Free Cherringham--The Last Puzzle by Neil Richards

…”
    “I spotted him this morning. Did he say when he last saw Quentin?”
    “Same story — several years ago.”
    “Hmm, and I got the same line from the lovely Tricia, not that I believe it now. But here’s the thing … Emma says Quentin had a string of visitors in the weeks before he died.”
    “You think he invited the puzzlers round? Could they all be lying?”
    “You know what? I think they could be …”
    “Maybe Quentin wasn’t murdered,” said Sarah.
    “Sure. Maybe. But those pills … something’s definitely not right. Your dad told me Quentin had an attack one evening while he was there — reached for his pills, they were right there in his pocket. Swore they were always at his side.”
    “I spoke to Tony just before you got here. He was chatting to Quentin’s doctor — heart specialist in Oxford. Apparently he’d warned Quentin that now was the time to ‘get his house in order’.”
    “You mean he knew he was going to die?”
    “Can’t mean anything else — can it?” said Sarah. “In which case — if he was going to die anyway, why bother killing him?”
    “That presupposes the killer knew what the doctor said.”
    “But if you’re right — and Quentin did invite the puzzlers over — wouldn’t he have told them why?”
    Jack looked away, and Sarah knew his mind was racing with thoughts, suspicions, plans …
    Then: “Well, we’re just speculating here Sarah — maybe he didn’t tell them anything. Maybe he simply wanted to meet them just to see if they should be … in the game. See if they had a right to be players …”
    Sarah wiped her hands on a paper towel and dropped the sandwich wrappers in the bin.
    “Here’s an idea. Grace is going to be back in a minute. Why don’t you and I head over to Quentin’s house and take a look around? I still haven’t been there.”
    “Sure, great — why not? You may see something I’ve missed.”
    “And you can run me through the whole ‘death by heart pills’ theory.”
    “Now what makes me think you don’t quite buy into that?”
    “Come on,” she said, picking up her coat. “You persuade me and on the way back I’ll buy you that chocolate cake you know you should have had …”
    She saw Jack grin as he grabbed his coat too.
    “You’re a bad influence on me, Sarah Edwards.”
    And they headed off to Cherringham Crescent.

12. The Fatal Truth
    Sarah stopped in the hallway — and took in Quentin Andrews’ home.
    “Jack — this is … classic. The wood, that staircase.” She turned to him. “So beautiful.”
    “Thought so too. Used his money well. Money he made by exploiting his inside connections …”
    She turned to the living room, where elegant eighteenth-century furniture floated on a thick-pile carpet that nearly covered the shining, dark wood floor.
    “The house alone has to be worth a small fortune.”
    “Yeah. So, shall we go upstairs? To the scene of what … you don’t think is a crime?”
    She nodded.
    Thinking: it’s rare for me to doubt Jack’s hunch.
    But she also knew that she had developed her own hunches about such things.
    With everyone so guilty here, with so many of the heirs with grudges, even hatred for Quentin, with so much money at stake.
    And with the crazy puzzle competition …
    None of it added up.
    She followed Jack up the stairs.
    *
    Then — into the dead man’s room.
    Jack pointed out the chair where Quentin died, and then back, to the table where the pills were found, seeming like an oversight, as if he’d put them there, sat down … and just couldn’t get to them.
    That was the story.
    And Sarah didn’t buy it.
    She turned and looked around the room. “So, let’s say Quentin feels an attack coming on. Tries to get up, but can’t?”
    Jack nodded, and stared at the chair, the small nearby table. It was, she thought, as if he was imaging how it might all have happened.
    “Right, tries to get up. Usually keeps the pills by his chair, but that night—”
    Sarah