Free A Death in the Loch by Caroline Dunford Page A

the case of the bootboy stickily) wrong.
    ‘Are you sure that aspidistra didn’t hit you on the head?’ she asked. She paused to consider. ‘I’d quite been enjoying the story of the waltz with the pot plant and vicar’s daughter crouching outside the bedroom where two people were doing the naughty. But it all turns horrible and real once I know Rory’s involved.’
    ‘I had thought better of him.’
    ‘I’d thought better of you, sneaking around like a peeping Tom!’
    ‘I told you, I was investigating a noise. I thought it was a burglar.’
    Merry gave me a withering look. ‘A giggling burglar?’
    ‘I know! I know!’ I said desperately. And then, because there were so many questions I didn’t want her to ask, I told her about my adventures in the forest.
    When I finished Merry shivered dramatically. ‘Now what did you have to go telling me that for? I’ll not get a wink of sleep.’
    ‘I don’t think it is a German spy,’ I said seriously. ‘I think it’s only a passing tramp.’
    ‘I don’t care about no German spy,’ said Merry indignantly. ‘The daft bugger you met, Jimmy? Or whatever he was called. I bet he was right. Them simple folk know a thing or two. That’s what my mam always said. They see things others don’t.’ She tapped the side of her nose. ‘He’d be the one who knew about the monster first and no one will listen to him. We’ll all be murdered in our beds.’ She let out a little shriek and dived head first under the covers.
    ‘Oh come on, Merry,’ I said in my sternest voice. ‘Even you can’t be that silly as to believe the ramblings of a village idiot.’
    Merry’s head appeared from under the covers. She was scowling. ‘What do you mean, even me?’
    ‘Besides, as the one formerly engaged to our philandering butler, I should be the one in a mess.’
    Merry didn’t miss a beat as I twisted the story on her. ‘That’s it!’ she cried. ‘It’s all in your imagination. You only thought you saw Rory.’
    ‘I can assure you I saw him.’
    ‘No, you saw someone. Like your villagers making a monster out of a tramp. You only assumed it was Rory because you two are at odds again. You said the corridor was dim.’
    ‘Yes, but …’
    ‘Did it smell like Rory?’
    I blinked at her baffled.
    ‘Come on you must know what Rory smells like if you’ve been close. I could find my Merrit in a crowded room by smell alone.’
    ‘I fear my olfactory senses are not as advanced as yours,’ I said with as much dignity as I could muster in answering such a ridiculous question. But as I said it I remembered the sharp smell of the pine soap he favoured as I rested my head against his shoulder.
    ‘There! There!’ said Merry. ‘That memory. Did you smell that?’
    ‘No,’ I said slowly, ‘but I was busy trying to cower behind a pot of skinny leaves.’
    Merry gave me a look that said she considered me a most unsatisfying companion in gossip and announced her intention of going back to sleep, as she had to get up early to start the range now that she was no longer allowed above stairs.
    I was only too happy to let the conversation drop. It wasn’t long before I heard her snores begin. I lay awake wracked with several disturbing trains of thought. I heard Merry murmur in her sleep: ‘That many trees aren’t natural.’ There was something so normal and Merry-ish about her well-known dislike of the country that I found it comforting. I turned on my side and finally managed to slip into sleep.
    The next morning I drank my cup of early morning tea in a fretful state. Should I tell Bertram what I had discovered or was it no-one’s business but Rory’s? If only I knew what was at stake here. Bertram wasn’t Rory’s employer, but I had no doubt he would tell Richard of his butler’s misadventures. Bertram would be horrified. Richard Stapleford would be amused. But either way Rory’s reputation would be ruined. Did I have a right to do that? Maybe nothing had happened? Maybe