by Morgana Best
Cressida shrugged. “That’s just it. No one knows. I called and called her at the top of my lungs, and the detectives searched the house, but there’s no sign of her. One minute she was there, and the next minute she had vanished. She even left food bubbling away on the stove, and it’s not like her to do something so irresponsible.”
Mr. Buttons and I exchanged glances. “Proof that she’s guilty all right,” he said. “She’s trying to flee from justice.”
“All her clothes are still in her room,” Cressida said. “Those detectives are waiting inside the house for her to return.”
“I didn’t see their car,” I said.
“She’s hardly likely to return if the detectives’ car is parked outside the boarding house. Detective Roberts drove away and Blake brought him back, and then Blake himself drove away,” Cressida said. She patted Mr. Buttons’ arm. “Mr. Buttons, I do believe you were right about Dorothy all along.”
Mr. Buttons beamed, and I rubbed my temples. All I wanted was to have a glass of wine, two Advil, and a good night’s sleep. I had a suspicion that it wasn’t going to happen. “And did Blake speak to you?” I asked Cressida.
She shook her head. “I overheard the detectives speaking to him. They sent him to Dorothy’s son Frank’s house to see if she was there.”
Mr. Buttons turned to me. “What are we going to do?”
I let out a long sigh. “There’s nothing we can do, really. I’m going home to have a shower and a glass of wine. I’m exhausted after today. Anyway, I have to light my fire in a hurry before my cottage turns into a giant icicle.”
Mr. Buttons shook his head. “No, I don’t think it’s safe. Dorothy could be lying in wait for you there.”
I winced. “What? You don’t think she wants to murder me, too?”
Cressida intervened. “Mr. Buttons, of course Dorothy doesn’t want to hurt Sibyl.”
“She did try to set her up to take the fall for the murder,” Mr. Buttons said, his teeth chattering from the cold. “She murdered Roland in Sibyl’s cottage.”
“We don’t even know if she is the murderer yet,” I said, “not for sure.”
Mr. Buttons shook his head. “Sibyl, it’s as plain as the nose on your face. Dorothy is indeed the murderer. Why else would she make a run for it when the police came looking for her?”
I had to admit that he had a point.
“Why don’t you come inside and have some dinner here?” Cressida asked me. “You can’t go back to your cottage. Haven’t you seen all those movies where the person goes back to her house, thinking she’s safe, only to encounter the murderer who is waiting for her in the dark, about to slit her throat?”
I clutched at my neck. “What a way to put it, Cressida!” I imagined myself in one of her upcoming paintings, and shuddered. “Look, I’m sure Dorothy doesn’t have anything against me, not personally. My shower and a glass of wine are calling me. I bought an expensive bottle of wine to celebrate the property settlement being awarded to me. I was going to share it with all of you, but after the day I’ve had…” My voice trailed away.
Mr. Buttons puffed out his chest. “You can drink wine at another time, honestly. The woman is crazed! She’s on a mission to kill, don’t you understand? I have no more patience for the silly antics of that woman.”
“What I understand, Mr. Buttons, is that I have a new bottle of expensive wine.”
“If you truly insist on going, Sibyl, I will just have to accompany you. I wouldn’t be a gentleman if I didn’t.”
“Oh very crafty, Mr. Buttons. You just want a glass of that wine.”
Mr. Buttons chuckled. “You found me out. You can’t keep an old dog down. Goodbye, Cressida, please stay close to the detectives and keep an eye out for Dorothy. Go inside and get warm.”
I walked down the road with Mr. Buttons hot on my heels. “You know,” I said to Mr. Buttons, “I’ve never seen you so happy, now that it seems that Dorothy did it. I know you’ve always disliked her, but I didn’t really mind her too much.”
Mr. Buttons scoffed and came to a stop right by the old rusty water tank that loomed precariously above us. “Don’t be ridiculous, Sibyl! I didn’t dislike her! I hated her. She’s a mean old cow. No, that’s too kind—she’s a hideous hag of a wench who insisted that everyone eat her greasy, grimy, good-for-nothing horrendous food.”
I was shocked at Mr. Buttons’ vehemence. He paused his tirade to pull a pebble out of his shoe, and he flung it at the water tank. It made a clanging sound that reverberated into the cold night air. We made to walk off when Mr. Buttons started up again. “Good thing she’s gone. Hopefully, Cressida will get a new cook who will serve food that doesn’t taste like musty old socks.”
