C S Lewis and the Body in the Basement (C S Lewis Mysteries Book 1) by Kel Richards Page B

ponderously, it appeared that the suet had not entirely set.
    ‘Ah, it’s you!’ he said, leaning forward on his desk. ‘The detectives from Scotland Yard have been looking for you. Where are the other two?’
    ‘Still with the body,’ I replied.
    ‘I’ll go and tell Inspector Hyde you’re here,’ he said turning towards a back office. ‘The Scotland Yard men are with him now—’ He came to a sudden halt as my words sank in. He turned back towards me, trembling like a jelly in a high wind. His eyes were staring, like windows with the shutters suddenly thrown open. ‘Still with the what?’ he asked.
    ‘The body.’
    ‘Which body? Whose body?’
    ‘Nicholas Proudfoot. We found him dead in that stream to the north of the town—if you know the one I mean.’
    ‘Yes, yes, it’s a tributary of the Plum River. He has to cross it when he comes into town from his farm. You found him in the water, you say?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Just wait there. Stand there. Don’t move.’ And he rushed off in an urgent wobble into the back office. Less than a minute later he was back, followed by three men. One of them was Inspector Hyde who had questioned us the day before; the other two I didn’t recognise.
    ‘You’re Morris, aren’t you?’ said Hyde, striding up to the counter in his busy, bustling manner, looking every inch (and he didn’t have many inches) the small man with the Napoleon complex.
    ‘Tom Morris, yes.’
    ‘And you say you’ve found Nicholas Proudfoot’s body?’
    ‘Well,
we
have—myself, my friends, Jack and Warren Lewis, and Constable Dixon.’
    ‘Dixon was with you?
    I nodded and said, ‘He’s still there—keeping an eye on the body, along with my friends.’
    Hyde turned to talk to the other two, then he decided he first should introduce them to me—or, more likely, me to them. The taller of the two was identified as Inspector Crispin and the shorter, stockier individual as Sergeant Merrivale.
    ‘Is the police car in the yard?’ Hyde asked Sergeant Donaldson.
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘We’ll take that. It’ll only seat four, so you can follow on your bicycle, Donaldson. In fact, if you take the towpath and we take the road you should get there almost as quickly as we do. But before you do, telephone Dr Haydock. I want him to come out and inspect the body before we move it.’
    The police car did seat four—but only just. It was a small, black Ford Popular. Hyde and Crispin sat in the front seat while I squeezed into the back alongside the somewhat bulky form of Sergeant Merrivale. It was like sitting beside a bag of large, lumpy potatoes—potatoes that remained entirely silent throughout the journey, and seemed to concentrate entirely on spreading out and occupying as much of the back seat as possible.
    For the last part of the journey we needed to hang on to whatever we could as the small car bumped and bounced over the unsealed cart track that led from the road to the river.
    After ten minutes of this we arrived at the old stone bridge that crossed the stream. Seeing the car appear out of a cloud of dust, Constable Dixon rushed towards us with the look of a man delighted to hand over his responsibility to somebody more senior. Dixon led the others to where the body lay on the embankment and stood back.
    The tall man, Inspector Crispin, was immaculately dressed and quietly observant. He spoke little, but when he did it was with authority. He looked and sounded more like a school master than my idea of a Scotland Yard detective. At any moment I half expected him to turn to one of the uniformed men and say, ‘You there, the boy at the back of the room—are you paying attention?’
    The other policeman from London, Sergeant Merrivale, was very respectful to the taller man, like an army sergeant in the presence of his colonel.
    These two, Crispin and Merrivale, crouched over the body, emptying the pockets and examining the wounds. Then Sergeant Merrivale went back to the police car and