The donkey started up again, matching his pace to Horatio Cobb’s.
“I guess now that you and me’s started to trade secrets—in a manner of speakin’—I ought to confess somethin’ else. Abner Clegg didn’t get away from me last week. I tracked the bugger right up to the milliner’s door and watched the lady there hand him the package.”
“But why did you not tell me this right away? You must’ve known I’d find the letter-writer eventually.”
For a moment only the donkey’s harsh breathing was heard. “I knew you was kinda soft on the lady,” Cobb said with a blush in his voice.
Marc yawned, but not because he was not intrigued by Cobb’s omniscience and, more impressively, by his sensitivity. “Then you must have known she was living here before I did.”
“Well, I got kinda chummy with her aunt Catherine the day after she set up shop on my patrol,” Cobb said by way of explanation. “The old gal likes a cup of tea and a good, gossipy chinwag.”
“I see. Well, thank you, anyway—Cobb,” Mark said. The constable’s name on his tongue felt good, and proper. “But I think I have blown my chances with that particular lady.”
“That ain’t the story I been told, Major.”
But Marc did not hear this comforting response: he was asleep.
The little procession had turned now onto Front Street—donkey, constable, cart with lieutenant, and chestnut mare. In the eerie half-light of the solstice moon, the entire city lay open before them.
Cobb leaned over and chuckled. “Good night, sweet prince.”
Vital Secrets
The next exciting Marc Edwards mystery
from Don Gutteridge
Coming soon to bookstores
from Touchstone
Solemn Vows (Marc Edwards) Page 23
