The Moonlit Murders: A historical mystery page-turner (A Fen Churche Mystery Book 3) by Fliss Chester (best ereader for pc .txt) 📗

more critical eye, like her own, and she could tell that he was more worried about the couple than Eloise and Frank were.

‘Probably time for us all to call it a night,’ he said, though his words were lost in the protestations of Spencer, who was now wiping his face – a scowling face to boot.

‘I’ll follow her,’ Fen whispered to James, but she was beaten off the starting blocks by Spencer, who dashed off after his flouncing fiancée, yelling as he went.

Fen followed the warring couple back down the corridor to where their cabins were, keeping a polite distance so that they didn’t feel eavesdropped on. Nevertheless, it was jolly hard not to hear the shouts and some rather fruity curses coming from the narrow passageway that led to their cabin door, which then closed, Fen could hear, with a loud metallic bang.

‘Night, Genie,’ Fen whispered to herself as she walked the last few yards back to her cabin. ‘Sleep well.’

26

Fen woke to the sound of a foghorn blasting out somewhere above her. She blinked her eyes a few times and pulled the soft eiderdown closer to her chin. Her cabin was cosy and warm, but she could make out little in the way of natural light from her porthole.

Sitting up in bed, she was able to reach over and gently twitch the floral curtains, yet all she could see was a swirling mass of fog and mist. No wonder the ship’s horn had sounded so resiliently – there would be no way of seeing a sausage out there this morning.

Awake now, Fen thought she might put a few words down on paper, in readiness to send to her dear friend Kitty back in West Sussex. Oddly enough, the chintzy florals on her curtains and eiderdown in this cabin were more than faintly reminiscent of the decor in Mrs B’s farmhouse, and Fen chuckled to herself, imagining what her former landlady would make of a ship the size and opulence of the De Grasse.

She hopped out of bed and found her pen and some headed ship’s notepaper and climbed back into bed, her letter-to-be propped up on her knees, resting against one of the complimentary magazines she’d found in the saloon.

SS De Grasse

November 1945

Dear Kitty and co,

It feels a bit silly to write to you when there are very few postboxes around! Well, until I dock in New York, when I’m sure one of the helpful stewards will take all of our missives and send them straight back where we’ve all come from. And, fear not, I won’t be far behind it as I don’t have much in the way of funds for kicking up my heels on Fifth Avenue.

Still, there have been some developments, shall we say, on board already, and it’s only been a couple of nights since we left Southampton. You will struggle to believe this, I’m sure, but I found a dead body hidden in one of the lifeboats… while I was searching for a priceless tiara!

I know, shake your heads all you like… I wonder how I get myself into these situations, too. All I can say is, I think the old adage that ‘worse things happen at sea’ may well be correct…

Fen carried on telling Kitty about the hunt for the jewels and Albert, knowing full well that it would be read aloud to Mrs B and whoever else happened to be passing, be it the postman or Reverend Smallpiece, as surely nothing so salacious would be happening in West Sussex that could compete with it. Fen sighed, thinking of this, and yearned for the quiet of the farmhouse and the daily routine of tending the fields and helping out the neighbours with their cows or vegetables.

She decided that she better not overegg the excitement on board, in case Kitty near boiled over with exclamation marks the next time she saw her, so brought the letter back to more mundane things. Mundane things like crossword clues. Kitty, dear Kitty, was like a younger sister to Fen, and wanted to learn how Fen solved cryptic crossword clues. Fen had promised to teach her and had been sending clues back to her in each letter she’d written recently.

Coming up with another one for her now would assuage her guilt slightly at careering off on another adventure without her. As far as clues went, Fen liked homophones, those words that sounded the same but were sometimes spelt quite differently and always had a double meaning. They reminded her of how Arthur used to pun with them all the time. Feeling a little hoarse… he’d cough as he stroked the nose of a pony standing by a gate. Fen chuckled to herself and kept writing.

Kitty, I promised you some more clues, well, here’s one for you… Left with a fortified wine, I hear? (4). See if you can crack that one by the time I get home.

Fen didn’t sign off, instead laying the paper down on her bedside cabinet, in case she had more news to fill Kitty and Mrs B in on by the time they docked in New York. She was sure there would be some sort of resolution to the jewellery theft, and she hoped there might be some light shed on Albert’s murder, too.

Fen stretched her legs out of bed and went about her morning routine. Having washed herself as best she could with her flannel and small bar of soap, she checked her hair and face in the mirror above the basin and thought about what to wear.

With the fog out there looking like it might envelop them all, she decided warm woollen trousers and one of her old land girl jumpers wouldn’t be such a bad idea on board today, but a designer scarf and a dash of red lipstick would not only jazz her up, but, Fen thought, it might help her be seen in that pea-souper too.

While she was dressing, she thought of Genie and the awkward end to last night’s