TERROR IN TOPAZ
By A.M. STUART
Chapter One
SINGAPORE
Monday 28 November 1910
From her comfortable chair on the verandah, Harriet Gordon watched the curtain of water fall from the glowering sky. The evening’s torrential downpour reflected her mood. Her ward, Will Lawson, sat on a stool nearby engaged in what was now his nightly duty—oiling the absent Inspector Robert Curran’s cricket bat. The sickly-sweet smell of linseed oil hung in the heavy air, adding nausea to her threatening headache.
“Will, enough! Go and put that stinking stuff away and get on with your homework,” Harriet snapped and then conscious of her harsh tone, added, “Please. I’m sure it doesn’t need to be oiled every single night.”
“But I promised the inspector,” Will mumbled.
“I know you did, but what little I know about cricket bats, I do know they don’t need to be oiled quite so regularly.”
Will glared at her. “I will hate it if he comes back and thinks I didn’t look after it properly.”
Harriet summoned a smile. “I am certain he won’t think that, Will.” She pointed at the door. “Homework.”
Will picked up cloth, oil and cricket bat and stomped inside. Oiling a cricket bat was infinitely preferable to schoolwork.
The side gate that led from St Thomas House to the school squeaked, and Harriet’s brother, Julian, headmaster of St Thomas Church of England Preparatory School for English Boys, ran toward the house, the large umbrella he held doing very little to keep the rain at bay.
Reaching the verandah, he stopped, panting from his exertion, water streaming from his sodden hair down his face. He closed the useless umbrella and leaned it against the verandah rail.
Harriet rose to her feet, but he forestalled the question on her lips by holding up his hand.
“Let me get dry and changed and then we’ll talk,” he said. “Pour us both a whisky. I think we need it.”
It seemed like an age before Julian reappeared, his still-damp hair sticking up where he had roughly toweled it. He patted it down, adjusted his glasses and accepted the glass Harriet held out for him.
“That bad?” she asked, her voice high with tension.
“I haven’t lost my job,” Julian said.
Harriet let out a breath. That had been her greatest fear.
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