Slapdash! Was he serious? “You have no idea how we figured out—”
He shook his finger in my face as he spoke over me. “And let’s not forget you endangered yourself and Dave this time, not to mention Belle and Ellie.” That again?
By now, Dave, Gemma, and my animals had heard us and come running—Dave put his arm around me, and Gemma stood near her boss. Dickens growled and Christie gave a low hiss.
I was trembling with rage. “How dare you accost me in my home! How dare you accuse me of endangering Dave or anyone else! I want you out of my house, now!”
Gemma looked from me to her DCI and hesitated. The silence was palpable. Finally, she placed her hand on his arm and nodded toward the door.
He resisted for a moment but must have thought better of it. As he exited, he called over his shoulder, “This isn’t over by a long shot.” He had to have the last word. How like him.
Dave looked at me with an expression of disbelief. “Did I just witness a verbal assault? Did he really accuse you of—what do you call it—reckless endangerment?”
“I believe he did. He was even more obnoxious than he was the last time he reprimanded me.”
“Is that what you call it? A reprimand? He was way out of line.”
I blinked and smiled. “I’d say we need to call the police . . . except they were just here.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
On Monday morning, it was apparent the Astonbury grapevine had been in full swing. It was a good thing I’d turned my phone off before I fell into bed, as it was filled with texts, and my voicemail was full to overflowing.
Downstairs, Dave was on his phone. I picked up that it was Gilbert calling to see if Dave wanted to join him on his brewery tour. “I don’t think I can make it, Gilbert. Let me tell you what happened here yesterday.” Dave rolled his eyes and made the yakking sign with his hand. It seemed Gilbert wanted all the details. I was sure I’d have the same problem when I got around to speaking with Wendy.
Dave was hanging up when Gemma rang me. “Are you awake enough for an update?”
I asked her to let me pour a cup of coffee and I told Dave who it was. He followed me into the sitting room and stoked the fire while I put us on speakerphone.
“First, let me say how sorry I am for how you were treated yesterday. That’s twice now you’ve gotten a dressing-down from my boss.”
“I know it’s not your fault, Gemma. What would you say: ‘He’s a right git?’. I can only hope I never have to see him again.”
“Yes, well, it probably doesn’t help, but I’ve been on the receiving end of several similar rants. After each one, he reverts to normal and acts as though it never happened. Anyway, let me tell you where we are with the Porters.”
The upshot was that she had the husband and wife on the forgeries but not yet for the murder. Once Bonnie heard that her son Albert was under suspicion too, she confessed that it was only she and Alastair who partnered on creating the documents—that Albert was neither involved nor aware. Our initial supposition about a team of forgers—one as the author and one as the artist—was on target. Gemma didn’t have much more than that.
I sighed as I hung up. “It seems like we should be doing something, doesn’t it?”
“Like what? Something beyond taking it easy and recovering from being attacked by a murdering forger? Think about it—we solved the case, Tuppence.”
I studied him. For a man who’d been so worried about the activities of the Little Old Ladies’ Detective Agency, he seemed amazingly calm. “That we did,” I said, “and it feels pretty good, doesn’t it?”
He grinned and nodded. “Sure does.”
“So, you’re fine with how it all worked out? You don’t think we took any unnecessary risks?”
Dave was quick to see where I was headed. “Oh, we’re going back to our disagreement, aren’t we? No, I don’t think we did. Especially since we were careful to stick with each other or with friends. Had I accepted Alastair’s invitation to go book scouting with him, I guess that could have been dicey. I wonder what he had in mind?”
“That’s just it, Dave. If we hadn’t been busy, you would have been tempted. You’d have thought, no harm in looking at books. The danger isn’t always obvious, at least not in my experience.”
“Point taken. Doesn’t make me worry any less about you, but I’m beginning to understand. Once you start asking questions, once the wheels in your head start turning . . . well, it’s hard to turn back.”
“I know, and believe it or not, I’m telling myself this is it, never again—but I’ve said that before.”
