The Cherry Hill Mystery - Part 1

Blair of the Mounties, a story of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. We present the tenth episode in Blair of the Mounties, being part one of the Cherry Hill mystery. As our story opens we still find Inspector Blair on Long Leave in England.

After the month in Paris and northern France, Blair has just returned to spend the closing weeks of his leave with his sister, Peggy Markham, wife of Colonel Markham, chief of the the county police of West Hamptonshire.

Again, the peaceful atmosphere of the quiet old city of Barminster is shattered by a murder mystery. And again, Inspector Blair finds himself drawn into the hunt for the criminal. Our scene opens in the breakfast room in Ashley Cottage, where we find Mrs. Markham, an Inspector Blair, just sitting down to breakfast.

Coffee, Jimmy? Thanks. You came in very quietly last night. Well, you see, it was pretty late, and I didn't want to wake the whole household. I have still it. I got such a lot to tell you. Of course you heard about the murder.

Murder? What? Another murder? Yes, of course. Didn't you see it in the papers? Being in the detective business, I never read him, Peggy. Well, how funny. That accounts for it. So you haven't heard the dear old Dr. Slade was murdered by his son a few days after you were there?

Dr. Slade, you mean the night old chap who owns Cherry Hill where Marco and I went fishing? Yes, that's the bad. I say. How did it happen? Oh, Marco will tell you. Dr. Slade was shot when evening by Arthur Slade, his son.

It happened in the grounds of Cheddar Hill. It was all very terrible. That's strange. Two murders, one after another, and sleepy old barmen's dead. Today, did they convict this staid boy? Oh yes, the trial was very short.