by Luna Snow
Maisie laughed with relief.
“I’m sure that champagne doesn’t kill dogs Ada. It might have made the poor thing a bit squiffy, but it wouldn’t have killed it. My uncle used to give his dog a pint of beer every Sunday. It lived to the ripe old age of 25.”
“But it’s too much of a co-incidence, I give the poor dog champagne and a few minutes later it’s rolling on its back taking its last breath. How else do you explain it?”
Maisie looked thoughtfully into her cup.
“I think I know.”
Maisie explained how she had seen the little dog eating the discarded panna cotta.
“It must have been something in the panna cotta that killed the dog, I’m certain of it.”
Ada looked unimpressed.
“But how would we ever find out? How will I ever really know that it wasn’t the champagne that killed the poor dog?”
“Well doesn’t it seem funny to you that both the dog and Rita should die after eating panna cotta; Panna cotta that was made by Rita Robinson?”
She paused for dramatic effect and draining the last of her tea, suddenly stood up and started to put on her coat.”
“Where are you going Maisie?” Hello she said who are your lady friends?
Tapping her nose she walked quickly to the door
“I am off to solve a murder.” Hello she said who are your lady friends?
Maisie Adams walked briskly home. Something had been bothering her for a while but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.
As soon as she returned home she put the kettle on and unpacked the books that Rita Robinson had given her a few days earlier. Picking out the volumes on local flora and fauna written by Lord Willets himself, she settled herself down into her favourite arm chair and started to flick through them.
The photographs really took her back to her youth. The place had been so wild and overgrown then, and it had been like a paradise to a small child. Lord Willets was an eccentric and didn’t like to stray far from the house, so instead of having to go out to nature, he had brought nature back to the Manor House.
As she looked through the pages she started to doze. Maisie had found that she started to doze off regularly now that she was getting on in years. Sometimes she would wake and a whole afternoon would have passed her by. She didn’t mind, but she didn’t want what was left of her life to pass her by. Hello she said who are your lady friends?
The book falling to the floor woke Maisie from her sleep with a start. As soon as she opened her eyes she knew what had been bothering her for all of this time. It had been in her dreams.
She had been back in the kitchen garden again as a young girl. The neat planting and carefully pruned herbs had all disappeared in her dreams and had been replaced by the overgrown beds and weeds of her childhood. She was playing a game amongst the bushes. There were things she was allowed to touch and some things that were forbidden. The old Lord had been there in her dreams. And there had been a real sense of danger.
When she was a girl there had been a rumour that Lord Willets had done away with his wife. She had always been so active, so well liked, a real part of the community. And then one day she had died, just like that.
The coroner had ruled heart disease and there had been a great funeral procession from the Manor House to the little church of Tiverton Meadows. Lord Willets had made a great display of his emotion, his sadness at losing his wife, and after that very few people saw him outside of the great house. That was when her mother had started to clean for him.
It was then that the rumours had started. Maisie had heard it first at school and she had gone home and told her mother. A girl in her class had said that Lord Willets had been jealous of his popular wife, that she had a secret lover in the village that she met each week. Of course her mother had said that it was all nonsense, that Lord Willets was a sweet old man, and only idle people with nothing better to do gossiped.
So Maisie did not share the other stories that she heard in the playground with her mother, but kept them to herself. Especially the rumours that Lord Willets had poisoned his wife!
The story had intrigued the young Maisie so much that she started going up to the Manor House with her mother when she wasn’t at school. She hoped for a glimpse of the old Lord himself, to see if he really looked like a murderer. She was certain that she would be able to tell from his eyes. But the old Lord kept himself to himself, until one day when she was playing alone in the kitchen garden she found him taking photographs of various plants.
He was a kind old man, if a little odd, and he had told her the names of all of the plants. He had also told her which plants were poisonous and which she should stay away from.
She remembered one in particular with little star shaped flowers and dark black berries. The one she had sworn on her mother’s life never to touch- the Belladonna or deadly night shade.
Rescuing the book that had fallen to the floor, Maisie quickly began to leaf through the index. All plants were listed in alphabetical order. Scanning the page she began to read out loud.
“The lethal dose for adults is ten to twenty berries, depending of the physiological constitution of the consumer. Consumption of two or three berries by children can be lethal. These data notwithstanding, consumption of belladonna should be mindful and generally avoided due to the devastating toxic states that can for some individuals prove lethal even with the minimal dosage.”
Perhaps Lord Willets had done away with his wife after all.
