The Package Included Murder Read Online Free Page A

thank you very much! Still,’ – the Hon. Con didn’t overlook the chance to improve the shining hour – ‘glad to have you on my side, eh? Now, if you really want to lend a helping paw, how about taking down a few notes for me?’
    â€˜Oh, Constance dear, must I?’ Miss Jones shied fretfully at the thought of moving out of her warm and comfortable bed.
    The Hon. Con placed one foot on the floor. ‘Not if you don’t want to,’ she said, taking care not to move too swiftly. ‘Just tell me where I can find a pencil and a bit of paper and I’ll manage for myself.’
    Miss Jones was naturally across the room and opening a suitcase before the Hon. Con had finished speaking. The thought of having all her careful packing tossed to the four quarters of the globe lent wings to Miss Jones’s feet. ‘Go on with your story, dear!’ she called back across her shoulder.
    The Hon. Con sank back contentedly, confident that the day had not yet dawned when she wasn’t at least a couple of jumps ahead of poor old Bones. ‘The next attempt on Penny Clough-Cooper’s life took place yesterday.’
    â€˜Our second day in Moscow?’ Miss Jones looked up. She had been carefully removing a number of packages from the suitcase and laying them equally carefully on a chair. Every package was neatly wrapped either in tissue paper or in a transparent plastic bag. ‘Fancy!’
    â€˜Our second day in Moscow,’ agreed the Hon. Con. ‘Though, if you remember, we spent most of our time out at that flipping old monastery place.’
    â€˜Zagorsk!’ sighed Miss Jones whose mind, being totally uncluttered with the problems of social survey authorship, was free to retain things like the names of what they’d seen. ‘The Trinity-Sergius Monastery!’ She sank back on her heels, still lost in wonder. ‘ Wasn’t it simply marvellous?’
    The Hon. Con couldn’t see anything marvellous about a collection of mouldy old churches but she wasn’t going to be outdone by Miss Jones in aesthetic appreciation. ‘Smashing!’ she said. ‘ However, it was when we got back to Moscow that the trouble started.’
    â€˜Oh, you mean that argument at the railway station, dear?’ Miss Jones stared in bemusement at an oddly shaped bundle. What on earth …? Her face cleared. Spare bedsocks! Of course! ‘When the guide told us we’d got to find our own way back to the hotel by underground? I must say, I thought it was a bit of a cheek but I didn’t think there was any call for Mrs Beamish to fly off the handle like that. After all, the underground system is supposed to be one of the sights of Moscow.’
    â€˜Hm, she did get a bit airiated, didn’t she?’ The Hon. Con had a quiet snigger to herself as she recalled Mrs Beamish’s outburst. ‘Mind you, Bones, we are supposed to be on a conducted tour. I mean, you don’t expect to be abandoned in the middle of a hostile city while the blooming guide slopes off home for an early evening, do you? And old Ma Beamish really was worn out. All she wanted was to get back to the Metropole as soon as poss and get her shoes off. That’s why she made her husband take that taxi. I don’t know why she bothered coming out here,’ the Hon. Con added righteously, ‘if she doesn’t want to see things.’
    â€˜Oh, it was her husband’s idea,’ said Miss Jones, who attracted gossip like a magnet attracts iron. ‘He was very keen,’ she said. ‘Ah!’ She pounced triumphantly and seized one of the bundles. What a silly old thing she was! Fancy forgetting that she’d packed the writing pad with the box of Auld Tam’s Homemade Scotch Oat Cakes! It was a good thing that her head was fastened on! Now – a pencil! Oh, yes – in her handbag, of course! She began to replace the things she’d taken out of the