Free Murder on the Moor by C. S. Challinor

now as he gazed upon her chilled face he felt unutterably sorry.
    “I suppose we should all stay until the police get here,” Hamish murmured. “I’ll call the hotel and tell them there’s been an emergency.”
    “The police will want to ask everybody what they saw,” Shona said morbidly. “Won’t we have something to tell the guests tonight!”
    Rex could tell Mrs. Allerdice was trying to put on a brave face, but she was visibly shaken.
    “I didn’t see anything,” Estelle remarked. “I was quite merry last night from all the wine and sherry. As soon as my head touched the pillow, I slept like a lamb.”
    Or a sheep , Rex thought uncharitably. Oh, why had Moira come to Gleneagle Lodge? Why had any of them come?
    “I recall she went upstairs to take her bath before the rest of us retired,” Estelle added. “And that’s all I’ll be able to tell the police.”
    “Moira was right fond of baths,” Rex reminisced.
    Helen took his arm and led him away. “Don’t blame yourself.”
    “Donnie left first,” Beardsley corrected Estelle. “To go to the stable.”
    The group reconvened by the horse stalls where Rex had found the ladder.
    “I tried the bathroom in the middle of the night,” Shona said. “And couldn’t get in.”
    “Flora and Hamish couldn’t either,” Rex confirmed. “I think Moira may have drowned in the bath. That would account for all the water on the floor. The excess water suggests someone drowned her.”
    “On purpose?” Shona asked, shocked.
    “Is there any other way?” her husband asked impatiently.
    “But the door was locked from the inside,” Cuthbert said, scratching his ear. “I tried this morning. I didn’t hear a peep.”
    “Seems no one did,” Rex said, pacing the small storage area. “Someone lifted her through the window and then dumped her in the loch, maybe to make it look like an accident. The killer must have used the boat and pushed the body over the side, but instead of sinking, she was washed up on the wee island.”
    “Who could have done such a thing?” Shona asked, pulling at the cowl neck of her sweater.
    “It had to have been someone at the house,” her husband replied, eying the group standing in the stable.
    “Not necessarily,” Alistair pointed out. “It could have been a burglar who surprised her in the bath.”
    Rex held up his hand for silence. A detail had just occurred to him. “Someone emptied the bath, unless the plug got dislodged in the struggle and drained by itself. Unlikely, therefore, Moira drowned herself. She went up for her bath just before midnight,” he restated. “The women cleared up. Then everybody got ready for bed.” He would have to think about this somewhere quiet. “Rob Roy was helping me move the furniture back.”
    “But what about the locked door?” Estelle insisted. “How did the person get in?”
    “Through the bathroom window, presumably—using the ladder from the stable. I don’t think the window was locked.”
    “That would support my burglar theory,” Alistair said.
    “If someone used the ladder, how did they get it without waking Donnie?” Helen asked. “Or did they take it before? Perhaps we should ask him if he remembers hearing anyone enter in the night.”
    “Donnie sleeps like a log,” Hamish Allerdice told her. “He’d no hear much with the rain falling hard on this tile roof.”
    “He did not hear me this morning,” Rex confirmed.
    “Can we be sure it wasn’t a suicide?” Estelle Farquharson asked practically.
    “It would be easier to explain to my guests,” Shona jumped in. “A murder might scare them away.”
    “Moira packed enough clothes to stay for a few days,” Helen pointed out. “I don’t think she would have gone to the trouble if she had planned to take her own life.”
    “Perhaps she was jealous when she saw you and Rex together,” Estelle suggested. “You make such a happy couple.”
    Did Estelle Farquharson always have to say what was on her min d? Rex