Free Murders Most Foul by Alanna Knight

brokenthe commandment ‘Thou shalt not steal’. Maybe it was too elaborate a term for helping herself to a bit of leftover salmon, or some nice food from the pantry after Mrs Brown went home. After all, it was for her ailing mother to help out their meagre diet, and she told herself it would never be missed – it was going off and would be thrown out next day. But the housekeeper had an eagle eye. Her last foray, a nice piece of lamb and a few sausages, had been only last week. Had Mrs Brown told on her and were the police here to arrest her?
    What was the punishment for stealing food – was it transportation? Betty leant against the kitchen sink for support. She was going to be sick. However, she was surprised and so relieved when, a little later, the two policemen showed little interest in her beyond asking her name and how long she had been at Lumbleigh Green.
    It was Ida they were interested in.
    Was she a friend of hers?
    No.
    Had she any reason to believe Ida would take her own life?
    Definitely no, was the answer. She didn’t add that Ida, only interested in men, never exchanged a word with her if it could be avoided. To Ida, as to everyone else under this roof, she was invisible.
    Later, interviewed by Gosse, he dismissed her, saying that he might need to have a look at her room later. That threw her into a flutter of panic, destroying the brief consolation that she wasn’t the one he was looking for, because Betty sometimes kept a secret hoard of stolen food in her room.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    Murder investigations were normally in the charge of detective inspectors, but Stan Wade, at a wedding in Inverness, had the misfortune to fall and break a leg.
    Drunk as usual, was the cynical observation among the constables. McIvor had informed Gosse that he was to take over Wade’s duties until other arrangements could be made, depending on how long Wade was expected to be absent. And Gosse was aware that for an inspector this was likely to be for some time, since a broken leg was an impossible impediment to all the footwork needed.
    Expressing the usual comments of concern about his senior officer, Gosse was, in truth, delighted at this unexpected temporary promotion. He and DC Faro headed through the ornate gates of Lumbleigh Green and across the bordered lawns where steps guarded by two stone lions led up to the handsome front door, opened after a short interval by Mrs Brown.
    They showed their cards, which the housekeeper eyednarrowly, then, in the manner expected of her, told them to wait in the hall while she would enquire if the master was at home to receive them.
    This was Faro’s first occasion to set foot inside the mansion, its splendours related in awed whispers from Lizzie. Expecting a kind of Ali Baba’s cave of wondrous luxuries, he was a little disappointed in the reality. He had not been in many big Edinburgh mansions and found this one quite extraordinary. A lot of large rather ugly china vases and ornaments, chosen for size to fill empty spaces, rather than for quality, were overlooked by walls of gloomy pictures. In the absence of ancestral portraits, they were of horses, dogs and dark, forbidding Highland landscapes.
    At his side, Gosse scowled. He did not care to be kept waiting and signalling to Faro he marched boldly in the direction of the door in which he had seen a maid disappear.
    ‘Might as well save time and start with the kitchen, see what the servants have to say. You can interview Lumbleigh.’
    Faro was somewhat taken aback by this move but Gosse was well aware that, in the class they were dealing with, Lumbleigh would be unable to recall having exchanged more than half a dozen words with this Ida, who had had the audacity to commit suicide. That was bad enough, but to be murdered and thereby involve a grand house in an exclusive area of Edinburgh and a highly respected family in sordid police enquiries was beyond the pale.
    Lumbleigh made these objections, addressed from behind the