Who Killed Charmian Karslake? Read Online Free

know. Nevare – nevare have I seen my Mademoiselle take anysing. Nevare I see anysing zat she can take.”
    â€œH’m! Well, she may keep it out of sight. Stand out of the way, please, mademoiselle. Now, Larpent!” At a word from Sir Arthur, Brook had gone back to keep Lady Moreton and the other women back.
    Now the men surveyed the door a minute, then Dicky, his brother and Mr. Larpent put their shoulders to it. It cracked at first, but it did not give and it took the best efforts of all of them, using a flat board one of the footmen brought as a lever, before they were able to force it open. Then Dicky Moreton drew back, his fair face white.
    â€œI am afraid there is something very wrong, Arthur. The room is all upset, as far as I can see.”
    â€œAnd I don’t know how you did see,” said John Larpent. “I was just beside you and I didn’t. Don’t be a fool, Dicky! The room is in a deuce of a mess, that’s all. The girl’s on the bed.” But his voice stopped and he drew back with an exclamation of horror.
    The most cursory glance was enough to show that something was terribly wrong. The room was in confusion, the furniture was tossed about everywhere, and Charmian Karslake lay on the bed, looking almost as if she had been flung there. Her white face was turned towards the door, the mouth wide open, and the blue, starry eyes, dull now and glazed, stared sightlessly at the men in the doorway. Quite evidently she had not finished undressing, though she was lying across the bed.
    The bed-clothes were trailing on the floor, and she was wearing soft silk underclothing of the same fabric and colour as the wonderful gold frock she had worn at the ball the night before. Over them she had apparently thrown carelessly a white silk kimona. Right in the front, over the left breast, an ugly red stain disfigured both the kimona and the gold tissue. It needed no second glance to see that life had been extinct for some hours.
    Sir Arthur went nearer and bent over the quiet form. He took one of the cold hands in his and let it fall again.
    â€œDead!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Dead, and cold! Poor soul! Poor soul! What could have made her do it?”
    â€œMade her do it!” echoed one of the men who had followed him in. “Man alive! Don’t you see” – pointing to two tiny burnt holes in the midst of the red stain, and then waving his hands round the disordered room – “how she has struggled and fought for her life? Charmian Karslake has been foully, brutally murdered.”

CHAPTER 2
    The Golden Theatre was often said to be appropriately so named, for not only were its furniture plenishings golden, but it was the property of a syndicate, every member of which was popularly reputed to be a millionaire. The salaries given to the actors and actresses were enormous, and the box-office takings were in accordance. Night after night, when other theatres were not half-filled, the legend “House Full” hung outside the Golden.
    Of late the great attraction there had been the famous American actress, Charmian Karslake, renowned no less for her brilliant, exquisite beauty than for her musical voice – the “golden voice” her admirers called it. A brief season had been arranged for her in town, and there were rumours that her salary was a fabulous sum per week. It had been publicly stated beforehand that Miss Karslake disliked society, and that all her time was spent in study.
    There was general surprise therefore when it became known that Miss Karslake would not be in the cast for a couple of nights, and that she had accepted an invitation to be present at the Penn-Moretons, ball at Hepton Abbey.
    â€œWhy the Penn-Moretons?” people asked one another. Invitations had been showered upon Charmian Karslake from people far higher, far more important in the social world than the Penn-Moretons, only to be refused.
    But neither Miss