Murder With Method

MURDER WITH METHOD BLYTHE BAKER Copyright © 2023 by Blythe Baker All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. CONTENTS Description Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 About the Author * * * When an innocent man goes on the run from police, Sylvia finds herself harboring an accused murderer. Drawn into investigating the violent crime, her search for the truth leads her into the unfamiliar world of betting and horseracing. As danger closes in around her, Sylvia will need all the help she can get. But new revelations about the past of her butler leave her doubting even the resourceful Miles can come to her rescue this time... * * * 1 Bad memories are like a toothache; no matter how one tries, one can’t help but go back and poke at it, despite the pain it causes. It seemed that my head was full of nothing but bad memories as of late…well, maybe that wasn’t entirely true, but wasn’t it far more likely that I would dwell on such matters instead of the good occasions that seemed so few and far between? Thanksgiving quickly approached, and while everyone around me intended to make the most of what would likely be a sparse, quiet season, I couldn’t seem to get out of my own head. Too many things had happened, too many worries built up in the corners of my mind like heavy boxes in an already crowded attic. I had no intention of digging through them, not consciously, and yet my anxious heart kept throwing the memories wide open to peruse, as if with great delight. Most prominently, I thought of Miles, as I so often did these days. A rare, clear day had graced us. Sunshine washed the streets of New York with its golden blanket. Although not nearly as warm as any of us would have hoped, it did seem to bring a new life to those around me. I wanted it to lift my spirits, just as they lifted my sister’s, and my mother’s, and even those of our housekeeper, Mrs. Riley, who I had seen smiling this morning as she drew my bedroom curtains. But even as I sat in a bustling bakery now, staring out the window at the greenery in a nearby park, I felt nothing. Not even a stirring of hope within me. And it all had to do with what I had witnessed the other night. It aggravated me to no end that I argued with myself almost constantly about whether or not I could trust my butler Miles. One moment I managed to convince myself that I could, remembering the times he had quite literally saved my life and sought out information that had helped me…and then the next, I despised the very thought of him and his presence in my family’s household. Not only did I have the newspaper article floating around in my mind, taunting me, now I had to contend with the thought that he had snuck out of the house at a late hour in order to rid himself of something. What had it been? Why had he needed to do it so secretly? Why choose the river? The answer to that question was easy, of course. So no one would ever find it, I thought for perhaps the thousandth time in the past few days. A raucous chorus of giggling briefly snapped me out of the mire of my musings, and I looked up to see my sister Joan standing with a group of our friends, Catherine Waters among them. The glowing bride-to-be at the center of them all, Lydia Howard, held a rose in one hand and a letter in the other, reading it while the others listened and swooned. “…Love for you runs as deep as the oceans, as vast as the starry skies, with as much breadth as the mountains kissing the heavens…” she read, which led to another encore of laughter and surprise. I knew I should be standing with them. It was Lydia’s day, after all. She had invited us down to one of the finest bakeries in the city so as to celebrate her recent engagement. Joan had wanted to go, and I promised I would come along. But now that I was here, I found myself strangely out of place. I knew full well that I was doing it to myself, sitting alone at the table in the corner like I was. But when they had gotten lost in the details of wedding planning, I had naturally found my mind wandering to more pressing matters…such as whether or not I had brought a murderer into my home without realizing it. Miles had seemed a good choice as butler when I had hired him, but that was before I had discovered that scrap of a London newspaper article about him… The other matter that troubled me was the secret item. The night that Miles had thrown whatever wrapped item he concealed into the river, I had waited until he had left to go and investigate it myself. Naturally, I had not been able to find anything, not even a hint of what it had been. Even the ripples had dispersed. What I had found instead, surprisingly, was a fisherman standing along the shore. It was a strange place for him to be at that hour, so close to the edge of our private property. But then, it wasn’t unusual in these hard times to see poor folk roaming the banks, hoping to catch something to eat out of the murky waters. “Excuse me,” I