Chapter Three
Thursday was an exceptionally lovely day, which Georgie found exceptionally irritating.
“Look at it,” she explained to Arthur under her breath as they approached the train station. “The sun shining—the flowers blooming along the lane—the ivy .” She gestured at the absurdly picturesque station.
“Er,” said Arthur. “What about the ivy, precisely?”
“It looks very charming,” Georgie said. “No wonder we have Murder Tourists!”
“An absolute plague of them,” Arthur muttered, eyeing a flock of young men of university age who were murmuring excitedly to each other, several of whom appeared to be clutching—Georgie groaned internally—magnifying glasses.
Georgie had, on numerous occasions over the past few months, been stopped on the street while trying to do something entirely ordinary, like return a library book or pick up an order at the butcher’s for Mrs. Fawcett, and subjected to the breathless inquiries of Murder Tourists who recognized her as the Miss Radcliffe, amateur sleuth.
She had gone through a phase in the spring when she’d taken to wearing exceedingly large hats by way of disguise, until Abigail finally pointed out that she might actually be drawing more attention to herself that way.
“My point is,” she said, ignoring the Murder Tourists and instead gazing darkly at the quaint, two-platform train station before them, the Woolly River twinkling in the sunlight as it curved behind the station, “this man from London is going to swoop in here and think that Mr. Penbaker dropped dead of natural causes. Who would murder the leader of a village that looks like this?”
Arthur glanced around surreptitiously. “Keep your voice down. We have no idea who’s behind The Deathly Dispatch—they could have ears everywhere, and I’m not going to let them scoop me, on the off chance there actually is a story here.”
Georgie shook her head. “This is becoming a fixation.”
“They’re poaching my readers! All of this hubbub about the murders won’t do me any good if the Register’s entire readership abandons us for the Dispatch.”
“You’re starting to sound a bit hysterical.”
“Rich, coming from the woman who’s convinced that an elderly man who died of a heart attack was actually murdered by some secretive village cabal.” He visibly brightened at this prospect, and Georgie could practically see the wheels of his mind turning as he pondered cabal-related headlines.
“I have never claimed there was a cabal,” Georgie said severely.
“And he was only sixty-five—that’s how old my father is!
” Papa had been more than a decade older than her mother, as it had evidently taken quite some time for someone interesting enough to come along to catch his eye, given how preoccupied he’d been by the Woolly Hoard, his one and only claim to archaeological glory.
“Hmmm.” Arthur made a skeptical noise, one that Georgie would absolutely have protested further had she not been distracted at that very moment by a train whistle. She and Arthur climbed the steps to the station, crossing to the edge of the platform just as the train crawled to a halt before them.
“Do you think we’ll be able to recognize him?” Georgie asked Arthur a bit uncertainly.
“What, do you think he’ll be wearing a cap and monocle, like Fitzgibbons?
” Arthur asked; Georgie noted that he was wearing his favorite blue jumper, and that his unruly curls were a bit more tamed than usual.
She, too, had dressed with particular care this morning, donning a green skirt and carefully pressed white blouse that Abigail had once informed her was almost stylish, and she’d even taken the time to wipe a bit of the dust and mud off her brown oxford shoes before hopping on her bicycle to meet Arthur outside his small flat on the high street.
“Perhaps it’s a prerequisite of the job,” she said to Arthur.
She scrutinized the passengers disembarking from the train.
There was a harassed-looking mother surrounded by three young children, being greeted by an elderly couple; a pair of middle-aged women dressed in colorful cotton dresses and matching hats, looking around eagerly (Murder Tourists); and then—
Well, quite simply, the most handsome man Georgie had ever seen descended to the platform.
Given the small size of Buncombe-upon-Woolly, she supposed this wasn’t saying much—how many men had she seen, in her entire life, in total?
However, she was fairly certain that this man would cause a stir even in London, where beautiful creatures of every gender must surely waltz about the streets.
He was tall and lean, with hair of a golden hue akin to perfectly ripened wheat; it was combed back from his face in an impeccable wave, not a single curl daring to break ranks and spoil the impression of well-coiffed perfection.
His eyes: the blue of the summer sky. His attire: linen trousers, and the most immaculately fitted forest-green jumper Georgie had ever seen.
His luggage: a leather hand-case that likely cost more than the entire contents of Georgie’s wardrobe.
