The Stone That Never Came Down Read Free

Tarquin,” answered Amelia, Lady Washgrave, as she entered her breakfast-room. Snow lay thick on the lawn beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, but within the air was warm and deliciously scented with Earl Grey tea.
    Tarquin was her personal secretary, and she had conceived a considerable affection for him. His father, incredibly, was an uncouth charge-hand in a factory, and salted his conversation with appalling objurgations. Tarquin had managed to live all that down. Granted, some breath of scandal had attached to him at university … but “there is more joy in heaven.”
    Deftly he aided her chair to adopt its correct posture beneath her decently long skirt. She was a perfect model of what, in her view, a respectable widow of forty-eight should look like. It had been at the age she herself had now attained that the late Sir George had succumbed to a heart attack precipitated, no doubt, by excessive dedication to his business interests. She had borne the loss with fortitude, perhaps not unmingled with relief.
    “Would you prefer the Times or your correspondence first, milady?” Tarquin enquired, turning to the sideboard. And added in a regretful tone, “I’m afraid the newspaper has not-accorded the same prominence to the police’s raid as did Radio Free Enterprise.”
    He displayed the headlines to prove his point; they concerned strikers in Glasgow, riots in Italy, and suchlike trivia. Lady Washgrave was unsurprised; it was notorious that the media, including even the august Times, were mouthpieces for the international conspiracy of corruption. She waved the paper aside and accepted an inch-thick wad of letters, most of which, she noted with approval, were from local chapters of the Campaign Against Moral Pollution–of which she was executive chairman–and bore the campaign’s symbol: a cross-hilted dagger spiking a stylised book, intended to represent morality cleansing the world of trash.
    These at least could be trusted to inform her of important matters.
    “There were also a hundred and eighty Christmas cards,” murmured Tarquin. “And–ah–some abusive items which I took the liberty of extracting. For the police.”
    Lady Washgrave nodded absently, setting aside the topmost letter because, alas, it could not be relied on to generate action. It was a complaint about the theory of evolution being taught “as though it were a proven fact.” The second was a different matter, and ought to cost a teacher, perhaps some school governors and very possibly some local councillors their jobs. To think that a woman living openly in sin should be put in charge of hapless infants!
    “Mark that one ‘urgent’!” she directed. And, on the point of turning to the next, a description of the behaviour of courting couples on a Gloucestershire common, she checked.
    “Is there no communication from Brother Bradshaw?”
    “No, milady, I’m afraid there isn’t.”
    “How strange!” She drew her brows together. “The Reverend Mr Gebhart assured me that by today at latest we should be told whether he can join our New Year’s Crusade. Admittedly he’s greatly in demand, but even so … Not that I myself entirely approve of the “hard-sell’ approach, you know, but my committee did vote in favour of inviting him, and one must abide by the democratic principle, must one not?”
    “I’ll attempt to telephone him later,” Tarquin promised.
    “Yes, please do.” And, having taken a bite of the toast which was all she ever ate in the morning, Lady Washgrave sighed, gazing at the snow-covered lawn. “How beautiful it looks I” she murmured. “So–so pure … Which reminds me: you did, I trust, instruct the gardeners to drain the pipe leading to the swimming-pool?”
    “Of course, milady. A little more tea?”

    Detective Chief Inspector David Sawyer composed a signature block at the bottom of his report and rolled it out of the typewriter. It had been a long report. It had been a long job.
    “And completely