairly obvious that the Hon. Con wasn’t going to let Penelope Clough-Cooper slip through her fingers.
    â€˜Can’t just pass by on the other side, Bones,’ she said in a quasi-religious appeal deliberately calculated to wring Miss Jones’s tender withers. ‘That girl’s in deadly danger.’
    â€˜Is she?’
    â€˜I made her tell me all about these two previous attempts on her life.’ The Hon. Con’s eyes sparkled. ‘Jolly fascinating!’
    Miss Jones sighed and wrapped her mohair bed jacket tightly round her shoulders. ‘Are you sure it’s not all her imagination, dear?’
    It was the opening the Hon. Con had been angling for. ‘ Well, now, it just might be, Bones,’ she lied easily. ‘Listen, I’ll tell you just what she told me and see what you think, eh?’
    Miss Jones acknowledged that it was a fair cop with a martyred smile.
    The Hon. Con came and sat on the foot of Miss Jones’s bed. She had already searched the room for hidden microphones without success but she didn’t believe in taking needless risks. ‘Both the earlier attempts,’ she began, ‘took place in Moscow. The first one was the very day after our arrival and it happened in that GUM department store place. Remember GUM, Bones?’
    â€˜Of course I do, dear! It was that huge place on the Red Square opposite the Kremlin. Like a bazaar. Oh, it was horrible! All those dreadful crowds, pushing and shouting. It wasn’t a bit like Harrod’s.’
    â€˜Penny Clough-Cooper claims that somebody tried to shove her over the railings on the first floor. Funny way to try and bump somebody off, don’t you think? Well, what with all those milling crowds and everything, she naturally didn’t see who it was. Just felt somebody trying to push her over. She struggled a bit, seemingly, and whoever it was sort of got the wind up and cleared off. Anyhow, there didn’t seem to be anybody looking guilty when she finally managed to turn round. Well, she got out of the place as soon as she could and, when she’d cooled down a bit, she began to think that her imagination was running away with her. Basically she’s a deuced level-headed lass, you know.’
    In spite of several good resolutions to the contrary, Miss Jones found herself getting involved. ‘But not everybody in our holiday group went to the GUM stores, did they, dear? It was after we came out of Lenin’s mausoleum. Now, somebody – Mr Beamish, was it? – said he wanted to go and see the History Museum and …’
    â€˜All right, all right!’ interupted the Hon. Con rudely. ‘Already worked that out for myself, old girl –