Chapter Eight
Arthur was awaiting them outside the Woolly Register offices, looking damp and irritable.
“If we’re going to investigate a potential murder,” he said as soon as Georgie and Sebastian were within earshot, “I’d appreciate it if the weather would cooperate.”
“I don’t suppose you recall the fact that when Lady Tunbridge was murdered at Radcliffe Hall at Christmas, I spent two hours in a snowstorm waiting for her lady’s maid to emerge from the greenhouse where she was hiding?” Georgie reminded him.
Sebastian shook his head admiringly. “That was the one where the widow of a baronet was attacked by the daughter she’d had out of wedlock and abandoned at an orphanage years earlier?
The one where you uttered the famous line, upon finding the corpse in her bed, ‘I wish I hadn’t bothered buying her a Christmas present’? ”
Georgie stared at him. “How do you know that?”
Sebastian shoved a hand in his pocket, offering a modest smile. “I did my research.”
“Meaning?” Georgie asked suspiciously.
“Well,” Sebastian said, “while you were having your bumps and scrapes patched up by that doctor of yours yesterday, I happened to notice a couple of ladies sitting alone and I thought one of them looked dashedly familiar—”
“I imagine it’s hard to keep track of all their faces,” Georgie said.
“—so I took myself over to their table and introduced myself,” Sebastian continued, ignoring her entirely, “and that is how I learned that one of them is a Miss de Vere—a high-society sort, her uncle’s a marquess and the family seat is in Wiltshire—”
“Is there a point to this beyond proving that, mystifyingly, there’s still an audience for Debrett’s?” Georgie asked.
“—and it transpires that this is her third visit to the village this year,” Sebastian said, with the air of a man about to drop some sort of bomb that made Georgie very nervous. “Because she is an avid follower of your exploits, Georgie.”
“Oh dear God,” Georgie said, looking at him in frank horror. “You do not mean to tell me you befriended a Murder Tourist!”
“I think she and her friend prefer the title ‘Detective Devotees,’ actually,” Sebastian said.
“They showed me their notebook—they’ve been tracking all of your articles that have made it to The Times, Crawley, and they’re positively fascinated by the intrepid Miss Radcliffe.
They believe that The Deathly Dispatch is far too enamored of Detective Inspector Harriday and does not give you enough credit, for the record.
” He shrugged. “In any case, they regaled me with all the tales of your detecting prowess in great detail—”
“Is this a nightmare?” Georgie muttered wildly.
“—which is why I now consider myself something of an expert on the crime-solving exploits of Georgiana Radcliffe,” Sebastian concluded.
“The last thing we need is to encourage the Murder Tourists,” Georgie informed him.
“I don’t think they need any encouragement,” he suggested. “Positively obsessed with murder, those two. Although they were quite fetching, so at least if they’re dogging our steps, it will be pleasant scenery.”
Georgie bit back the approximately half dozen scathing replies on her tongue and instead turned to Arthur.
“Are you busy with work today, or do you have time to do a bit of research for the investigation?”
“I’ve some time,” Arthur said cautiously. “What do you mean by ‘research,’ though?”
Georgie bit her lip, scrunching up her nose a bit as she thought.
“It occurred to me as I was lying in bed last night—I think we should try to compile a list of people who might have held a grudge against Mr. Penbaker. I was thinking that perhaps if you were to ask some questions around the village—pretending that you’re writing some sort of feature on Penbaker’s life for the Register—then you might be able to come up with a list of potential suspects for us to consider.
No one would find it odd for you to be asking questions like that, seeing as you’re a reporter. ”
Sebastian beamed at her. “Capital idea, Georgie.”
“It’s a good thought,” Arthur agreed. “What do you plan to do today, then?”
“Focus on the most important thing,” Georgie said grimly.
“And what’s that?” he asked uncertainly.
“Working out whether Mr. Penbaker was, in fact, murdered.”
“And how exactly do you plan to do that?”
“By speaking to the last two people to see him on the day of his death.”
Dr. Severin’s surgery occupied the front half of the small, tidy cottage where he lived, which was just around a corner and down a narrow lane from the village high street.
Georgie had not been into the building in years—both Severin and his predecessor made house calls, and Georgie was a fairly healthy sort of person.
The front of the cottage was occupied by a thriving garden, featuring any number of herbs and native plants—Georgie spotted elderflower, evening primrose, and feverfew.
