Model Murder by Nancy Buckingham Read Free Book Online

luxury hotel? What made her think you might agree to such a scheme? Did you already know each other?”
    “Oh ... one could hardly say that.”
    “But you had met her before?”
    “Well, years and years ago. Just a casual meeting. I had quite forgotten about it until Corinne reminded me of the fact when she first wrote to me.”
    “I see. Perhaps you’d tell me about that earlier meeting, sir.”
    A quick frown that was intended to show his displeasure of her quizzing. “I fail to see how this is relevant.”
    “As I explained, I am trying to discover all I can about Miss Saxon’s life. How long ago was it when you first met her? When?”
    He shrugged in curt resignation. “It must have been ... nearly twenty years ago. I was commanding an aircraft carrier in those days. We were engaged on a Pacific tour of duty and had called in at Singapore. Corinne Saxon happened to be there at the same time on a modelling job, and she was one of the civilians who were invited to an officers’ party we were having on board. I don’t recall what the occasion was for the celebration. However, I was introduced to Corinne, and in the course of our social chit-chat it emerged that she’d been brought up in Cheltenham and knew this part of the Cotswolds fairly well. As I say, I’d forgotten all about the incident until she reminded me of it.”
    “I still don’t understand, sir. What made Miss Saxon think that someone like you, whom she had only met casually many years ago, would be prepared to give consideration to such revolutionary plans concerning his family home?”
    The admiral was growing increasingly impatient, and—it seemed to Kate—more and more uneasy. He smiled with a touch of condescension. “I realise that it must sound somewhat curious to you, suggesting perhaps that I am too easily influenced. But Corinne ... Miss Saxon ... was very convincing in her approach to me. She had a way of expressing her ideas with great clarity and enthusiasm. How it came about was this. She had happened to read a feature in Country Life about the difficulties faced these days in the upkeep of stately homes. Streatfield Park was mentioned as an example, with an excellent photograph of the house taken from the end of the drive. The article referred to my distress at the thought of the Park passing out of the hands of the Fortescue family. I lost my wife several years ago, you see, and I am alone now except for our son, who has settled in America. Dominic is a corporation lawyer, and doing very well. You may possibly have been introduced to him when he came over for our opening ceremony.”
    “Yes, I was.” Dominic Fortescue had been accompanied by his American wife and their teenage son and daughter. They were well-mannered people, demonstratively attentive to the paterfamilias, but Kate received the impression that tradition counted for less with them than present affluence. The hotel had struck them as an excellent way to make some real money out of the Fortescue ancestral home.
    “I was anxious to avoid Streatfield Park becoming a problem and a burden to Dominic on my death,” the admiral resumed. “Yet at the same time I wanted to ensure that my grandson and generations after him should retain control over what I regard as their birthright.”
    “I see. And on the strength of reading that article, Miss Saxon conceived her plan to create a hotel out of your spacious home?”
    “Exactly so. It wasn’t, of course, a totally novel idea to me. Other people in my position had adopted a similar course, and I had already considered the possibility of converting to an hotel—among other possibilities—as a solution to my financial problems. You could say, I suppose, that Corinne sowed the seed in my mind when the ground was fertile, and her enthusiasm persuaded me that it would be a worthwhile venture. As indeed it proved to be, Chief Inspector. Already, even though we have been open only five weeks, the hotel shows every sign of