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Cynthia E. Hurst Mysteries
Category:
Mystery/Suspense
Publisher: Lilax Books
Type: Fiction
Pages: 210
Copyright: July 23, 2022
ISBN-13: 978842181780
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
Three strangers come to town; only two will leave it alive.
Three visitors check into the best hotel in a Cotswold market town, coming from far flung destinations and with no obvious connection to each other. But only two of them will leave it alive. As the links between the trio begin to emerge, clock repairer Jacob Silver and his wife Sarah find themselves untangling a web of secrets and lies to discover a solution that is much closer to home than imagined.
Excerpt
“Why did you come back from the station in the cab, Jacob?” she asked. “I heard it stop outside.”
Jacob had long since accepted that both Sarah’s hearing and her ability to draw accurate conclusions were sharper than the average human’s.
“I had to bring the station clock back with me, and a passenger from the train generously offered to let me share the cab with him and then carry on to here.”
“That were kind of him. Who was he?”
“A gentleman named Haft, Benjamin Haft. He’s stopping at the Marlborough.”
“All right for some,” Mrs Tucker muttered, which Jacob took as a reflection on her own living quarters, where seven people were crammed into a tiny cottage. There had been eight the previous year, before her eldest daughter had married, but it was still crowded.
“Where’s he come from?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know, but I expect he’s traveled a long way. He said he had been with the East India Company, so presumably he’s come from India or somewhere in that area.”
“Good heavens.” Sarah looked thoughtful and Jacob knew he would be getting out his atlas before long, so Sarah could trace the route between India and Oxfordshire. “So what’s he doing here?”
“I’ve no idea. He did say he’d been to Witney once before, about fifteen years ago.”
“Wonder why he’s come back. Does he have family here?”
“There’s a limit as to how much information I could glean in a short ride,” Jacob protested. “He didn’t mention any family connections, but then the reasons for Mr Haft’s presence in Witney are really none of my business.”
Sarah gave him a reproachful glance, as if to say she could have been more successful if she’d shared the ride with Haft, and Jacob had no doubt she would have been. In the more than six years he’d known Sarah, ever since she had arrived on his doorstep just before her fourteenth birthday, he’d learned how adept she was at coaxing information from people. He had been on the receiving end many times, both before and after their marriage. All she had to do was gaze at him with wide blue eyes and resistance was futile.
“Well, I expect if he’s here for long, everyone will know about it,” she said, echoing Jacob’s own thoughts on the matter.
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