A Tall Dark Stranger Read Free Page A

the water for dumping trash,” he called. We share the water meadow with Maitland. Half of it is on his property. “It’s an old jacket. I’ll have a word with Maitland.”
    He tried to hook the edge of the branch under the material, but the branch bent. Looking at Lollie, I saw his jaw fall open. He came to rigid attention, like a pointer on the scent of game.
    “There’s someone in the jacket,” he said in a high, disbelieving voice.
    I dropped my precious watercolor box and darted to join him. I saw a head bobbing in the water, facedown. The branch wasn’t strong enough to pull the body to the edge of the water. In his excitement Lollie waded in and dragged the body out by its topboots. Once on dry land he turned the body over. I was overcome by an unusual fit of maidenly reluctance and turned my head aside.
    “Good God, it’s Mr. Stoddart!” he exclaimed.
    That was enough to make me turn around. It was Stoddart, all right. He hadn’t been in the water long enough to become discolored or bloated, but he was entirely waterlogged. He was certainly dead.
    His open eyes stared at the heavens; his mouth was slack. He looked pathetic with his face as pale as a fish’s belly and his sodden hair plastered against his forehead, but he was recognizable. There were no visible marks of violence on him.
    I looked at Lollie in consternation and noticed that his face was as pale as the corpse’s.
    “He must have drowned,” I said, returning my gaze to the body and musing on the uncertainty of life.
    “What should we do?”
    “One of us should go for help. The other will stay here with the body.”
    “It’s odd that he’d drown in ten inches of water,” Lollie said, and bent over the body to examine it. “He must have fallen and knocked himself unconscious. Odd there’s no bump. Good lord!” he exclaimed. “Take a look at this, Amy!”
    “What is it?” I asked. I didn’t want to “take a look” at whatever it was, but I glanced down to see what Lollie was doing. He had opened the jacket.
    “He’s been stabbed!” he exclaimed. “I noticed the hole in his jacket. It goes right through the shirt. The water’s washed the blood away, but he was stabbed right enough.”
    I didn’t look at the evidence. After a momentary surge of nausea, I said in a hollow voice, “Then you’d best send for the constable.”
    “You’ll stay with the body? Wouldn’t you rather I stay?”
    “Yes, much rather.”
    I turned to leave, then turned back. “Come with me, Lollie. No one can harm a corpse, but whoever killed him might be lurking nearby.”
    “Stoddart’s been dead for hours. His killer wouldn’t stay around. I’ll be all right, but hurry.”
    He needn’t have suggested it. I flew through the meadow as if pursued by a madman, trampling wild-flowers underfoot in my dart, which is something I would not usually do. The rank grass entwined my ankles, as if to hold me back.
    The trip had never seemed so long. Finally, I ran, gasping, into the house and fell onto a chair in Cook’s steamy kitchen. I was grateful for the comfort of the familiar servants, the stove and aromas of cooking.
    “Dead,” I gasped.
    Cook turned as pale as paper and grabbed the edge of the table. “Not Master Lollie!” Cook hasn’t yet adjusted to calling Lollie Mr. Talbot, though I have become Miss Talbot.
    Her helper, Inez, screamed. Betty, the scullery maid, came darting out of her lair carrying a plate and a tea towel. She dropped the plate and it broke with a clattering noise.
    “Oh, no! Not Lollie,” I assured them. “There’s a body in the water meadow. The man’s been stabbed. We must send for Monger.”
    Inez and Betty screamed in unison and hugged each other for comfort. “Stabbed! We’ll all be kilt.” That was Betty.
    “A murderer! I ain’t going out into the garden for vegetables,” Inez averred.
    “Hush up, you silly girls,” Cook said. “Who’d bother to murder the likes of you?” On this piece of cold