Chapter 8
The next morning, over their usual cup of tea, Maisie revealed her plans. She intended to go back to the Manor House and do some investigating of her own. The first step was to see if the old deadly nightshade plants still existed in the revamped gardens.
“But what will that prove Maisie? Even if the plant is still there, it doesn’t mean that someone poisoned Rita with the berries. What will you do?”
Joan folded her arms; she didn’t agree with Maisie at all and thought that she was way off the mark. Hello she said who are your lady friends?
“Maybe she has got something though?” Ada looked almost hopeful.
“If Maisie can prove somehow that Rita was poisoned then it will make me feel a whole lot better. I haven’t slept properly since the garden party. I can’t go on with all of this guilt on my head.”
Ada sniffled into her teacup.
“If I find that there is a deadly nightshade plant in the garden then I will tell the Police my suspicions. It can’t hurt.”
“But you have to have someone to be suspicious of in the first place Maisie!”
Joan had read too many Agatha Christie Novels for her own good.
“Well, how about that young Italian Alberto for a start! Now I think I’ll go this evening, under the cover of darkness so no-one can see me. No-one will be around and I have a small torch- I will be quite safe”
Joan and Maisie didn’t like the idea of Maisie going out alone after dark, but neither did they fancy tramping about in a garden in the cold night, so they both kept quiet. Maisie was pretty intrepid; she had been a Girl Guide leader in her day and despite her age knew how to take care of herself.
That evening Maisie pulled on her stout walking boots and dressed in as near to black clothing as she could find, to keep her well hidden in the darkness. Just as she was getting ready there was a faint tap at her back door. It was Ada armed with a flask of hot sweet tea and a packet of ginger biscuits.
“For your trip Maisie, I thought they might help?”
“Good god Ada, I’m only going round the corner, not attempting to climb Everest.”
The woman’s face dropped.
“But it’s very kind of you, and I’ll tell you what. Why don’t I leave them here for my supper when I get back? It’s getting quite chilly in the evening and a nice cup of tea and biscuit will be the very thing. I’m hoping I’m only going to be gone 10 minutes, why don’t you wait for me to come back and we can have a cuppa together. I c
an tell you all about it then?”
Ada agreed, and armed with her torch and walking stick, Maisie ventured forth into the night.
The moon was bright, lighting up all of the hedgerows and trees in a magical light. The pale glow also cast ghostly shapes and shadows across her path that made Maisie hurry to her destination.
“Such a stupid thing to be afraid of one’s own shadow. Now pull yourself together Maisie Adams and get a grip of yourself. You’re 70 not 17. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Scurrying passed the church she kept her head down as she passed the tomb stoned graveyard and tried not to think about the late Lady Willets.
Soon she was in the shadow of the great Manor House, and stole tentatively through the gate and through to the back of the house. There were no lights on in the Manor, all looked empty as she stood and surveyed the small kitchen garden.
It looked so different in the dark. What had seemed so familiar a few days ago seemed like new and unchartered territory in the moonlight.
She could just about make out the shapes of herb bushes and other plants and reached inside her pocket for the torch to try and identify them.
“What do you think you are doing?” she recognised the voice immediately.
An arm reached out and grabbed her hand, just as she flicked on the torch.
As her hand was pulled forward, the light from the torch shone straight into the face of the man who was holding her tightly.
It was Alberto.
Maisie was so shocked by the sudden turn of events that she did something that she had never ever done in her life before. She screamed.
She screamed so loudly that she almost scared herself. Within seconds a light had flicked on in the kitchen of the house and the door was opened.
Alberto panicked and ran off into the bushes.
“Thank god.”
Maisie was relieved to see the figure of Henry Evans stood in the doorway, wondering what all the commotion was about.
“My dear lady, what on earth is the matter. Would you like to come in for a minute to calm yourself?”
Relief flooded through Maisie as she stepped into the warmth of the house. She had never been as frightened in her entire life and it was good to be in the light again.
Switching on the kettle, Henry escorted her to the comfier seats of the small sitting room adjacent to the kitchen.
“First things first. I’ll make you a nice cup of tea and then you can tell me all about it.”
And she did just that. Over tea and biscuits Maisie told Henry the whole story, starting with Lord Willets and the Bella Donna and finishing up with her suspicions about Alberto and the murder of Rita Robinson.
“But why should he want to kill her, he worshipped her?”
Maisie shook her head. “But that’s tjust he thing, I heard them arguing. He had left her?”
Henry laughed.