She knew that, in addition to more modern medicines, Dr. Severin also prescribed various tinctures to his patients—Papa had been advised to use oil of honeysuckle to treat a sunburn just last month—but she hadn’t realized that he provided the necessary herbs himself.
Georgie could not help but approve; Dr. Fitzpatrick, his predecessor, had been a kind man but one who turned up his nose a bit at so-called home remedies, even ones that Georgie knew for a fact were effective.
When she’d learned that Dr. Fitzpatrick’s replacement was a recent graduate down from Edinburgh, she’d expected a similar attitude to prevail, and had been pleasantly surprised.
Now, if only he were approximately thirty years older and very plain, and therefore not remotely interesting to Abigail.
The inconveniently young, broad-shouldered, and handsome doctor opened the door at Georgie’s knock, an expression of polite surprise flashing across his face when he spotted Georgie and Sebastian on his doorstep. “Miss Radcliffe. Is something wrong—is your sister unwell again?”
Georgie did not think she imagined the note of eagerness that entered his voice at the question.
“Abigail’s fine,” she said a bit shortly. She cleared her throat. “Er, you remember Mr. Fletcher-Ford, don’t you? From the inn yesterday?”
“I do.” Severin nodded at Sebastian. “I hope your head is feeling all right today, Miss Radcliffe?”
“It is not,” Georgie said, pleased that an excuse had so readily materialized. “It is aching something terrible, and I was hoping you would be willing to take a look?”
“Certainly,” Severin said politely, standing back from the door so that Georgie might enter, and then offering Sebastian a curious glance. “Mr. Fletcher-Ford, you’re welcome to wait out here—”
“I’m afraid I’ve been tasked with keeping dear Georgie here company today,” Sebastian said, with the sort of easy smile that seemed to make people want to agree with him, no matter what he was saying.
“I promised her father—old family friend, you know.” His gaze was wide and guileless. Severin glanced at Georgie, frowning.
“It’s fine for him to come in, too,” Georgie said, and Severin’s frown eased, though his thoughtful expression remained. He didn’t say anything, however, beyond a simple “All right.”
Once Georgie was seated in a chair in Severin’s small examining room, she pondered how best to approach her questions. “You must keep quite busy, here in Buncombe-upon-Woolly,” she said casually, examining her fingernails as if she were simply making idle chitchat.
Severin, who had been rummaging in a drawer, glanced over his shoulder at her. “Busy enough,” he said, turning, a penlight in hand. He reached a finger beneath her chin to tilt her head back slightly. “A doctor’s work is never done, after all.”
He bent toward her, shining the light from the outer edge of her right eye toward the center. He repeated this on her left eye, then straightened.
“I mean,” she attempted again, “what with all the… murders.” She bowed her head as if at church, allowing a beat of silence to pass before chancing a glance upward.
“Hmm.” Severin leaned back with his hip against the large, antique-looking chest of drawers that housed many of his medical supplies and looked at her warily. “It’s been… interesting, yes. Can you recite the months of the year backward, please?”
“Ooh,” Sebastian murmured, shaking his head. “Is that some sort of test for a head injury? Don’t know that I could pass it even on my best day.”
“Why does that not surprise me,” Georgie muttered, then complied.
Before Dr. Severin had the chance to open his mouth, she pressed, “And, naturally, you were the first to arrive when Mr. Penbaker died recently.” She shook her head mournfully.
“So tragic.” She chanced a small sniffle, as if overcome by emotion.
“Yes,” Severin said. “Although I wasn’t under the impression you two were terribly close.”
“What made you think that?” Georgie asked.
“Well,” Severin said dryly, “there was your lengthy argument with him about the poison garden at the murder exhibition at the village hall.”
“How did you hear about that?” she asked, nonplussed.
Severin snorted. “I think the entire village heard about it—Mrs. Chester said you were practically shouting.”
Georgie sniffed disdainfully. “He mislabeled hemlock and hogweed. They don’t even look alike.
And,” she added, working herself into a proper temper as the opportunity to opine about one of her favorite subjects presented itself, “just last week, I noticed that monkshood and foxglove had somehow been mislabeled, too. How can we ever expect the children of this village to gain any sort of basic botanical education if village-sanctioned exhibitions are relaying false information?”
“You know, Miss Radcliffe, you are not giving me the slightest reason to worry that you might be concussed,” Severin said, the corners of his mouth twitching. “I think I should just send you to the chemist for some aspirin.”