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Cynthia E. Hurst Mysteries
Category:
Mystery/Suspense
Publisher: Lilax Books
Type: Fiction
Pages: 218
Copyright: Aug. 2, 2021
ISBN-13: 9798549138810
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
A chance encounter -- a new adventure in 1880s Oxford.
Rose Miles was young, wealthy, recently widowed and bored out of her mind. Theodore Stone was trying to find a way to avoid joining the family business. When their paths crossed in dramatic fashion, it seemed logical for them to join forces -- and the Milestone Investigative Agency was the result.
Oxford Blue' is the first novel in the Milestone Agency Victorian Mysteries series.
Excerpt
Mrs Preston came down the police station steps and Theo moved quickly to intercept her.
“Are you all right, Mrs Preston? You appear rather fatigued, if you’ll pardon me for saying so.”
She looked up at him. For a moment she seemed not to remember him, and then recognition dawned.
“Oh, it’s you again. The toff.”
“That’s right. Did you see Inspector Reed?”
“No, he weren’t in. Saw some constable.”
Theo was somewhat relieved that he wouldn’t have to speak to Reed just yet, unless the inspector was inside and simply had refused to see Mrs Preston. That was entirely possible.
“Was he able to give you any more information concerning your husband’s death?”
“What’s it to you?”
“As I explained,” Theo said patiently, “I have inadvertently – accidentally, that is – become involved in Mr Preston’s death. I know nothing beyond the bare fact that he died sometime after eleven or so in the morning and that apparently the cause of death was drowning. I don’t even know where he was found, who found him, or any other details. If you know anything else, I would be grateful if you would share it with me.”
Mrs Preston stood still, apparently deciding whether to trust him.
“They didn’t tell me much,” she said finally.
“Anything beyond what I’ve just said?”
“That first constable, the one who come to tell me he were dead, he said he were found in the canal, down by the railway station.”
Theo pictured a mental map of Oxford, the tracks running parallel to the canal for a distance just west of the rail station. There was a wharf there, he knew, used for unloading material like coal which had been shipped south from the Midlands, or loading something produced in Oxfordshire onto barges to be sent the opposite direction.
That location had the attraction of tying in with his theory that the White Hart was somehow involved, as the pub was nearby. Theo remembered it as the sort of place where one might be able to recruit not only bailiffs, but men who might inflict all kinds of damage for a price, or even help dispose of an inconvenient corpse.
The question, of course, was exactly had happened before Preston had died. Had he simply had too much to drink and then fallen into the water and drowned? Or had he had some help? Had there been an argument, a physical fight? Theo became aware Mrs Preston was speaking again.
“And when they let me see him, I knew it weren’t no accident.”
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