“How dare you! My cooking is delightful!”
I spun around just as Mr. Buttons clutched my arm. “Did you hear that?” he asked me.
I looked around me. “Where did the voice come from?”
“It sounds as if the old hag has died, crossed over to the other side, and now her hideous specter is wailing.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my cooking, you bloated toad!” the voice screamed.
“Your chocolate mint sundae killed Roland Cavendish!” Mr. Buttons yelled back.
“A pity I didn’t poison you, too, you pompous old fool!”
Then it dawned on me. Dorothy was in the water tank! I couldn’t get my phone out of my pocket fast enough. I called Cressida to ask her to tell the detectives that Dorothy was hiding in the old water tank near my cottage.
“Yes,” Cressida said calmly. “Lord Farringdon just now told me. I was on my way to tell the detectives.”
I hung up, and saw that Mr. Buttons was standing directly under the water tank, looking up at it. “Mr. Buttons, I wouldn’t stand under that tank if I were you. It’s a wonder it can take a person’s weight at all. You don’t want it to bottom out and have Dorothy falling on you.”
Just as I said the words, there was a tearing, ripping sound, accompanied by a scream. I saw Dorothy’s legs, soon followed by the rest of her, falling through the bottom of the tank as the whole bottom of the tank gave way, and Dorothy landed right on top of Mr. Buttons. Both of them screamed wildly and flailed their arms.
I watched the scene unfold, dumbstruck, as the detectives sprinted down the pathway. “What do we have here?” Detective Roberts said. “This is no time for such goings-on.”
His words made Mr. Buttons yell even louder. Detective Henderson pulled Dorothy off Mr. Buttons, which was hard to do, as they were rolling around, their legs entwined, and Dorothy appeared to be trying to slap Mr. Buttons. As Dorothy aimed a punch at his face, Henderson expertly pulled her wrists behind her back, before pulling out his handcuffs and slapping them on her wrists.
Mr. Buttons staggered to his feet and rounded on Detective Roberts. “I can assure you, sir, that the dreadful murdering woman and I were certainly not involved in any type of tryst. In fact, I abhor the woman.”
Roberts tried to go to the assistance of his partner, given the fact that Dorothy was struggling hard and had stomped on the detective’s foot, but Mr. Buttons blocked his way, and continued to give him a good dressing down.
Chapter 21
“Congratulations, Sibyl!” Mr. Buttons said, holding up a glass of wine. Everyone cheered and did the same, clinking their glasses together before taking a drink. I smiled shyly at everybody, enjoying the attention more than I usually would.
Since Dorothy had been arrested, and had confessed at length, even confessing that she had left a note for Roland pretending to be from me, inviting him to my cottage for a sundae and a dalliance, we were celebrating the fact that I had been cleared of all suspicion. Mr. Buttons was also celebrating the fact that Dorothy had been arrested and that he’d been right, something he wouldn’t let us hear the end of for many years to come. I was sure of that.
I had invited Mr. Buttons, Cressida, and, of course, Blake to my cottage. We were sitting on chairs around the fire, hud
dling as close as we could to the flames. While it made for a nice intimate environment, the cold was so biting that I briefly considered setting my entire cottage on fire for the warmth it would provide.
“Do you have enough wood?” Blake asked, suspiciously eyeing the fire. It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment, but if the fire went out then the night would be over before it had really begun. I thought for a moment about how much wood I had left before replying.
“Yes, a little bit. It should be enough to last the night. Probably. I hope,” I admitted with a sigh. “Cressida, you really need to find a new wood man. He’s not delivering nearly enough, nor quickly enough. Plus, the wood’s green.”
Cressida looked at me with a confused expression. “But he’s so nice,” she said, clearly deep in thought. “And Dorothy recommended him, so he can’t be all bad.”
We all looked at Cressida dumbfounded for several seconds until we realized she was serious. “Cressida,” Mr. Buttons said softly, “do you think perhaps that Dorothy isn’t the best reference for hard working, honest people?”
It took about a full minute for Cressida to realize what Mr. Buttons meant, and watching it dawn on her slowly was almost painful. “Oh,” she said simply, still seeming a bit confused. “I suppose I’ll look for a new wood man tomorrow, then. I still need to find a new cook,” she continued, staring absent-mindedly into the fire.
