Chapter Fifty-One
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Amity and I have to run to keep up. We follow Wyatt to the King George Inn, where, instead of going inside, he goes around to the back, to the footpath that runs behind the shops.
“Look carefully in the bushes on both sides of the path,” he says. “We have to follow this all the way back to the salon.”
I pick up a stick and use it to swat at and poke the branches, which are lush with flowers and leaves. “This would be much easier in the winter.”
“Make sure you look deep,” Wyatt says. “The weapon could have been flung quite a distance.”
Trying not to get scratched, I wade into the shrubbery. I hope they don’t have ticks here. I think I see something, but it turns out to be an empty can of Jaipur IPA. If only England weren’t a horticultural paradise. These bushes grow like they’ve been watered with steroids.
We’re about halfway to Tracy’s salon when Wyatt tells us to slow down.
“It has to be here.” He’s sounding a little desperate.
We come to the public footpath sign where the trail branches off and goes down to Tracy’s parking lot.
The windows are open in Tracy’s flat, and I can hear the television from inside.
I hope she’s celebrating being undead by watching something good on Netflix and polishing off her double-chocolate ice cream.
I’m almost ready to give up when Amity shouts, “Bingo!”
And there it is, on the ground beneath a scraggly bush. How had we missed it before? We stand over the flatter, which looks just as Roland described it in his book.
“Should we take it?” Amity says.
“Is that allowed?” I say. “It’s evidence.”
“But we’re the detectives,” Wyatt says.
“The sleuthhounds,” Amity says.
“Is this cheating?” I say.
“There’s nothing in the rules about not taking evidence,” Wyatt says.
“What about the others?” I say.
“Finders keepers?” Amity says.
I remind them of the motto of the Detection Club, which Roland Wingford told us was “Play Fair.”
“That means the authors have to reveal enough clues that observant readers could solve the crime,” Amity says. “It has nothing to do with what we’re doing here.”
“Right,” Wyatt says. “This is a competition.”
“And it is nearly over,” I say.
The question is clear: Do we play this American-style, because we’re Americans?
Or British-style, because we’re in England?
Do we act like contestants in The Great British Baking Show , who would gather their fellow contestants and lead them to the murder weapon, or do we follow our natural, cutthroat, new-world instincts?
In the end, it’s no choice at all. We’re American. We take the weapon.