Dave touched my chin with his finger and turned my head toward his. “Oh, I get it. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hooked. But thinking of you taking risks . . . I’d also be lying if I said that didn’t scare the heck out of me.”
I smiled. “I think it was Eleanor Roosevelt who said, ‘Do one thing every day that scares you.’ Maybe I could try for every other day.”
“Uh-huh. And, since Mark Twain figures so prominently in this adventure, let’s remember he said, ‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did.’ Well said, right? Except I don’t think he had confrontations with killers in mind.”
“Enough! Two word nerds sitting on a couch. We could keep this up for hours.”
Dickens must have thought the same thing, because he came to the couch, put his paws between us, and barked. “Are you two done? Can we go see the donkeys? We could even take Christie.”
Dave scratched Dickens’s ears. “What’s up, fella? Need to go out?”
“He just wants attention. Here’s an idea. Why don’t you go on the tour with Gilbert and take Dickens with you to hang out with Basil? I’ll be fine here by myself. And, maybe tonight, we can go to Burford for a quiet dinner.”
Once he was sure I was fine, he agreed. “I’ll call Gilbert and then I’ll fry up some eggs for breakfast, okay?”
While he was gone, I played Words with Friends, straightened the mess two people can make, and wrote an email to my sisters and my friend Bev to let them know about the latest happenings. I could pretty well predict their responses. My youngest sister Anna would have a conniption about my putting myself in danger again. Sophia, my middle sister, would tsk-tsk a bit, and immediately request more detail about how my friend the dowager countess had been involved. Bev would be suitably concerned about my well-being, but would refrain from chastising me.
Christie followed me from room to room and crawled into my lap when I finally sat on the couch with my phone and a book. She purred her approval.
Before I could settle down to read, I knew I had to call Wendy. She’d left two messages Sunday and sent a text this morning. I was surprised she hadn’t shown up at the door.
She answered on the first ring. “Thank goodness. I thought I’d never get to talk to you. Are you okay? Is Dave?”
“Physically, I’m fine, but the stress has worn me out. Dave has bruised knuckles, but that’s about it. He seems to have already gotten over the fact that a man threatened him with a sword. How much do you know? And how do you know?”
“As soon as I saw the note Deborah posted on the Astonbury Aha!, I called Libby. You know she got the scoop from Gemma. I can’t believe that man broke into your cottage, much less pulled out a sword. Mum and Peter told me all about the cane. What if you’d been alone when you found him?”
She was asking the question that had been on my mind. What if Dave hadn’t been there? What if he hadn’t supplied me with defensive spray and alarms? Then again, if Dave and Gilbert hadn’t spoken with Alastair at the flea market, maybe none of this would have happened. Too many what-ifs to consider.
“By now, you may know more than I do. Dave recalled mentioning that we were helping Beatrix with the binders, so that explains how he knew we had them. And because Dave told him we’d be at the cricket match, he expected the cottage to be empty. I guess he was counting on us sta
ying the entire time. Still, it seems to me that breaking into my cottage in broad daylight was awfully risky.”
“Well, I do know that he parked his motorbike by the bridge hoping no one would see him. Surely, one of your neighbors would have noticed it in your driveway.”
I recalled seeing it at the river and thinking it belonged to a fisherman. I wondered whether he’d borrowed it from his son.
“Wendy, are you there?”
“Um, yes. I was thinking I don’t mean to make light of the sword attack, but I’m maybe even more upset about the way Brian treated you.”
As well you should be, I thought. “So, Gemma shared that with her mum too? Have you spoken with him?”
“No! He’s rung me twice, but I’ve ignored the calls. I’ve already told him I don’t want to see him, and I’ve nothing more to say. The way he treated you is just the icing on the cake. I don’t believe a person can have two different personalities. If he treats you and Gemma that way—which Libby says he does—he’s bound to do it with me sooner or later. Remember the lesson I gave you on British terms for jerks? He’s all of those—git, plonker, prat, and some I can’t say aloud.”