“We can help you look, Cressida,” I suggested. “I know there aren’t too many cooks in a small town like this who are looking for work, but surely if we all pitch in we’ll be able to find somebody.”
“I know a few in Pharmadale,” Blake piped up, managing to tear himself away from the fire to pat Cressida’s shoulder. “I’m not sure if they’re looking for work, but I’ll ask around.”
“Yes, I’ll help too,” Mr. Buttons suggested. “I need to have a hand in choosing the new cook. After all, I’ll be able to tell if they’re a bad sort. And I hope people will listen to me this time,” he said pointedly, eyeing us individually.
Cressida smiled, clearly relieved at the offers of help. “Thank you, everybody. Hopefully it won’t take long. I do love your cucumber sandwiches, Mr. Buttons, but I don’t think I could sustain myself on them for long. Oh, I’ll have to let Lord Farringdon help choose the new cook, too,” she said, her voice trailing off again.
I felt a little bit bad for Cressida. While we all had to deal with the murders in some way—after all, I had not only been a suspect, but the murder had happened in my cottage—it was Cressida who always had to deal with the problems it caused her business afterward.
Luckily, the press seemed to be pushing the angle that Dorothy was the long-running problem, and now that she was gone, the boarding house would be safe. Whether or not it was true wasn’t even the issue, since business had been picking up since Dorothy had been arrested. Then again, maybe it had nothing to do with the murders and more to do with the fact that people just didn’t want to be anywhere near the woman.
“Well, I’m glad you’re off the hook, Sibyl,” Blake said with a smile. “It would be hard to justify spending all this time with a murderer.”
“Oh, you could have just gotten a job as a prison guard, surely,” I teased, making Blake laugh.
“Shut up! You smell!” Max squawked loudly across the room. I sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. I loved Max, but I often wondered if it was possible to buy a kind of humane cockatoo muzzle. Still, I figured that the very notion of a muzzle was inhumane to an animal that loved to speak, much to my disappointment.
“I hate to say I told you so, but…” Mr. Buttons began before I cut him off.
“You don’t hate to say ‘I told you so’! You say it all the time. You’ve said it about thirty times in the past hour,” I berated him. I was only half joking, but Mr. Buttons had made a point of telling us all that he had always known that Dorothy was a murderer. Over and over and over again.
“Ah, but it’s true,” he said, stroking his chin. “If you’d listened to me, we could have saved a lot of time and stress.”
“You also said that Dorothy was responsible for the Vietnam War!” I all but yelled.
“I believe she may have a hand in it, yes,” Mr. Buttons said, turning up his nose.
“She couldn’t have been too old when it began,” I pleaded fruitlessly. “I know you were right about Dorothy, but I think it was more that you didn’t like her than being based on any kind of logic.”
Mr. Buttons looked at me for a moment as he scratched his chin. “Well, it’s true that I wasn’t her biggest fan, so perhaps some of my accusations were slightly biased. All the same, I knew she was a bad egg. She killed Roland due to a personal grudge, but she had no excuse to involve you, Sibyl. She did her best to frame you as the murderer.”
Sandy looked up at us from her bed in front of the fire, annoyed that we were talking. She plopped her head back down and fell asleep almost immediately, snoring loudly. I wondered what it would be like to be a dog: being fed for free, having the best bed in the house, and being able to demand attention from your loved ones whenever you wanted it.
Blake put his arm around me and held me close, keeping me warm. I smiled and snuggled in. I might not have had the free food, but at least I had the attention.
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About the Author
#1 Best-selling Cozy Mystery author, Morgana Best, lives in a coastal beach town in Australia. She is owned by one highly demanding, rescued cat, and two less demanding dogs, a chocolate Labrador and a rescued Dingo, as well as two rescued Dorper sheep, the ram, Herbert, and his wether friend, Bertie.
Morgana is a former college professor who now
writes full time. She is the Director of an animal rescue charity.
In her spare time, Morgana loves to read, and walk her dogs along the beach.
A Note from the Author
Thank you for reading this book. I hope you enjoyed it.
All my books are edited by two separate editing firms, but no one is infallible. If you happen to find a typo, please email me at morganabest (at) outlook (dot) com. Thank you!