Free SAY MURDER WITH FLOWERS: A Rex Graves Mini-Mystery by C.S. Challinor Page B

altogether approve of the “Italian stud” to begin with, although, given his daughter’s track record of broken engagements, he had not been unduly concerned about a finish line at the altar.
    Giannelli’s work involved the import of luxury Italian cars. “I introduced him to some rich and influential acquaintance who might be in the market for an overpriced pile of foreign metal,” Sir William Howes had told Rex, handing him a snifter of brandy from a cut-glass decanter. “He even tried to sell me one of his fancy cars. Fat chance. I don’t drive these days—I like my drink too much. Darling Elise was no good at controlling her alcohol intake either, or her reaction to it.”
    Indeed, Rex had learnt from his reliable source, Mr. Whitmore, that the coroner had found her alcohol consumption to be considerably elevated.
    “So much safer to use a car service , I thought. Just goes to show,” Sir Howes had maundered. “You try to preempt disaster, and it happens anyway.”
    The irony of the Minister of Transport using a private car service had not been lost on Rex, especially since there was no shortage of tube stations in Central London. But Sir Howes was careful enough about his image not to have a personal full-time chauffeur.
    His driver of preference from Sloane Car Service was one Erik Christiansen, who now passed impassively by the coffin, black cap in his hands. Tall, with ice-blue eyes, white-blond hair and chiseled features, he was a foil to the muscular Gino Giannelli. He had been in a limo the night in question, waiting to pick up Sir Howes and his wife from a dinner party held in honour of the Italian Ambassador, bachelor-about-town Vittorio Scalfaro, an event that took place at a private club in the vicinity of the accident.
    The silver stretch limo in service that night had been found to be in immaculate condition, per the police report provided by Mr. Whitmore. In any case, Sir Howes had come to trust the Danish driver implicitly, and sometimes utilized his services for delivery of time-sensitive documents and other important business.
    Gino Giannelli drove a black Lancia, Whitmore had divulged. And the victim’s sister, who apparently felt most comfortable on a horse, availed herself of the car service. It seemed both Howes girls eschewed public transport entirely. Rex tried not to hold their snobbishness against them. Elise was dead, and he’d accepted the task of bringing the responsible party, whether a reckless driver or a callous murderer, to justice.
    *
    With the sum of these facts and the faces fresh in his mind, Rex took a cab that afternoon to the bistro where Elise Howes was last seen alive. According to staff at Presto’s, she had sat alone at the bar sipping chilled limoncellos, alternately checking her phone and anxiously looking around the restaurant. Finally, at around eleven o’ clock, she rose from her stool after petulantly paying her tab. Tripping in her high heels on her way out, she grabbed onto a tapestry wall hanging and brought it down on herself, as witnessed by the bartender and a waiter, who rushed to her assistance. They had not thought to send her home in a taxi. A regular, she was generally in the company of Signor Giannelli. No one had thought to call him either. She had simply left, unsteady on her feet, after insisting she’d be fine and pressing another large tip in the hand of the bartender for any damage to the wall and decorative hanging.
    When questioned further, n o one at Presto’s had seen her with the yellow flowers found at the accident, which suggested she had acquired them between leaving the bistro and getting hit by the car, an hour-long interval no one could account for.
    Chrysanthemums were an odd choice of flower for a courting man, Rex reflected as he waited under the awning for a lull in the rain; especially for a man like Gino. Rex idly watched the waves of multicolour umbrellas on either side of the street, remembering when he had given an