Murder Offstage by L. B. Hathaway Read Free Book Online Page B

and beyond, on the street, all was pitch
darkness.
    ‘Who is it?’ she called out sharply, uselessly; her heart
hammering up into her throat.
    No-one replied of course, but a sliver of shadow, just the
merest flicker of black, slipped past the entrance of No 11 and slithered into
the darkness beyond. Even now Posie knew that a pair of unknown eyes were
watching her, boring into her.
    But why?
    Posie stared numbly into the space where the shadow had
hidden, and just as she had decided that whoever it was had passed on into the
night, or on to trail more exciting quarry, a blinding flash of light pierced
the darkness, illuminating her in a white split-second on the stone steps.
    A photographer’s lamp whirred in the background and she
could smell the chalky residue from the used flashbulb. Who on earth was
trailing her and taking pictures of her too?
    Posie was more scared than she could remember. She ran up
the yellow stone steps and was begrudgingly whisked through the glass door by a
miserable-looking doorman in a top hat.
    ‘You can only go into the lobby, Miss,’ said the doorman
with a degree of smug satisfaction. ‘Women aren’t allowed beyond.’
    ‘I do know that,’ she snapped back, more tetchily
than she might have done in other circumstances.
    Inside, the dimly lit entrance hall was empty, and closer
inspection revealed tall wood-panelled walls, bearing shelves full to bursting
of highly polished silver trophies and sporting cups. Brown-faded photographs
from the turn of the century were stuffed on every available surface. Posie
went over to the shelves and saw that most showed teams of cricketers posing on
the village greens of Kent and Surrey. The whole place reminded her of the
games room at her brother’s prep school when she had visited him there once. He
had proudly pointed himself out to her in just such a photograph: poor dead
Richard.
    ‘Can I help you, madam?’ asked an ancient-looking Butler,
shuffling in, disapproval and admiration flashing in equal measures across his
face. Disapproval won. She asked for the Earl of Cardigeon and watched as the
Butler moved off, looking nervous.
    Posie realised suddenly that she was not entirely alone in
the lobby: a telephone booth at the very back on the left was occupied, and she
could just see the bottom half of a man’s black tuxedo-clad legs and shiny
black brogues below a green baize curtain. She listened hard but couldn’t make
out any actual conversation going on.
    And to the right, behind a discreet wooden-topped counter, a
club servant had suddenly appeared, frantically making notes and sorting
telegrams into a hive of small pigeon-holes behind him.
    A hidden door on the left swung open.
    ‘What’s this all about? And who the hell are you, anyway?
Damned interfering womenfolk! I thought I was free of you all in this place, at
least.’
    Rufus’ father was clutching a glass of dark malt whisky and
he gave Posie a brutal, insolent stare. Short and toady-looking, he was still
wearing his country tweeds and had obviously been at the bottle for a good part
of the afternoon and evening. He was redder in the face, rougher and altogether
more rotund than when Posie had last met him as a child. She was relieved to
find that there was something slightly comical about him now though, rather
than scary. Probably to do with the fact that now she towered over him, rather
than the other way around.
    Posie quickly explained who she was, and was rewarded by a
very slight thawing of the frostiness. The Earl nodded a pinch of recognition:
he had always approved of Posie’s brother Richard as being a steadying
influence on Rufus in the past, and now that Richard was dead he was, of
course, beyond reproach. Not like poor old Rufey.
    ‘I’m here to talk about Rufus. He’s in a great deal of
trouble,’ she whispered down into the Earl’s hairy ear. ‘Is there anywhere we
can talk here, sir, privately?’
    ‘No, of course not!’ the Earl bellowed.