Chapter Seventeen #2
“Doesn’t seem to have been the happiest marriage, does it, though?” Sebastian pointed out. “Can’t imagine she’s spending much time weeping over her husband’s typewriter.”
Georgie frowned. “Or her typewriter.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“We don’t know that the typewriter belonged to her husband. It could be hers—or they might have shared it.”
“But then, if it was hers, why on earth would she be hiding it?”
“I don’t know,” Georgie said, shaking her head. She felt as though she were missing something—some detail that would clarify things. She rose to her feet somewhat gracelessly, and tried not to be annoyed when Sebastian mirrored the movement with considerably more elegance.
“Come on,” she said reluctantly. “We need to keep searching.”
As Sebastian turned to the master bedroom, Georgie—on an impulse she didn’t entirely understand—reached out and seized one of the overstuffed manila envelopes. And, without thinking about it too hard, she tucked it under her arm and followed him from the room.
Unfortunately, the contents of the manila envelope were not nearly as thrilling as Georgie had hoped.
They had departed Mrs. Penbaker’s house in furtive fashion and made for the village hall, where they found Miss de Vere and Miss Singh with Mrs. Penbaker in the poison garden, a small, walled-in plot behind the hall.
Mrs. Penbaker was explaining the effects of various doses, with what Georgie thought was more or less accuracy.
She was, at the very least, considerably more knowledgeable than her husband had been on the topic.
“Miss Radcliffe!” Miss Singh said, brightening, when she spotted Georgie and Sebastian.
She had her Detective Devotees notebook in hand and was scribbling away but lowered her pencil to wave at them.
“Mrs. Penbaker was just telling us about the lily of the valley that was used to kill the vicar.” She nodded at the plant in question.
“Your first case!” she added happily, as though Georgie needed reminding.
“I recall,” Georgie said, gazing around at the garden.
It had a warning sign on the gate advising parents to keep children out, and a rather impressive padlock kept locked when the exhibition was closed.
She cleared her throat. “Erm—Mr. Fletcher-Ford was hoping to discuss tomorrow’s book club with you both. I believe you’ve read the book?”
“We have,” Miss de Vere said. “It wasn’t my personal favorite, but Asha enjoyed it.”
“Stella solved the mystery too quickly,” Miss Singh said, with a nod at her friend. “She’s very clever, you know. Often outwits the authors!”
“I’ll leave you to Miss Radcliffe and Mr. Fletcher-Ford, then,” Mrs. Penbaker said with a small smile, and led them from the walled garden, shutting the gate carefully behind them before vanishing back inside the village hall.
Miss de Vere rounded on Georgie. “Did you find anything?”
“Nothing of note,” Georgie said, feeling the press of the manila envelope against her back, where it was tucked into the waistband of her skirt.
Miss Singh sighed, looking dejected. “Detective work is more frustrating than it seems in novels—or in The Deathly Dispatch.” She brightened.
“Perhaps another corpse will turn up and give you something more interesting to do!” She waved her notebook.
“I shall be ready to take notes when that happens!”
“How… heartening,” Georgie managed, before bidding the Murder Tourists adieu.
Now, she and Sebastian found themselves in the Shorn Sheep; she had thought it might not be busy, as it was just past noon and the pub had only just opened, but it was already shockingly overrun with Murder Tourists.
They had secreted themselves away in the most private corner booth, and Georgie had gone to the bar to use the telephone; she returned to the table with drinks to find Sebastian staring at a sheaf of papers with his brow furrowed.
“Anything interesting?” she asked, setting the half-pint glasses on the scarred wood of the table and sliding into the booth next to him.
He lowered the stack of papers and proceeded to spread them out on the table before her.
She leaned forward eagerly, already anticipating the incriminating evidence that would be presented, and saw…
Bills.
Old tax records.
Copies of letters sent to Mr. Penbaker’s mother.
“This is so dull,” Georgie said despairingly, waving about an unsent letter to the editor of the Register on the topic of the disappointing decision not to use Ernest in the St. Drogo’s Christmas pageant.
“Speak for yourself,” Sebastian murmured, his attention fixed upon the letter in his hand. “Did you know that Penbaker was obsessed with Fitzgibbons’s capture of the Acton Arsenic Ring? This is a draft of a fan letter.”
“No, but it doesn’t surprise me,” Georgie said. “He has opined at length in the past about how much he admires men with bushy mustaches.”
“This village is fascinating.”
“I’m so glad you think so. You can’t imagine how much we dream of entertaining shiny-shoed tourists from London.”
“To be fair, I think that you collectively do, it’s just that you personally don’t.”
This was not inaccurate: Georgie was a confirmed curmudgeon.
She glanced down at the letter before her, noting the fact that the letter ‘O’ appeared consistently filled with a small smudge of ink each time it was used.
It must have been a quirk that the typewriter developed over time, she thought; a quick glance at another letter in the folder sent from Mr. Penbaker revealed the same distinctive O.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything interesting here,” she said, trying to keep a note of frustration from her voice.
They had committed a crime, and to no apparent end.
“I suppose not,” he agreed, but his brow was slightly furrowed, and his tone was a bit absent. “It would be an awful lot easier to solve this case, you know, if we were certain that Penbaker was murdered.”
“I am aware,” Georgie said testily, taking a sip of her cider.
“How many poisons are there that mimic the symptoms of a heart attack?” Sebastian asked, glancing up from the papers again. “If we had a list, perhaps we could work out which the likeliest candidate was.”
“A fair few,” Georgie said, tipping her head to the side thoughtfully. “There’s cyanide… and hemlock…”
“Perhaps we should summon Miss de Vere and Miss Singh,” he said with a grin. “They’re fresh off the heels of their tour of the poison garden, after all, and Miss Singh was taking copious notes.”
