All Was Revealed by Adele Abbott Read Free Book Online

“Jill’s here to learn, Charlie. I promised that she could work alongside me while I investigate this one.”
    “I suppose I’d be wasting my breath if I told you that neither of you should get involved?”
    “You would.”
    “I won’t bother then.” He’d obviously had this same conversation with Ms Turtle a thousand times before.
    “He seems like a nice chap, Ms Turtle.”
    “Why are you calling me Ms Turtle?”
    “You told me to.”
    “I’m sure I didn’t. Call me Myrtle.”
    Huh?
    “Okay, Myrtle. I was just saying that Charlie seems nice.”
    “He is. In fact, there was a time when he and I were—close.”
    “I thought he looked pleased to see you.”
    “We saw each other for a short while, but it didn’t work out for one reason or another. But, we’ve remained firm friends since then.”
    I couldn’t help but wonder if that’s what would happen with Jack and me.
    “Okay, Jill, you’re supposed to be the private investigator. Tell me, where would you normally start with a case such as this?”
    I hadn’t been expecting her to put me on the spot like that.
    “Ideally with the murder scene, but I don’t imagine we’ll be allowed in there.”
    “We won’t, but I just happen to have a ‘contact’ inside the force.”
    “A contact?”
    “I can’t be any more specific. I have to protect my sources. The long and short of it is that I have photographs of the murder scene.” She reached inside her handbag and passed me two photographs.
    In the first, Madge Hick was lying dead in the kitchen. The second was a close-up of the kitchen floor which was covered in what looked like flour. Before she died, Madge had been able to write two letters in the flour: ‘FL’.
    “Any idea what the letters stand for?”
    “Florence Long is the obvious answer, but somehow I can’t picture Florence as a murderer.”
    “Was there any sign of a forced entry?”
    “None. Either she knew her killer, and let him in, or someone had sneaked through the post office into her flat while the shop was busy.”
    “Do you know the cause of death?”
    “Officially no, but the pathologist, Henry Twoshank, is a good friend of mine. We play croquet sometimes.”
    “Croquet? Isn’t that deadly boring?”
    “Absolutely, but I get a lot of my leads from there. According to Henry, Madge was poisoned, but he hasn’t yet been able to identify the specific poison. She also had a small puncture wound on the side of her neck.”
    “Are the two things related?”
    “Possibly.”
    “That’s very interesting, but it doesn’t get us very far.”
    “I agree. What would you do next, Jill?”
    “Well, obviously I’d like to speak to the other murder mystery players.”
    “I agree, but to do that I’ll need to arrange interviews with each of them.”
    “Couldn’t we just doorstep them?”
    “Not as a first resort. We’ll try the polite way first. I’ll give you a call when I’ve managed to arrange something, then we can conduct the interviews together.”
     
     

Chapter 6
    Jack phoned. Maybe after enduring a night out with Kathy, he’d decided he wanted to call it a day. Who could blame him?
    “Hey, petal—sorry—I mean Jill. Look, it’s just a thought, but I wondered if you’d like to go to that new bar in town. Have you seen it? Bar Fish? Weird kind of a name.”
    Not only had I heard of it, I’d actually been there on a couple of occasions. But I didn’t want to spoil Jack’s surprise, so I played along.
    “Bar Fish? I don’t think I know it.”
    “Apparently, they’ve got tropical fish everywhere. It gets very good reviews. I thought we could go there tonight, if you’re not doing anything. It would be nice to have an evening when it’s just you and me—no Miles and Mindy, no Kathy and Peter. What do you say? Are you free?”
    “That sounds great. Shall I meet you there?”
    “Yeah. That’s probably best. Let’s say eight o’ clock. I should be done by then, barring a major