Maxwell's Chain Read online

  He saw her eyes widen as she looked over his shoulder through the landing window. A grin broke over her face and transformed her into the seven-year-old he had never known. She shook herself free and ran to lean on the sill, her nose pressed against the cold glass. She turned, eyes sparkling. ‘It’s snowing!’ she said, and so it was. Those same big, lazy flakes of years before were spiralling down and already covering Leighford with a blanket of purest white. They stood there and watched for a moment.

  ‘Nolan’s first snow,’ Maxwell said, quietly.

  ‘And ours,’ she said and turned to put her arms round him again. He kissed her on the head and laughed.

  As if on cue, Nolan’s muttering became a torrent, Metternich wandered by and clawed Maxwell’s ankle in an absentminded sort of way. The Troubridge twins both broke into a cacophony of coughing but even so, beneath it all, Peter Maxwell heard his true love say, ‘And yes, Peter Maxwell, I will marry you. But only on one condition.’

  ‘Name it,’ he said, ‘And it’s yours.’

  ‘Bill Lunt has to be the photographer.’

  He breathed a sigh of relief. ‘That’s a mercy. For a moment, I thought you were going to ask that the Troubridges could be bridesmaids.’

  ‘How lovely,’ came the chorus from the sitting room.

  ‘A spring wedding,’ added Mrs Troubridge. ‘How romantic. And we’d love to be your bridesmaids, Mr Maxwell.’

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  About the Author

  M.J. TROW has recently retired as a history teacher – he has been doubling as a crime writer for twenty-six years. He is the author of the Inspector Sholto Lestrade and the Kit Marlowe series and twenty-one non-fiction books as well as the Peter ‘Mad Max’ Maxwell novels.

  AVAILABLE FROM

  ALLISON & BUSBY

  In the Peter ‘Mad Max’ Maxwell series

  Maxwell’s Match

  Maxwell’s Inspection

  Maxwell’s Grave

  Maxwell’s Mask

  Maxwell’s Point

  Maxwell’s Chain

  Maxwell’s Revenge

  Maxwell’s Retirement

  Maxwell’s Island

  Maxwell’s Crossing

  Copyright

  Allison & Busby Limited

  12 Fitzroy Mews

  London W1T 6DW

  www.allisonandbusby.com

  First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2008.

  This ebook edition first published in 2013.

  Copyright © 2008 by M.J. TROW

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978–0–7490–1356–1