: The Dalehouse murder by Everton Francis - Detective and mystery stories; Murder Investigation Fiction

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I Go to Merchester

"Dear Francis:--

"It will be jolly to see you again. For your partner in the mixed I have only missed the most perfect peach by the skin of the pips. However, Margaret Hunter, the girl you are to play with, is really very nice, and--let me warn you in time--has a devastating attraction for men. She is a Merchester girl, but has been away for some time teaching in Sheffield, and as the aunt with whom she lives is away, she is staying with us for the tournament week. I have reported fully on your great personal charm--so beware!

"The girl I just missed for you is Stella Palfreeman--one of the prettiest girls I ever set eyes on. I met her at the Camford Tournament last week. She is to stay with us too. Then there will be Kenneth and of course Ralph Bennett, who, by the way, were articled to the same solicitor in Sheffield--a regular house-party for the event.

"Daddy has had a sort of nervous breakdown and has gone to Folkestone with mother. They are to be there for a month and The Tundish is looking after the practise. I wish daddy could get him for keeps--he needs some one badly.

"You've never met The Tundish, have you? I wonder how he will strike you. He is quite old--older than you by a year or two, I should think--but like you, jolly in spite of his age and graying hair. He can tell the most thrilling yarns about his experiences in China.

"So you see I shall be acting as hostess and I can tell you we are going to make things buzz.

"Yours ever, "Ethel.

"P. S.--Can you come on Saturday? All the others will be here then excepting Stella, who hails from London and will not arrive until midday on Monday."

It was Monday, June the fifteenth--the opening day of the Merchester Lawn Tennis Club's annual open tournament at which I had played regularly for the past few years. My sister Brenda and I were finishing an early breakfast and I was rereading Ethel Hanson's letter.

I should explain that I am chief engineer to a firm in the little Midland town of Millingham, where, since our father's death, my sister and I have lived happily together. Wisely, we spend our holidays apart, and I, when I can, take mine in small doses. It suits my business arrangements to do so, and I spend such periods of leisure as I can snatch from my work in playing in the lawn tennis tournaments at the neighboring small towns. Given kindly weather, I challenge any one to name a more enjoyable little holiday.

It is five years since I first went to Merchester, and my friendship with the Hansons dates from then. Ethel, I remember, had not left school, but had obtained a special holiday for the event. You will see that in her letter she refers to my age and gray hairs, but she is one of those intensely young things to whom anything over thirty is well on the downward slope. I am thirty-eight, moderately good at my work, and hardly that at games. I know that I am quiet, and I believe that my friends count me dull. Indeed, I can lay claim to only one exceptional quality of any kind whatever, and that, my remarkably acute sense of hearing, is nothing but an accident of birth.

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