Three Little Maids Read Free Page B

though from her blue reverie when Esmeralda Randall came in briskly through the swing doors like a sharp North East wind, five minutes later, and filled the library with her sweetly cloying scent of Patchouli and Ashes of Roses. A peacock blue silk turban swathed her fizz of hennaed red hair, and her long beaky nose, sallow skin and deep set sloe black eyes were sharply complimented by the vivid slash of cardinal red lipstick on her generous mouth.
    This morning, long strings of heavy amber beads clinked and chinked around her thin neck, and her ankle length blue silk dress blazed with the brilliant parlours of the red and orange poppies printed on it. Once seen never forgotten was true in Esmeralda’s case. She read the Tarot cards in a brightly painted booth on the pier next to the candy floss stall and was Viviane’s aunt’s oldest friend.
    ‘Good morning, Esmeralda, the Mary Higgins Clark’s novel you reserved has just come in.’ Esmeralda shared the same taste in books as Alice Wilberforce and took out mainly suspense and crime fiction.
    ‘Thank you, Viviane. I felt sure that it was here waiting for me and it will save you a phone call, won’t it, dear. And by the way, I’m not living in my flat at present. I’m having gas central heating put in at last before the winter sets in and the rooms decorated too.’
    ‘So you’ve moved out?’
    ‘Yes, but it’s only temporary. My frail old bones.’ She grinned widely. ‘Can’t suffer the chill and the mist creeping in from the sea front any more. Stella Frost has most kindly found a comfortable room at the White Rock Hotel for me. So, I’m booked in there for as long as it takes to get the work finished.’
    ‘Oh! I suppose then you might have heard about the discovery of the young girl’s body?’
    ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I saw it all in the Tarot cards last evening. I don’t suppose the Wilberforce sisters told you that I foretold a death and....’ She paused dramatically. ‘Another could follow quite soon. Bad things have a habit of following in threes, don’t they?’ she declared loudly.
    ‘Esmeralda.’ Viviane shook her head in dismay. ‘Hush! You mustn’t say that. You’ll give us all the frights.’
    ‘Pshaw! Why not? Those two silly old women, they made such a song and dance about my reading the Tarot cards for Mrs Frost,’ she said scornfully, glancing down to the end of the fiction shelves where the Wilberforce sisters hovered, obviously listening to every word. ‘They said that they were the Devil’s cards and should be burnt,’ she snorted loudly. ‘Stuff and rubbish!’
    ‘Esmeralda! Shush!’
    Her deep booming voice carried around the library like the tones of Big Ben and Alice uttered a shrill squeak of alarm and trembled as it reached her.
    Esmeralda’s wicked grin reminded Viviane of the grimace on the face of stone church gargoyle. ‘I’ll browse along the shelves awhile before picking up my book.’ She stared at Viviane intently for a moment then said with a wealth of meaning in her dark eyes. ‘I’ve got to give you fair warning, my girl. Do watch where that inquisitive nose of yours, takes you, Viviane. I sense an aura of evil at work here and more people could get badly hurt, good people that you know before it runs out ...’

     
    3
     
    ‘So you say the cause of death was due to severe strangulation, Matthews?’ Kent and Turner in matching green overalls stood on the periphery of the post mortem table. The latter wishing he was anywhere else but there. And more especially since his daughter knew the victim personally and had been invited to her last birthday party a short while ago.
    ‘I would say so, definitely. Terrific pressure was put on her throat causing a fracture of one of the horn bones of the cartilage. And with this pretty thing stuffed down it. Look! The poor kid choked on it and didn’t stand an earthly!’
    The medical examiner waved a pink object in the plastic envelope like a conjurer