by Morgana Best
Dennis waved one hand. “No, we’ll be right.”
“I insist,” Mr Buttons said firmly.
Wendy stood up. “All right. Thank you, Mr Buttons.” She stepped into the aisle in front of us, followed by a clearly reluctant Dennis. Adrian was the last to leave.
“I’m sure you’re used to grand cathedrals rather than tiny wooden church buildings,” he said to Mr Buttons with a chuckle.
Mr Buttons flushed bright red. “What was all that about?” I asked him.
“He’s trying to say I’m a snob. He is being rude,” Mr Buttons said in a defensive tone.
I thought there was something more to it, but I had no idea what that could be. As we drew closer to the coffin, I saw that all the church ladies appeared agitated. “It’s not up to us to judge,” one woman said.
Another woman nodded. “God is the only judge,” she said in an overly sanctimonious tone.
“But God doesn’t approve of this sort of thing,” the first woman said.
All the church women nodded. “I thought this only went on in cities,” one woman said, “and on TV.”
“Those women are all galahs,” Mr Buttons said, scratching his head.
I laughed. “Mr Buttons, you’re turning Australian.”
He looked alarmed. Just then, Wendy reached the end of the line. She let out a shriek. “I thought this was supposed to be a funeral for a man?”
Mr Buttons and I pushed past her. “It’s a woman!” Mr Buttons said.
The minister shook his head. “That can’t be right.”
Mr Buttons puffed out his chest. “I assure you, sir, that I was the one who discovered the body, and I discovered the body of a man, not of a woman with blue hair and bright red lipstick, and a copious amount of pancake foundation that could sink a battleship.”
The minister hurried down to the coffin. He gasped, and slammed it shut, right on the French chef’s hand. The French chef let out a string of words in perfect English.
“He would swear in French if he really was French,” Mr Buttons whispered.
Cressida nodded. “We’ve already established that he isn’t French,” she whispered back, “but that’s not a crime.”
The ladies were horrified by Chef Dubois’ language, and were telling him so in no uncertain terms, several of them shaking their fingers in his face. They did not appear to care that his fingers were bleeding.
“This clearly isn’t Bradley Brown,” I said to the minister, trying to be helpful. “Were you doing another funeral today for this lady?”
The minister nodded. “How did this happen?”
“The funeral home has obviously delivered the wrong body,” Mr Buttons said. “Can you call them and tell them?”
The minister scurried away to the pulpit. He held up his hands for silence. “Everyone, please take your seats. Mrs Whitaker, would you please come to the pulpit and lead everyone in an uplifting rendition of What a Useless Wretch Am I? I’ll just have to make a call and get the correct coffin delivered. I want you all to stay here and sing until it arrives. It shouldn’t be too long.”
He turned and bolted for the side door. “I’m taking Chef Dubois home to dress his poor fingers,” Cressida said. She took the unfortunate chef by the arm and led him in the direction of the door.
“I suppose I have to stay here because the detectives want someone to try to kill me,” Mr Buttons said in a disgruntled tone.
“I’ll stay with you,” I said, none too happy. Still, I couldn’t leave Mr Buttons alone.
The two of us walked back and sat in our original seats. Mrs Whitaker was singing in a dreadfully high-pitched tone, and was singing the hymn five times more slowly than it was meant to be sung. The other ladies were all singing in the same high-pitched voices, each one trying to sing over the top of the other. It sounded like a pack of dingoes down by the billabong, howling to warn of impending danger. On second thoughts, the dingoes would have been more melodious.
Chapter 8
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Blake had called early that morning to say he was stuck in Sydney for at least another day. While that certainly made me sad to some degree, it was nevertheless a cloud with a silver lining. Blake would take a very dim view of me investigating the murder.
I had just fed Max some birdseed and fed Sandy her breakfast, when the phone rang. “Sibyl, come up to the house immediately!”
My breath caught in my throat. “Has someone else been murdered?” I asked Cressida.
“No, nothing like that. Mr Buttons and I have realised something incredibly obvious. It’s a wonder we didn’t think of it before! Lord Farringdon was the one who pointed it out.”
“I’ll be right there.”
I put on my shoes, and then had to give Sandy another treat to placate her. Every time I put on my shoes, she thought she was going for a walk. We had missed our morning walk, as it was raining.
I looked out the door, but the rain had eased somewhat. It was only a short distance to the boarding house, so I decided to walk briskly rather than take the van. Mr Buttons and Cressida were waiting on the porch for me. Cressida appeared overly animated. “Lord Farringdon told me this morning that we have missed something very obvious.”
“What is it?” I prompted her.
“The murderer thinks that the bank robbery money is somewhere on the property, so the murderer is probably searching for it. We should search for it!” Cressida’s tone was shrill.
