Read Mulled Murder (Pennyfoot Holiday Mysteries) for Free Online Page B

bid you good night.” With that, he opened the door, stepped out into the dark, and gently closed it behind him.
    Cecily let out her breath. Sam Northcott’s eyes might be sharp, but his brain had trouble keeping up. At least she had bought some time. The last thing she needed was Inspector Cranshaw badgering her guests over the Christmas holidays.
    So far there was nothing to indicate that Gerald Evans’s death had any connection to anyone else in the club. She couldn’t dismiss Madeline’s cryptic words, however, and it was with an uneasy heart that she made her way back to her suite. A good night’s sleep would go a long way toward reviving her, she told herself. In the morning all this would seem like nothing more than a bad dream.
    • • •
    Gertie wasn’t normally the first one to go out in the courtyard in the morning. Usually one of the maids was sent out to fill the coal scuttles, drag the laundry off the clotheslines, or fetch in the milk urns left on the doorstep by the milkman.
    This morning, however, Gertie had been woken up early by her exuberant twins. She’d promised to take them to see Clive’s toy shop that afternoon, and they were both too excited to sleep. Gertie had washed and dressed them both, and left them to wait for Daisy, their nanny, to give them breakfast.
    Arriving in the kitchen before anyone else, Gertie headed for the stove. The cold tiles beneath her feet chilled the vast room, and she couldn’t wait to get the coals glowing. To her dismay the scuttles were empty and she had no choice but to fill them herself. It was a job she hated, and she wasn’t feeling too cheerful as she stepped outside.
    White clouds scudded across a pale blue sky, and sparkling diamonds of frost coated the line of sheets swaying in the sea breeze. Some poor bugger would have to pry the clothes-pegs off the line and haul solid frozen sheets into the kitchen to thaw before she could fold them.
    Gertie was just glad it wasn’t her. Carrying the scuttles, she started across the courtyard, dreading the moment when she’d have to walk into the dark, dusty, smelly bowels of the coal shed.
    She had barely taken a dozen steps when she spotted the bundle lying at the very edge of the yard.
    Thinking that some of the laundry had blown off the line, she muttered a curse, dropped the scuttles, and hurried forward to pick it up. It would all have to be washed again, she was thinking as she drew closer. Then her heart stopped, and began beating again twice as fast as before.
    It wasn’t a bundle of clothes at all. It was a young woman lying curled into a ball, her eyes closed in her chalk white face.
    Once, not too long ago, Gertie had found a maid murdered in the coal shed. It was the reason she hated going in there. It had taken her weeks to stop seeing in her dreams that awful look on the dead woman’s face.
    Now, it seemed, she was destined to go through all that again. Quickly she shut her eyes and turned her back on the woman. Last time she’d fainted. This time she had to get help. She took a step toward the kitchen, then halted when she heard a faint moan behind her.
    Heart pounding, she turned back. She hadn’t imagined it. The woman’s eyes were flickering open. She was alive!
    Bursting with gratitude, Gertie dropped to her knees beside the still form. “Are you hurt? Can you get up?”
    The pale blue eyes stared back at her, full of confusion. “I don’t know.”
    The words were the softest of whispers, and Gertie had to lean down to hear her. “Here, I’ll help you.” She put her hand under the frail arm and gave it a little tug.
    Shivering and teeth chattering, the woman got to her knees, then unsteadily to her feet.
    She swayed so much Gertie was afraid the woman would fall. She grabbed both her arms. “Steady on there, luv. What’s your name?”
    The woman opened her mouth, hesitated, then closed her mouth again, her eyes widening. “I don’t know,” she whispered again.
    It was