Free Peril at Somner House by Joanna Challis Page A

says we can use a room over there for our painting endeavors. I don’t know about you, but I intend to paint a masterpiece .”
    Chuckling at his absurdity, I joined him downstairs.
    â€œIt’s this room here,” Sir Marcus guided.
    Off to the left of the study, this room required a key that Sir Marcus promptly pulled out of his pocket.
    â€œWhat of the other locked rooms?” I murmured, looking around for a looming Roderick.
    Tapping his nose, Sir Marcus spurred me into the room.
    â€œNow Daphne, that’s our code for silence—the nose tap. We may be overheard. This place has ears.”
    I felt it, too. Mentioning Bella’s ongoing bathroom antics and Angela’s dislike of her, I inspected the array of painter’s tools. The room, though small, possessed good light and lay relatively spare but for three easels, brushes, palettes, wiping cloths, little paint tins, two lamps, and a lonely paint-blotted stool.
    â€œYou can have the stool,” Sir Marcus said, ever the gracious gentleman. “And here’s your cape. Sorry, could find no feathery cap for you. You’ll just have to imagine one.”
    I laughed. He truly was a ridiculous man. “Kate said we can use this room exclusively?”
    â€œYes. Katie girl understands the need for secrecy when we are to embark upon something great. But for us, painting is purely a façade.”
    He began setting up the canvases while I asked how Kate fared.
    â€œSaw her looking at breakfast. She ate nothing and looks positively dreadful. No sign of Lissot. Or Rod. Perhaps they’ve all gone fishing?”
    Glancing hopefully out of the window, a boyish glumness appeared in the downturn of his lips for if they had gone fishing, they had not invited him.
    I seriously doubted a fishing adventure accounted for the absences. “Josh Lissot is maintaining his distance considering he has the strongest motivation for murder; Kate, too, realizes this; she is afraid, afraid of the future and for Josh, and I think she knows something or suspects something. Whether or not she is party to her husband’s death remains to be seen. As for Lord Roderick, he is not entirely exempt,since he inherits what is left. He was the preserver of the family fortune before his madcap brother disintegrated the last of it, sending them all to a speedy ruin.”
    â€œMy, my, a fine hypothesis.” Whistling, Sir Marcus waved his white-tipped paintbrush over two canvases. “Undercoat. Once it’s dried, you may begin.”
    â€œWhat are you doing and why, may I ask, is our painting a façade?”
    Slipping out the frequency radio from his jacket, he switched the top button and adjusted the aerial.
    I gasped. “Where did you get that?”
    â€œDabbled in the toy department during the war. I was useless, needless to say, but my money helped buy a few of these beauties and I got to keep souvenirs.”
    â€œSo Angela was right. You do like to spy on people.”
    He shrugged, his thickened lips smacking with amusement. “There are worse pastimes. Take our Max chap, for instance. Or Katie girl. Katie and Josh are the subjects for today. They’re in the room above.”
    I didn’t want to ask how he’d come by this information, and watching him adjust the dials on his instrument, I shook my head.
    â€œNo prudish reprimand from you, Miss Daphne,” he warned, “for I’ve heard all about you and your quest for adventure.”
    â€œFrom whom, may I ask?”
    â€œFrom a particular friend of yours.” Winking, Sir Marcus propped the radio on the sill of his easel. “Now we can listen while we paint. Think of it as a…radio reading. We’ve merely tuned into episode three.”
    After a brief crackle here and there, two voices became increasingly clear.
    â€œWho? The Major? Major Browning?” I pestered Sir Marcus, but he shoved a hand over my mouth, drawing me to the