Chapter Fifty
CHAPTER FIFTY
We’re too excited by what we’ve learned from Mr. Welch for a sit-down lunch, so we get fish and chips to go and return to the cottage. We prop our evidence board against the wall above the kitchen table so we can work while we eat.
“If the murder weapon was stolen when the blacksmith was at Hadley Hall, then Lady Blanders could be the murderer,” Wyatt says, dousing his fish with salt and vinegar.
“Or Gladys Crone,” I say. “She was hanging around the stable. Couldn’t she have taken the flatter?”
“But wasn’t one of Roland’s rules that the culprit couldn’t be a servant?” Amity squeezes lemon on her fish.
“That’s right,” Wyatt says. “But she could have been an accomplice.”
We agree to focus on Lady Blanders and to try and figure out why she might want to kill Tracy Penny. After all the emotional drama of my mother’s story, it’s a welcome relief to be doing something silly again.
Wyatt starts moving photographs from our visit with Lady Blanders to the top of the bulletin board: Lady Blanders on horseback, a close-up of her new boots, the morning room, the creepy painting over the fireplace, the picture of Sproton House, Lady Blanders’s hand lifting the teapot extra high, her bracelet dangling off her wrist.
“Let’s look at photos from the salon again,” Wyatt says. “There has to be a connection.”
We sift through the photos, this time removing those related to suspects we’ve eliminated.
We toss pictures of the calla lilies and the card from Gordon, the eviction notice, and the Filofax with its scribbled “TELL PIPPA!” On the board we put up snapshots of Tracy’s empty refrigerator, unmade bed, and the framed pictures on the salon walls.
“Could it have to do with Sproton House, the place that Lady Blanders visits every month?” Amity says. “Did Tracy work at the salon there?”
“Why would she drive all the way to Whitby to cut hair when she has her own salon here?” Wyatt says.
Amity puts down her fork.
“Hold on. Sproton House is in Whitby?”
“That’s right,” Wyatt says, tapping on his notebook.
“Isn’t that where Tracy used to work and still sometimes volunteered?” Amity says. “Whitby Stables?”
We all react like it’s a light bulb moment, but we can’t figure out a connection.
“We have to think beyond the obvious,” Amity says. “We can’t make the same mistake they made in Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side by assuming there couldn’t be anything connecting a glamorous American movie star and a provincial English fan. We have to find the baby.”
“What baby?” I say.
“I’m speaking metaphorically,” Amity says. “By ‘baby,’ I mean the hidden connection between Lady Blanders and Tracy Penny.”
Wyatt brings his hands to his cheeks.
“Amity, you’re brilliant!” He picks up his notebook and flips the pages back and forth, reviewing his notes. “Oh my god, why didn’t we see it?”
He starts ripping pages from his notebook and tacking them to the board.
The names of Lady Blanders’s sons, Charles and Benedict.
Some scribbles about Lord Blanders and his awful snobbery.
And then he takes the photograph of the magazine article with the picture of Tracy at the horse stable with little Ambrosia in the saddle.
He stares at it for a moment and then tacks it to the center of the bulletin board.
“Look at her hair,” he says.
“Must we?” Amity says. “The perm is so unfortunate.”
“Not Tracy’s hair. Ambrosia’s hair.”
“What about it?” I say.
“It’s red,” he says.
“Oh my god, that face,” Amity says. “Do you think? Are you saying?”
I’m not following. “What is he saying? What does he think?”
Wyatt is frantically thumbing through his notebook.
“But if that’s the why, what’s the how?” he mumbles.
“Is he talking to himself?” I ask Amity.
“Seems like it.”
“Can you fill us in, Wyatt?” I ask.
“Do we have a map of Willowthrop?” He’s like a man possessed.
Amity takes her map from her purse. Wyatt unfolds it, puts it on the table. He runs his finger from the King George Inn to Hair’s Looking at You salon and back again.
“Bear with me here. If I’m right, I know where we’ll find the murder weapon.” He’s by the door, slipping on his sneakers and grabbing his blazer. “Get your shoes. We don’t have much time. Follow me!”
And he’s out the door.