Free The Blue Hackle by Lillian Stewart Carl

is confusing.”
    “You took the MacLeods to their room? Where
was Diana?”
    “Sorry, Jean, can’t stop any longer—there’s
work needs doing.” He strode off toward the kitchen, but not before
she saw the shadow that lay on his normally affable expression
deepen to a thundercloud. What was up with him and his daughter?
What had they been, if not arguing, then having words about? And
where had she been right before sunset, anyway?
    Jean looked suspiciously down the hall toward
the back door. When she and Alasdair came back to the house, the
dogs had been outside. And there’d been a wet raincoat hanging in
the cloak room. It had fallen off its hook, as though it had been
tossed there just moments earlier.
    What was she trying to do, pin something on
Diana?
    Jean turned toward the staircase and jumped.
Diana stood on the bottom step, her complexion no longer flushed
but a dewy ivory-pink. “Hullo, Jean,” she said, but her cornflower
blue eyes were fixed on something over Jean’s shoulder.
    They’d heard her go down the turnpike stair.
She must have gone back up one of the secondary flights while
making her appointed rounds. “Hi,” Jean said, and to head off the
flush she felt mounting into her own cheeks, “Sorry about
everything that’s happened today. That’s still happening.”
    “No need to apologize,” Diana told her. “None
of it’s your doing.”
    “Well no, it isn’t.”
    “Do you mean to join in tonight? None of this
is the Krums’ doing, either, and they’re expecting their Hogmanay
activities as per the posted schedule.”
    “Yes, I’ll join in. Alasdair’s going to try
and make it to dinner.”
    “Perhaps you could assist Father in
entertaining the Krums, then?”
    As in, divert their attention from the
murder? “Sure,” Jean said, “assuming anyone will think my
blathering is entertaining.”
    She hadn’t been fishing for a compliment, and
sure enough she didn’t reel one in. “Thank you. Drinks in the
library at half-past-six, dinner at half-past-seven. Also, I’m sure
we’ll soon be getting more attention from the media than we’d like,
and to that end I’ve asked our manager, Mr. Pritchard, to close the
main gates. You’re media yourself, now . . .” Diana paused
delicately, her porcelain brow creased ever so slightly.
    “I’ve never yet written about one of the
investigations I’ve been involved in. I do history, travel,
legends. Seeing is believing and believing is seeing—you know, how
people act on what they perceive, not on what actually exists. The
Loch Ness monster, the Bible imagery at Rosslyn chapel, that sort
of thing.”
    “Your articles are—illuminating. We
appreciate your doing one about Dunasheen.” Diana didn’t need to
add anything along the lines of, as long as it doesn’t mention
the murder . “And Alasdair’s attention to security matters as
well, most helpful.”
    “Alasdair and I appreciate the holiday and
the wedding.”
    Only now did Diana’s gaze focus on Jean, if
less on her face than on her apparel. Her full, soft lips stretched
in a pained smile, she said, “There’s no need to dress for dinner,”
and she wafted away down the back hall.
    Jean glanced down at her oversized sweater
and wilted jeans, getting the message, and started toward the
stairs thinking that in order to produce Diana, Fergie must have
crossed himself with a Dresden figurine. She’d have to ask Alasdair
for the particulars of the late Mrs. MacDonald. All Jean knew was
that she had been an Englishwoman, and that Diana had been raised
in the Home Counties while Fergie manufactured soap bubbles in the
advertising and public relations industries. An English childhood
explained a lot . . .
    Wait a minute . Jean made a quick
about-face. Why had Diana been looking so intently at the wall
opposite the staircase? Had she seen a mouse?
    Jean saw a large brass-bound wooden chest,
like a treasure chest, what the Scots called a kist. On it sat a
small cast of