“She was,” Georgie agreed, and then paused, considering. “Though… was she, actually? I thought she and Miss de Vere had already toured the poison garden. Multiple times, even.”
Sebastian shrugged. “No doubt trying to learn as much as possible, so the next time a corpse pops up, they’re ready to identify the poison that was used.” He shook his head admiringly. “One has to admit, they’re very passionate.”
“Yes,” Georgie said, her mind turning. “The next time a corpse pops up,” she repeated, frowning unseeingly down into her drink. Then, she looked up at Sebastian. “Isn’t that exactly what Miss Singh said?”
His brow wrinkled. “What?”
“Didn’t she just say something about ‘next time a corpse pops up’? When we saw them at the poison garden?”
“Er. Something along those lines, yes.”
“And,” Georgie said, growing the slightest bit agitated, “don’t you think they would benefit, were there to suddenly be a corpse? Who here is most eager for there to be another murder?”
“The Murder Tourists,” he said, comprehension dawning.
“The Murder Tourists,” she agreed. “Who are frequently around, unknown to any of us, and desperate for another crime to investigate.” She shook her head, excited.
“Oh God, why didn’t I think of it before?
Some of them—like Miss de Vere and Miss Singh—have been to visit multiple times—and they’ve definitely been here when the last two murders occurred!
What if they were so inspired by last year’s crimes that they’re willing to take matters into their own hands so that they could witness an investigation up close? ”
“That’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?” Sebastian asked.
Georgie, however, was thinking, her mind churning through everything she’d learned in the past several days.
“Have you noticed that Miss de Vere and Miss Singh get a bit shifty whenever we ask them how long they plan to stay? And Miss de Vere is supposed to be engaged, but I’ve yet to hear her mention her fiancé by name—wouldn’t you think he’d eventually wonder where she’s run off to? ”
“They rescued us from that godforsaken cellar,” Sebastian pointed out.
“All the better to make them look like the heroines in one of Mrs. Christie’s novels.”
“Or Miss Sayers’s. I think I prefer hers—I tell you, that Harriet Vane—”
“Sebastian,” Georgie asked, “do you really think this is the time?”
“No, I suppose not,” he conceded with a regretful sigh. “Shall we convene another meeting of our little detective society—minus the newfound suspects, of course?”
“I already borrowed the telephone to ring Arthur,” she said, feeling pleased with herself. “He should be here any minute.” She began gathering the papers from the table, preparing to shove them back into the manila envelope. “I’m beginning to feel rather badly about stealing from Mrs. Penbaker.”
“Ah, well,” Sebastian said philosophically. “You know what I always say.”
“No,” Georgie said. “In fact, I can scarcely even imagine.”
He smiled at her. “Larceny is never a wasted effort when it’s a prelude to romance.”
Georgie, who had just taken a sip of her cider, choked, and glared at him when his smile widened at the sight. “I am counting the hours until you get back on that train on Thursday,” she said, once her coughing had subsided.
“I almost think that you believe that,” he replied, looking unconcerned. “Ah, there’s Crawley!” He waved a hand, and Arthur, who had just entered the pub, nodded and began making his way toward them, followed—not five seconds later—by Constable Lexington.
“How did you know to meet us here?” Georgie asked Lexington as he slid into the booth across the table from her.
Lexington flushed. “I was with Crawley.”
Georgie looked at Lexington, whose hair was not as neatly combed as she’d grown accustomed to, and whose clothing looked ever so slightly rumpled. Then she looked at Arthur, who appeared almost obscenely cheerful.
Georgie bit her lip and watched the color in Lexington’s cheeks deepen.
Fascinating.
“So,” she said, clearing her throat and resolving to focus solely on the matters relevant to the case, no matter how intriguing other developments might be. “We have grown a bit curious about the Murder Tourists.”
Arthur raised his eyebrows. “Miss de Vere and Miss Singh?”
Seeing matching skeptical expressions on both Arthur’s and Lexington’s faces, she said, “Think about it. They’re always around—including when a couple of the most recent crimes have been committed—and no one thinks anything of it, because we’ve all grown used to them.”
“So… what?” Arthur asked, still sounding unconvinced. “You think they learned of the first couple of murders last autumn and decided they’d quite like to commit one of their own? And visited the scene of the crime on numerous occasions, making it far more likely they’d be caught?”
Lexington cleared his throat. “Criminals do return to the scene of the crime, not infrequently. There are countless documented examples of this. So that aspect of Miss Radcliffe’s theory isn’t that far-fetched.”
Arthur glanced at him, his brow furrowed in thought. “All right. But… Miss de Vere and Miss Singh? Have you met them?”
“They don’t strike me as likely suspects,” Lexington admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “But I suppose we can’t discount them.”
“And how do you propose to test this theory?” Arthur asked.
“Stroll up to one of the Murder Tourists and inform them that you’ve got a cunning plan for a bit of light homicide, and would they be interested in joining you?
And oh, by the way, do they happen to have committed any other homicides recently, as well? ”
Georgie sighed. “No, I suppose not. It does strike me that we don’t know very much about them, though, for how often they’re lurking around.
” She glanced around the table, and her gaze alighted on Sebastian, sitting directly next to her and currently smiling flirtatiously at a group of middle-aged women who were gossiping happily over a late lunch.
“What?” he asked, lowering his glass.
“Of course,” she murmured. “It should have occurred to me at once.”
“What should have?” There was a note of faint alarm creeping into his voice.
Georgie reached out and grasped his forearm. “I hope you’ve brought your most enticing jumper, old sport. Because it’s time for you to flirt with some potential criminals.”