She frowned. Surely a man such as this hadn’t arrived for a visit with a single hand-case?
“Ah!” the man said brightly, watching the porter struggle down the train step behind him with two enormous suitcases. “Just there,” he added, nodding to a spot about ten feet away. “No doubt I can summon a cab to take me the rest of the way.”
Georgie wondered—even as she, to her great disgust, realized that she was still staring, as though hypnotized, at the wave of his hair—what business such a man had in Buncombe-upon-Woolly.
He didn’t strike her as a Murder Tourist, but perhaps he, too, wanted to be part of the excitement of a quaint place in the grip of a grisly crime spree.
He could tell his sophisticated friends in London about it—for, not for a single second, did she doubt that this man was from the capital.
The shine of his shoes alone was enough to inform her of this fact—no one who resided in the country had shoes that clean. It was physically impossible.
“Although.” Here, the man frowned, a wrinkle appearing in his brow. The expression looked odd on him, as though he’d had precious little cause to make it in his life.
“I would have thought,” he continued, seemingly oblivious to the porter’s struggles behind him, “that someone would have come to meet me? I’m here at their invitation, after all—what was the name of the lady who wrote?
” He patted futilely at his pockets, as though expecting a letter to suddenly materialize from one of them.
“I couldn’t say, sir,” the porter said, panting a bit after depositing the evidently heavy suitcases on the platform.
“Have a good afternoon,” he added with clear relief, springing back onto the train as the final “all aboard!” was called.
The handsome man, meanwhile, glanced about the platform, his gaze landing on Georgie, who made no attempt to disguise her stare. He brightened at the sight of her.
“I say!” he called with a jaunty little wave of his hand. “You wouldn’t be here from—er—” Once again, he patted at his pockets.
“Radcliffe Hall?” Georgie managed, finding her voice at last.
“Just so!” he said cheerfully. “I expect you’re a housemaid?
I hope you’re stronger than you look,” he added, sizing her up with an experienced eye.
“These trunks are quite heavy—though I’d be happy to give you a hand.
” He beamed at her. “Ladies do enjoy my occasional displays of physical strength.”
Georgie only narrowly avoided gaping at him, so gripped was she by incredulous horror. This was the man Delacey Fitzgibbons had sent to investigate the murders in Buncombe-upon-Woolly? Him?
The him in question had thrust one hand into his pocket and was continuing to beam at her in an expectant sort of way. Arthur—who, Georgie noticed, had visibly brightened at the prospect of a display of manly strength—stepped forward and extended his hand.
“You must be Mr. Fletcher-Ford.”
The gentleman in question reached out to shake Arthur’s hand enthusiastically. “Sebastian Fletcher-Ford—were you sent by Miss… er. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten her name, the one who wrote.” He smiled sheepishly; Arthur appeared momentarily blinded.
“That would be Miss Radcliffe,” Arthur said, recovering after a moment, nodding over his shoulder at Georgie.
“Ah.” Fletcher-Ford had the grace to look a bit sheepish. “Not a housemaid, then?”
“Not the last time I checked.” Georgie’s tone was cold enough to freeze a puddle, but Fletcher-Ford’s smile didn’t waver at the sound.
She took several cautious steps toward him, and he reached for her hand, which he kissed before she could stop him, as if it were 1834, rather than 1934. She wrenched her hand back.
“And I’m Arthur Crawley,” Arthur said, apparently sensing—correctly—that Georgie was too discombobulated by this interaction to perform any introductions herself.
“And there’s Constable Lexington, of course.
” Georgie, startled, glanced over her shoulder to find that Lexington had indeed materialized behind her and was observing this interaction with a faintly puzzled expression.
“Delighted,” Fletcher-Ford said, his tone entirely amiable. He tilted his head, surveying his surroundings. “What a charming part of the country. Do you know, I saw a positively adorable herd of veal wobbling around a meadow on the train ride here?”
“A herd of—do you mean calves?” Georgie asked, blinking.
Fletcher-Ford snapped his fingers. “That’s the one! Can never keep the two words straight—don’t you think it’s odd that a lamb is a lamb, no matter whether we’re about to eat it or not, but a cow isn’t?”
Georgie, Arthur, and Lexington stared at him for a long moment.
“I can’t say it had ever occurred to me,” Lexington said at last.
Fletcher-Ford winked at him. “That’s why I’m here, old sport. Someone’s got to think about these things!”