Phew. At least she and I agree he’s a jerk, or whatever British term she wants to use. “So, I don’t have to worry about you bringing DCI Burton the next time I throw a party? Is that what I’m hearing?”
Wendy spluttered. “You got that right. I’m well-shed of him. Now, I’m going to let you get back to recovering from yesterday. Let’s take a yoga class later this week, okay?”
I was reading when Ellie called. “I’m dying to know the full scoop, but I’ve gotten most of the story from Dave and Gilbert, so I’m not going to push you for more detail. I’ve spoken with Belle, and we have a proposal. We’d like to invite the usual suspects to dinner here at the Manor House and fill everyone in on how the Little Old Ladies, plus Dave and Gilbert, of course, unmasked the culprit. And, as a part of the evening, we’ll honor Teddy’s passion, his generosity, and his wit. Just think. Sharing the mystery of the key will be a wonderful example of who he was. What do you say?”
I wasn’t sure about the plan, but then, it wasn’t up to me. If Ellie and Belle wanted to tell the tale, who was I to get in the way? I’d done something similar after the murder at the cricket pavilion. Not exactly a Hercule Poirot denouement, but close. I’d grown weary of telling the story over and over again to everyone I ran into, so it had seemed a good idea.
“I say yes, and I’ll get the binders back to Beatrix in case she wants to showcase them that night. Is there anything else you’d like me to do?”
“Just be here with bells on Friday evening—with your beau, of course.”
Dave and I had a quiet week. We walked. We drove to Gloucester and toured the Cathedral. We had lunch at the Swan Inn in Swinbrook, once owned by the last of the Mitford sisters. We read and sat by the fire.
We heard nothing further from Gemma until Thursday morning. Once again, I put her on speakerphone. “I have good news. We have a confession from Alastair. He says killing Teddy Byrd was an accident, but the courts will have to decide whether that’s true or not.”
“Are you any the wiser as to why? Why he wanted the documents? Why he broke in?”
Gemma sighed. “It’s not a pretty story. You were right about Alastair having a record. As a young man, he went to prison for burglary. Upon his release, he returned to his wife and young son, turned his life around, and kept his nose clean—until the financial crisis, when his flea market business almost went under. That’s when the couple turned to forgery, a lucrative venture for them. Fast-forward to a local literary festival and three occurrences that led to a desperate act.
“One, at a presentation about Mark Twain, Alastair realized he’d sold Teddy Byrd several obviously fake documents referencing Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle, and J.M. Barrie. He was in charge of getting the facts straight for the forgeries his wife created, and he’d messed up. Two, the very next night, Teddy met Gilbert and Dave, experts on Doyle and Barrie. What were the chances?
“Three, Alastair tells us Teddy pulled him aside Friday at the festival and told him Gilbert had questioned at least one of the documents Alastair had sold him and that he was meeting with Dave the next day and would ask his opinion on a few others. He also mentioned speaking with other collectors about their authenticity. Alastair saw his forgery scheme unraveling and prison looming. Worse, he pictured his wheelchair-bound wife in prison too. He panicked.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures? He thought he had to get the fakes back or they’d both wind up in prison?”
“Yes. He was right about his situation—because of his record, he’d get a prison sentence for sure—but he was wrong about his wife. Almost certainly, she would have remained free with a suspended sentence, a stiff fine, and community service. Still, it seems it was panic, pure and simple, that led him to break into Teddy’s home.”
Dave asked, “How did he get in? Did he have a key?”
“The same way he got into Leta’s cottage. He picked the lock, a skill he’d learned in the old days.”
I was nodding and thinking. “But how do you accidentally smother a helpless old man?”
Gemma raised her voice. “You don’t. Not in my book. There’s no way he’s getting away with that. The judge may buy that it wasn’t premeditated, but it was no accident. Teddy woke up and saw him, and he killed him.”
This was a lot to absorb. “But his wife had no idea? So she won’t be charged with anything to do with that?”
