The Lammas Curse Read Free

that rainbow! I hope I have the
chance to meet her. That would be the highlight. A shame you cannot
come.”
    “Who says I cannot come?” he
responded peevishly as he handed back the magazine and absently
picked up a copy of Tatler . “You make it sound as if you
don’t want me to come.” He lowered his gaze to avoid eye-contact
then a moment later coughed phlegmatically and perked up. “By Jove!
Here’s another article on the same subject! Listen to this! This
article has the rotten cheek to suggest Lord Cruddock received a
life peerage from the Queen and was named Baron Dunravin not for
his philanthropy but for offering to be named as co-respondent in
the divorce between the Duke and Duchess of Strathbowness saving
the Prince Regent from yet another embarrassing scandal with a
married woman.”
    “Not surprising! His mother
will insist on living forever! Tum-Tum is bored and cannot help
himself! And I’m sorry you feel aggrieved but you only have
yourself to blame.”
    “Is that so?”
    “Remember what you said? Our
relationship ends when we get back to London.”
    “I was referring to our
sleuthing relationship. We can still see each other.”
    “But not in Scotland.”
    “And why ever not not Scotland?”
    “Well, I’m sure the last thing
you want is another mystery to embroil yourself in and let’s face
it this tournament has all the hallmarks of a first class puzzle
worthy of Sherlock Holmes: Three deaths, a doomed golf course, a
cursed tournament, a Scottish Spiritualist, some angry spirits, and
a stunning, red-haired, Irish actress.” She made sure to pause for
dramatic effect and elicit a languorous sigh as she exchanged the
ladies’ journal for The Strand Magazine . “What’s more, right
now I am staring at a rather fierce looking chap in a turban.”
    “What?”
    “The Rajah of Govinda. The
caption under the photo says he is attending the tournament as a
special guest of Lord Cruddock because he is planning to stage a
similar tournament in India next year. Golf has become as popular
as cricket and polo in his homeland and golf courses have started
springing up from one end of the subcontinent to the other.”
    “Let me see that!”
    He practically tore the
magazine from her hands as she sat back in her seat wearing an
inscrutable smile, sending bracelets of bluish smoke into the air
and silently counting to three before delivering the coup de
grace .
    “There’s another reason you
cannot come.”
    “And what is that?” he huffed
as he ground his Bradley to a pulp in the ashtray.
    “I cannot possibly invite you
to stay in what could be very uncomfortable lodgings. For all I
know Graymalkin could be nothing but draughty halls, cobweb
curtains, walls dripping with damp, moss growing on the ceiling and
a mad banshee haunting a crumbling tower.”
    His back stiffened against the
padded leather seat as he squared his shoulders. “I will have you
know I served as assistant surgeon in Afghanistan. I took a Jezail
bullet at the battle of Maiwand. I am accustomed to hardship,
privation, and sleeping rough. What’s more, I am a native Scot. I
am familiar with Scottish geography, weather, laws, customs,
idioms…and I know how to dance the Scottish reel!”

2
The Diogenes Club

    The Diogenes Club was an
exclusive, luxurious, lunatic asylum for seriously wealthy
misanthropes. If someone had locked the club members inside their
own clubhouse and thrown away the key the inmates would have
rewarded their gaoler generously. It was a refuge from all that
London had to offer – dinner parties, debutante balls, musical
soirees, opening nights at the opera, and every other torture
invented by the charming, the effusive, the garrulous, the smiling,
the sparkling and the scintillating. If John Donne had been a
member of the Diogenes Club he would never have penned ‘no man is
an island’. The members were all self-proclaimed islands floating
in a sea called Society connected to the Ocean of Others.