Murder at Midnight by C. S. Challinor Page A

her. Now I’m not so sure it is an earring.”
    She held it out at arm’s length to the oil lamp and peered at the small tuft of shiny black feathers. “I need my reading glasses. Ace, love?” When she saw her non-responsive husband was dozing, she muttered, “Oh, never mind. We share a pair,” she explained. “He keeps them on him so I don’t lose them, which I’m prone to do.”
    “Let me see,” said Zoe leaning in beside her. “Oh, look. It’s got some yucky stuff on the tip. What is it?” she asked, drawing back her hand in disgust.
    Rex reached over. “May I?” he asked, taking the object from Vanessa. “Hm. Looks like a small dart with the feathers forming the fletch.”
    “A dart,” Alistair repeated.
    “Wait a minute …” John said, without finishing his sentence, his face expressing a sudden revelation.
    “It’s tiny,” Julie said. “Are you sure it’s a dart?”
    Rex held it back to the light. “But still potentially lethal if poisoned. That might account for the dark sticky residue on its point, similar to that found in the wounds.” He showed the object to John, who nodded.
    Everyone reacted with shock to the idea of poison.
    “I may have touched it!” Vanessa cried.
    “Could be poison,” Professor Cleverly agreed, craning his neck to better see the item in question. “But,” he added, dismissing Mrs. Weaver’s fears with a wave of his long tapered fingers, “if it’s curare, as it might be, judging by the colour and consistency, it’s not harmful if you touch it, unless you have a cut or abrasion.”
    A cut or abrasion , Rex repeated to himself.
    “What is curare?” John asked.
    “An arrow poison made from tree bark and sometimes mixed with venom,” Cleverly told him. “Used by tribes in tropical South America to hunt monkeys and other small game, and known as ‘flying death’.”
    “They eat monkeys?” Jason exclaimed. “I’ve never tried monkey meat.”
    “Come off it, everybody,” Drew objected, throwing up his hands. “Who would bring a poison dart to a party?”
    The murderer , Rex thought. And where was the other dart? One for each victim, presumably. Were there others? His blood ran cold at the thought.
    “Are you sure that’s what was used on the Frasers?” Flora asked, straining to take a closer look at the exhibit.
    “The point is the right size for the wounds we found,” Rex said. “What do you think, John?”
    “Aye, and the brownish substance matches.”
    “It’s diabolical,” Helen exclaimed. “Who would want to murder such a nice couple?”
    “Perhaps it has something to do with the gold they were boasting about.” Margarita Delacruz shook her head back in a haughty manner. “Very foolish of them, I think.”
    Vanessa Weaver concurred. “Oh, I know! Especially as it’s just lying up there in the castle. And from what I understood earlier, the gold’s been cursed since the beginning and has destroyed the family down through generations. And now this.” She looked pointedly at Rex, as though to remind him of her warnings.
    Flora turned to her boyfriend. “I think you should get rid of that coin, Jason. Just turn it in to wherever Drew said.”
    “You’ll have to tell the police now,” the house agent told him. “If they ever get here,” he added, glancing at the mantelpiece clock which was about to chime two in the morning.
    Jason put his hands to his face and nodded. “Bloody hell. I can’t believe this. It’s like a bad dream.”
    “I know, lad,” Rex said. “But don’t blame yourself. You didn’t know the story when you found that gold piece.”
    “I should have known it might be part of the Arkaig Treasure. I did some research when I found it, to determine its value. I thought it might be a stray coin from those times, not part of something bigger.”
    “We don’t know that for sure,” Alistair said. “There may be nothing buried at the castle.”
    “Let’s forget the gold for now and find out who shot that