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Cynthia E. Hurst mysteries
Category:
Mystery/Suspense
Publisher: Lilax Books
ISBN-10: 1725580144
Type: Fiction
Pages: 214
Copyright: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN-13: 9781725580145
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
Lightning can strike in many different ways ...
Luke Alden had everything to live for -- a good job, a loving wife and a child on the way -- until the events of one stormy night destroyed it all. Some people said it was an act of God, but police in the Cotswold market town suspect it was a very human hand that started a fire and left Alden to die inside a burning building. Did someone resent Alden's good fortune enough to kill him, or was there another motive? Clock repairer Jacob Silver and his housemaid Sarah Simm join forces with the police to track down a killer who is as elusive as a bolt of lightning, and just as destructive.
'Bolt from the Blue' is the seventh book in the Silver and Simm Victorian Mysteries series.
Excerpt
An hour later, Jacob was standing in front of what was left of the younger Aldens’ house in Bridge Street. It was a sorry sight. The blackened outer stone walls were more or less intact, but the windows had broken in the heat and the roof had sagged inward as the beams holding it up had burned. Peering through one broken window, Jacob could see where floorboards, furniture and interior walls had been reduced to charred embers.
A sturdy woman in a plain dark gray dress was standing on the pavement talking to Inspector Carey, so Jacob held back from interrupting them. From the few words he could catch, he deduced this was the cook who had prepared meals for the couple, and that she was at least as concerned about the loss of income as the fate of Luke Alden.
Then she said something that caught his attention.
“It’s all right for Maggie; she’ll be able to have a position with Mrs Alden still, even if she’s with Mr Alden’s people, but what about me? They’ve got their own cook and she won’t want me in her kitchen.”
Jacob couldn’t hear all of Carey’s response, but he assumed the inspector was sympathizing while at the same time informing her that his main concern was finding out what had happened and who was responsible.
“An act of God, folks are sayin’,” the cook said. “That’s all very well, and maybe it were, but I don’t see God giving me a new position.”
“One never knows,” Carey said. “He does move in mysterious ways, or so they say. If you do think of anything that may shed some light on this tragedy, please let me or one of the constables know.”
“Yes, sir, I will.”
She turned on her heel and marched away, which Jacob took to mean she had no more faith in police efforts than she did in divine ones. Carey turned and saw him.
“Good afternoon, Jacob. We are almost finished here, but I don’t imagine you have come to gawk at the scene of a tragedy.”
“No, I haven’t. I – or rather Sarah – have stumbled across something that is not exactly evidence, but is possibly relevant.”
“I am delighted to hear it. Come over here, away from the house. What have you stumbled across?”
Jacob related Maggie’s experience, ending with, “So it simply seems odd, almost as though she is unwilling to risk having Maggie in the house. Sarah’s theory is that Maggie may have overheard or seen something, without realizing what it meant, and Diana Alden is afraid that either she will repeat it, or work out what it means.”
“I agree it is odd. I have not questioned Diana Alden at length yet, out of delicacy for her grief and her condition, but I do intend to speak to her again and I shall speak to Maggie, too, or send someone else to ask her a few questions. Thank you for providing a bit of ammunition.”
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