“But what about the little dog? Surely he didn’t mean to kill the little dog?”
Maisie sipped her tea.
“I saw the dog eat some of the Panna Cotta that Rita had made, but had to be binned. That had been poisoned too. Don’t you see – he had poisoned the Panna Cotta?”
The assistant chef stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“But I thought that Alberto tasted all of Rita’s creations at the end of every TV show? Why on earth would he poison something that he was going to eat himself?”
It was something that Maisie hadn’t thought through and her cup clattered in her saucer as she finished her tea.
“Let me get you another while you think.”
Maisie scratched her head as she thought aloud.
“Well if it wasn’t Alberto, it had to be someone else close to her, someone who had access to the ingredients before the show. Someone....”
She stopped mid sentence as a smiling Henry passed her another cup of tea.
“Now drink it all up like a good girl, it will do you good. Now what were you saying?”
Ada was starting to get worried about her friend. She had said she would be 10 minutes but that was over half an hour ago. She would have gone after her friend but she didn’t have a coat and instead decided to have a cup of tea out of the flask and two of the ginger biscuits. Another 15 minutes passed before she decided to telephone Joan.
“Joan, I think Maisie may be in danger?”
Joan laughed down the telephone.
“The only danger that woman is facing, is danger to herself. Oh Ada, we were foolish to let her go out alone. She could have fallen over and banged her head; anything could have happened. Foolish woman to be playing detective at her age, she should stick to the novels like me. Now Ada, you must meet me at the Manor House immediately.”
“But I didn’t bring a coat!”
“Well wear one of Maisie’s, but hurry up before she freezes to death. All this for some stupid notion of hers!”
The word ‘danger’ got Ada moving, and soon the two women were standing in the kitchen garden.
“There’s no-one here, she must have gone home. Let’s go back?”
Ada shivered in a thin Mack she had found hanging behind Maisie’s front door.
“But we would have seen her, passed her by in the street, there is only one path Ada.”
Ada took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, her breath white against the darkness of the sky.
“But what if she didn’t even get here?”
“Ah ladies, this is an unexpected pleasure? How can I help you?”
The door of the kitchen was standing wide open, a dark figure in the doorway.
Joan recognised Henry from the television and at once felt relieved.
“A friend of ours fancies herself as an amateur detective and had a notion about something to do with Rita’s death and we thought she might have come here?”
“At this time of night?”
Joan laughed, feeling embarrassed.
“Well, she is quite eccentric and she did mention something about coming here earlier today. We just wanted to make sure she hadn’t fallen down and broken a hip or something.”
Henry laughed amiably.
“I’m sorry ladies; it’s been quiet here all night. If there’s anything I could do, call the police or something to help?”
“No, no, we’ve been enough trouble to you as it is. I’m sure she will turn up sooner or later. Goodnight.”
“Well, if you’re sure, I’ll say goodnight then.”
Shutting the door, they were left alone.
“Well what a nice man.”
On their way down the path towards the gate, Joan’s foot kicked against something metal that rolled across the path. Feeling about with her hands on the ground she picked up the object.
“It’s Maisie’s torch!”
Chapter 9
Maisie had heard her friend’s voices but had been unable to move. Henry had tied her to the chair with a rope.
Her heart fell as she heard him close the kitchen door and listened to her friends footsteps walking back along the path. How she longed for the comfort of her own sitting room, and that little flask of tea and packet of biscuits that sat waiting for her.
“Such nice friends you have Miss Adams. It’s such a pity that you will never see them again.”
“You’ll never get away with it. They will tell the Police that I said I was coming here. They will find a trace of me- they always do. Sooner or later they will suss out that it was you all along. The bad guy always gets found out”
Henry laughed. “You watch too much television. I have no intention of being ‘found out. In fact the Police will find your body here. They will also find the poor body of Alberto. The poor boy killed you and then killed himself, unable to live with the guilt of killing Rita. The two used to fight like cat and dog, everyone knew. Alberto as the murderer of Rita Robinson will be of no shock to anyone. And the signed confession I make him sign before I kill him, will be the icing on the cake so to speak; I will leave nothing to
chance. He deserves to die, if it wasn’t for him Rita would have still been alive and she would have been all mine”
Maisie looked puzzled.
“Don’t you see you stupid woman, I loved her. I loved Rita Robinson. She was the love of my life. And if it wasn’t for all of those pretty boys, I might have stood half a chance. Oh they could never make her happy, those ‘boys’, but Rita was vain and wanted youth around her. I could have made her very happy.”