Walking Into Murder Read Online Free

know,” she added with a warning look.
    “She’s really dead!” Angelina informed him. “She’s cold, and her eyes are wide open. They’re green, like a cat’s,” she added with gory relish.
    Tom Smith went very pale, and Laura was afraid he was going to faint. “But that’s… that’s impossible,” he stammered.
    “Why don’t you come with me and look for yourself?” she offered, gesturing for him to precede her out the door. Instead, he grabbed her hand again and hung on tightly. This time she let him have it. His pallor was alarming.
    To her dismay, the others followed as she led him upstairs. She had hoped to get him alone so she could soften the shock if the woman was his wife, but with this crowd on her heels that was impossible. Were all of them as ghoulish as Angelina?
    Her dismay increased when she saw Nigel leaning nonchalantly in the doorway of the green room. He sported a Sherlock Holmes hat and a monocle, and held a pipe in one long-fingered hand. The resemblance was remarkable.
    Laura was not amused. “Are you aware,” she asked through clenched teeth, “that there may be a dead woman on the bed?”
    “Dead woman, you say,” answered Nigel thoughtfully, in a deep, cultivated voice that sounded to Laura exactly as Sherlock Holmes ought to sound. His eyebrows went up a fraction and stayed there. “Indeed! This calls for an investigation.” He held the monocle to one eye and approached the bed, a faintly ironic look on his mobile face.
    Laura tried to see past him, but the lights had been dimmed even more and all she could make out was a lump on the bed.
    Angelina darted in front of her and pushed Nigel out of the way, eager to be the first to view the body. She stiffened and turned to Laura, perplexed. “But it is Lottie this time. She must have got mixed up. Lottie always gets mixed up,” she added petulantly.
    “Of course it’s Lottie,” Nigel said impatiently, forgetting his role. “I said it was going to be Lottie, didn’t I?”
    “But it wasn’t Lottie before,” Angelina protested. “It was somebody else, and she didn’t look at all like Lottie.”
    She turned again to Laura. “It’s not the same one, is it?” she demanded. “Tell Nigel it isn’t! Tell him!”
    “Now, Angelina,” her mother reproved. “You know that can’t really be true. Besides, I think it’s time for us to leave. I’ve had enough of this game. It is horrible, macabre.”
    Reluctantly, Laura approached the bed, and almost screamed again. She forced the sound back into her throat. Angelina was right. A different woman lay on the bed, a woman with limp blond hair and a long bony face. She bore no resemblance at all to the green-eyed beauty who had been lying there before.

CHAPTER THREE

    Laura closed her eyes and turned away, feeling nauseated. “No,” she agreed faintly. “No. This is not the same woman.”
    Tom Smith peered over her shoulder and breathed a long sigh of relief. Slowly, his pallor receded, but he still looked grim and shaken.
    “So this is a different woman,” he muttered. “How very peculiar.” He looked appraisingly at Nigel.
    “You mean to say,” Nigel asked, “that Angelina’s right and someone else was here before?” His eyes widened and he began to grin. “Who would have believed it? Good old Lottie. What a glorious trick on us all. She must have put a mask on her face earlier to fool us. I wonder how she managed it.”
    “Who is Lottie?” Laura demanded, appalled at his cheerful tone. Did he feel no pity at all for the dead woman?
    “My governess,” Angelina answered promptly. “She’s very stupid and I can always play tricks on her.”
    “Well, this time, Angelina dear, she’s played a trick on you,” Nigel said, still grinning in delight. Stuffing the monocle and the pipe in his pocket, he turned toward the woman on the bed.
    “Well done, Lottie old thing,” he crowed. “I didn’t think you had it in you. But I still want to know how you managed