I rubbed my forehead. “Didn’t we discuss this before?” I was met with blank looks, so I wondered whether or not we had. I pushed on. “Wouldn’t it be too dangerous to go looking for the money? If the murderer has even the slightest inkling that we’re doing so, then we will really be in danger.”
Cressida appeared unconcerned. “Hung for a lamb, hung for a sheep,” she said blithely. “If we’re in danger simply by being at the boarding house, then we might as well look for the money.”
To my surprise, Mr Buttons agreed with her. He was normally the voice of reason. I shook my head. “I don’t like it,” I said. “If one of the boarders…”
“Or the French chef,” Mr Buttons said.
“Or the French chef,” I continued, “is the murderer, then how will they feel if we run around the property wielding shovels?”
Mr Buttons bit his lip. “I suppose you have a point. Why don’t we think it over, while we’re investigating Wendy Mason today.”
“Why Wendy Mason?” I wondered why they had selected her from the others.
“Over breakfast, she said she was going gold panning out on Rifle
Range Road. Cressida and I thought we should follow her to see if she really is going to pan for gold down by the creek.”
“That is a good idea,” I said, somewhat surprised.
Mr Buttons nodded. “Are you ready to go, Sibyl?”
“What, now?
“Yes. We’ll go in my car, and I’ll drive. We’ll wait down the road, closer to town and out of sight, somewhere she’ll have to drive past us, no matter which way she’s going.”
We had only been sitting in Mr Buttons’ car on the edge of town for five minutes, and I was already getting bored. The rain had stopped; the day was heating up, and numerous blowflies were swarming through my open window. I was just about to complain, when Mr Buttons started the engine. “There she goes!”
Cressida put her hand on his arm. “Don’t get too close.”
I was actually impressed by Mr Buttons’ tailing skills. He held back far enough to keep her from seeing him, but not so far that he would lose her. I gasped when she turned right onto the highway heading for Pharmidale.
“Perhaps she’s just lost,” Cressida said.
“She is heading in the opposite direction to Little Tatterford, so I’m sure she is not lost,” Mr Buttons said. “Still, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Maybe she has some shopping to do before she goes out panning for gold.”
Cressida shook her head. “But remember, Mr Buttons, after she said she was going to pan for gold, we asked her if she was planning to do anything else, and she said she wasn’t.”
Mr Buttons shrugged. “Perhaps she simply changed her mind. Anyway, we’ll follow her around Pharmidale, so long as she doesn’t lose us. That is, if Pharmidale is even her destination.”
The highway to Pharmidale stretched on interminably, through a vista of boring, flat ground dotted with dead and dying trees. The New England Tree Dieback was particularly bad in this part of the world. Whether the cause was bugs, pesticides, or disease, the result was an expansive tree graveyard.
The New England Highway bypassed the town of Pharmidale, and Wendy’s car continued on to the town itself. “So she’s going into Pharmidale itself,” Mr Buttons said. “She is heading straight for the main shopping centre.”
Either Wendy was lost, or she was trying to lose us, because she circled back on herself several times before heading down one of the smaller streets not far from the central shops. When she finally did pull over and parked her car, Mr Buttons parked further up the road.
I craned my neck. “Can you see what shop she’s going into?” I asked him.
“I can see from here,” Cressida said. “It’s one of the two tourist shops in town.”
“Pharmidale has two tourist shops?” I exclaimed in surprise. “I’m shocked it even has one. What is there to do in this town? Apart from looking at dead trees or going to the university, there is absolutely nothing else to do.”
Mr Buttons and Cressida readily agreed. “I had some boarders who booked for a week to see the sights of Pharmidale,” she said, “but they left the very next day. They couldn’t find any sights.”
I shared their opinion. “How will we find out what she’s doing in the tourist shop? Should we go in there and try to find out, or should we follow her when she drives away?”
“I think we should follow her,” Mr Buttons said, but Cressida disagreed.
“If we’re going to ask the people at the tourist place what Wendy was doing in there, we’ll have to do it soon, otherwise they won’t remember who she was.”
“That is true,” Mr Buttons said thoughtfully, “but I think it’s more important to follow her at this stage.”
“Maybe we could do both,” I said. “What if you follow her, Mr Buttons, and Cressida and I will go to the tourist place?”
“But how will you get back to Little Tatterford?” he asked me.
“We can catch a bus.”
Cressida laughed uproariously. “Sibyl, there are only two buses between Little Tatterford and Pharmidale. One goes at six in the morning, and the other goes at nine at night.”
“Let’s catch a taxi then. Oh, there are taxis, aren’t there?” I added, uncertain.
Mr Buttons and Cressida both nodded. “Okay, that’s her now!” Mr Buttons exclaimed. “Quick, ladies, out of the car.”
As soon as Cressida and I were out of the car, Mr Buttons drove off after Wendy. “What are we going to say?” I asked Cressida.
She shrugged. “Let’s play it by ear.”