“Not for murder. Like I said, she’ll likely get a suspended sentence for the forgeries as a first offender, but her husband’s rash and violent actions have brought the walls tumbling down around them.”
The more I heard, the angrier I got. “And his final move was to break in here. What was the point?”
Dave thought he knew. “More than anything else, he wanted the ledger, because that—coupled with the contents of the binders—would lead to him. I’m betting the few forgeries we found are only the tip of the iceberg. Beatrix may want to get an expert to analyze all of it.”
I looked at my boyfriend. “Did he even think about what he’d do if we came home? What would he have done if we hadn’t gotten the drop on him? Killed us both? He couldn’t very well leave us alive once we’d seen him. Panic, desperation? Call it what you will. In my book, he’s evil.”
Gemma agreed. “It’s clear to me he did think about what he’d do if you surprised him. That has to be why he brought a weapon with him to your cottage. I mean, who walks around with a sword cane, and who attaches one to a motorbike? I’d call that premeditated, even if he was hoping he’d never see you two.”
Dave shook his head. “I keep thinking of Hercule Poirot saying, ‘There is evil everywhere under the sun.’ It certainly fits.”
The plane trees lining the long driveway to Astonbury Manor sparkled with raindrops from the shower we’d had earlier in the day. Since Ellie had decided to hold her small dinner party outdoors, it was fortunate the clouds had given way to bright sunshine. I glimpsed the tent in the distance, a bright blue and yellow pennant with the Earl of Stow’s crest flying from the center pole. Dave let Dickens out of the car, and I grabbed the backpack with Christie in it. I hadn’t planned to bring the princess until Ellie requested her presence.
With Christie on his back, Dave turned to me and grinned. “You know, this is my first dinner party hosted by a dowager countess. First a brewery tour with an earl and now this.”
As we approached the tent, I took in the cheerful tableau. I saw flowers centered on each table, torches positioned in the ground around the perimeter, and Teddy’s binders with a selection of his figurines displayed on a table. Fiona was speaking with Deborah Watson and Wendy. Several of the men—Peter, Toby, Gavin, and Gilbert—were standing by the keg. My neighbor John Watson had his head thrown back laughing at something Sarah Coates was saying, and her husband Matthew, the Earl of Stow, stood chatti
ng with Libby, Rhiannon, and Gemma. Belle had just hugged Constable James, and Ellie was conferring with her chef, Carolyn.
I noticed Libby pointing to the edge of the tent and turned to look. “Dave, is that Watson?”
“Sure looks like him, but what’s he doing here?”
When we asked Libby that question, she laughed. “Well, he keeps showing up over here, and if you can believe it, hanging out by the kitchen entry to the manor house. Smart cat, I’d say.”
Dave was surprised. “But how does he get across the river?”
“That’s easy. He has a choice. He can cut through the donkey pasture to the bridge over the river, or he can cross by the waterwheel behind the Olde Mill Inn. There’s a spot where the branches from the trees on either side stretch nearly to the middle. For now, which way he chooses is his secret.”
Ellie joined us and chimed in. “It’s nice having a cat around. Carolyn’s let him in the kitchen a few times, and he’s a little gentleman, though Blanche doesn’t seem to know what to think of him. Beatrix has agreed he can stay here and become the manor cat.”
Based on how Christie’s eyes were following the handsome cat, I wasn’t sure she knew what to make of him. Wouldn’t it be interesting if he visited Schoolhouse Cottage? I’d love to see Christie’s reaction to a gentleman caller.
I left Ellie conferring with Dave when I heard Belle calling my name. “Leta, do we have a surprise for you! Look what we came up with.” She handed me a pamphlet, its cover emblazoned with the words The Chipping Camden Affair.
“Oh my goodness. And what’s inside?” I turned the page to a table of contents—A Life Well-Lived, The Mystery of the Key, Never the Twain shall Meet, Gilbert and Sullivan, All’s Well that Ends Well. For each topic, a speaker was listed, and I was thankful not to see my name. Dave’s was listed, though.
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