I was dismayed. That didn’t sound like much of a plan to me. Nevertheless, I followed Cressida into the shop. It was mainly filled with Indigenous artefacts in striking colours, and I wished I had time to look around. I was staring at a beautifully painted boomerang, when Cressida grabbed my arm, her bony fingers digging into my flesh. “Sibyl, look!”
There, sitting on a display table, were gold pans with several bottles of gold flakes lined up behind them. “I have an idea,” I said to Cressida in low tones.
I marched over to the indifferent shop assistant. It seemed it was an effort for her to pull herself away from her phone. “Can I help you?” she drawled.
“I just missed my friend who was just in here,” I said. “I saw her driving away just as I got here. I was supposed to meet her here, but I was running late. We’re buying gifts for a friend of ours who has just taken up panning for gold, and we decided to buy her different gifts.”
“That woman who was just in here?” she asked me.
I nodded. “What did she buy? We can’t double up on the same gifts. I called her, but it’s going straight to message bank.”
“She bought a couple of bottles of that gold dust there,” she said.
Cressida and I exchanged glances. “Thanks.” I grabbed Cressida’s arm, and we hurried from the shop. “I’ll tell Mr Buttons, and then we’ll call a taxi.”
Mr Buttons spoke as soon as he answered the phone, not giving me a chance to say anything. “Stay put. I’m coming back for you. She’s in a coffee shop with two other people. Cancel that taxi.”
“We haven’t called a taxi yet,” I told him. “Who are the other people?” I looked at the phone. He had hung up.
Still, we didn’t have long to wait. It was only minutes before Mr Buttons pulled up and flung the door open for Cressida, beckoning me to hurry up and get in the car.
“Who are the other people?” I asked him. I wasn’t the most patient person in the world.
“The two mafia men from the funeral yesterday,” he said. “Remember? The two men in the black suits.”
Cressida craned her neck and looked around at me, raising her pencilled-in eyebrows. “Wow!” was she could say.
Cressida recovered before I did. “Mr Buttons, Wendy bought bottles of gold dust from the tourist shop.”
“You know, I had almost forgotten that she went into the tourist shop in all the excitement,” he said. “They’ve picked a little remote café that no one ever goes to. Clearly, their business is not above board.”
“Yes, I was watching the boarders and the French chef the whole time at the funeral yesterday,” I said, “and she didn’t speak to those men at all.”
Cressida scratched her head. “I wonder what’s going on. Mr Buttons, what can we do? They’ll see us if we go inside the café.”
Mr Buttons parked the car. It certainly was a remote café. In my time in Little Tatterford, I had been to most cafés in Pharmidale, but never to this one. It did not look attractive from the outside. A dirty green awning hung limply over an unpainted brick façade. There were no tables on the footpath, despite there being ample room for some. A weak breeze lifted some rubbish and blew it down the road half-heartedly.
“Perhaps one of us should go in disguise and listen to their conversation,” Mr Buttons said.
“I’m not going to,” I said as fast as I could, thinking it best to get in first. “Maybe you could go in drag, Mr Buttons.”
“Oh well, it was a silly idea after all,” he said slowly. “It’s frustrating to know
that they’re in there talking, and we have no idea what they’re saying.”
I agreed. “But look on the bright side,” I said. “We know she’s lying about panning for gold. That was obviously her cover story for meeting these men, whoever they are. My guess is she’s bought those gold flecks, so she can produce them later and say she did go gold panning.”
And that’s exactly what happened. The three of us had waited in the car for over an hour, until Wendy emerged. She had driven straight back to the boarding house. She did not go anywhere near the gold panning creek.
Blake was still in Sydney, so Cressida had invited me to dinner at the boarding house. “How was everyone’s day?” Mr Buttons asked, coming straight to the point, the second everyone arrived.
“I’ve been house hunting all day,” Dennis said.
“Any luck?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “Well, there were a few possibilities, but nothing that grabs me. You know how you sometimes just get that feeling when you’re buying a house, and you know it’s the right one for you?”
I nodded, although I had no idea. I had never bought a house. I had simply moved into my husband’s house when we were married, and all my other houses had been rented.
“I’ve been hard at work,” Adrian said. “Sadly, I’m not here on holiday.”
“What about you?” Mr Buttons asked Wendy. “Did you have any luck gold panning today? You were at the creek at the end of Rifle Range Road, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” Wendy said with a smile. “You were right—there is quite a lot of gold here in Little Tatterford.” She pulled one of the bottles from her pocket. I noticed she had removed the label, but she had done little else to disguise it, except add a little water. She shook it at us. “This is what I got today.”
Adrian took the bottle from her and turned it over. “Wow! Is this iron pyrites—you know, fool’s gold, or is it real gold?”
“Real gold,” Wendy said at once, but she quickly added, “As far as I know.”
Mr Buttons did a good impression of looking impressed. “That is very clever of you, Wendy. Did it take you all day to get that amount? Or just a few minutes?”