Page 40 of And Then There Was the One
“It was an accident,” Miss Lettercross insisted, sounding a bit annoyed. “It wasn’t as though I was going to leave you in that cellar to rot!”
“How,” Georgie asked, “does one ‘accidentally’ drug a pot of tea?”
“And stow a couple of unconscious bodies in a cellar?” Missde Vere added, with the confidence of a woman who has read many—perhaps too many—crime novels.
Miss Lettercross narrowed her eyes at Miss de Vere, clearly under the mistaken impression that the Murder Tourist was the sort of woman who was easily cowed.
“And why,” Arthur added, his attention still on the notebook in his hand, “did you happen to have sleeping powder so conveniently at hand?”
Georgie smiled thinly. “I believe I can answer that one. You see, one might keep such a thing around if one were planning to write an article about it.”
Arthur’s pen stilled. “Write about it?”
“Yes,” Georgie said, her attention still fixed on Miss Lettercross. “Isn’t that right, Agent Arsenic?”
Miss Lettercross dropped a glass of water onto her lap, prompting some colorful language. Arthur glanced at Georgie, his expression startled, and she gave him a small shrug. “You learn interesting things while trapped in a cellar.” He raised an eyebrow at her and returned his attention to his notebook, his pen now moving at lightning speed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Miss Lettercross said, not remotely convincingly. “I suppose all those murders in your crime-ridden little village have left you seeing intrigue wherever you look—”
“I don’t have to look very hard for it,” Georgie pointed out dryly, “considering it only took me half an hour in your company to find myself unconscious in a cellar.”
Miss Lettercross deflated.
“I’m sure this, er,misunderstandingis something that we’reall eager to put behind us in… whatever way that might be possible,” Mr. Lettercross said.
Georgie regarded him stonily. “Wasit a misunderstanding? Was your daughter not, perhaps, trying to create another crime worthy of reporting on, since news has been scarce of late?”
Miss Lettercross rolled her eyes. “Please. As if I’d want to report on a crime in Bramble-in-the-Vale! Our village is a peaceful respite where the tourists may return after a day of walking your grim, crime-ridden streets—”
“Ithink Buncombe-upon-Woolly is adorable,” Miss Singh said. “And I have never once felt unsafe!”
“Except for the time we walked into the village library right as their crime book club was meeting, and Miss Halifax was describing the effects of arsenic in too much detail,” Miss de Vere said with a shudder. “I wasn’t convinced she didn’t have some in her pocket, just to experiment with.”
Georgie cleared her throat, thinking that they were perhaps veering a bit far from the topic at hand. “If you weren’t trying to create a mystery worth writing about, then would you mind explainingwhyyou kidnapped us?”
“I panicked, once I realized you were investigating,” Miss Lettercross said, sounding disgusted with herself. “I was suspicious as soon as I realized who you were—and all the questions about theDispatchset me on edge—but when I went to get tea, I waited on the other side of the door a bit to listen, and I realized you were searching my father’s office.”
“I knew I heard footsteps,” Georgie murmured to herself, before shaking her head and saying, “And you somehow thought drugging and kidnapping us would make uslesssuspicious?”
“Did you miss the bit where I said thatI panicked?” Miss Lettercross asked, sounding very testy indeed. “I couldn’t simply let you prance off home—not when it seemed likely you might have worked out who I was.” She shrugged. “It was easy enough to offer the butcher’s apprentice a pound to help me drag you down into the cellar to keep you out of sight, and I thought I’d simply ask my father what to do about you when he returned. I thought we could attempt to reason with you somehow, after the sleeping powder wore off. You woke up sooner than I anticipated,” she added, casting a reproachful look at Georgie and Sebastian.
Miss de Vere tutted. “Agatha Christie was right! English villages are simply full of would-be criminals!”
“I’m not a criminal,” Miss Lettercross said indignantly, shooting her a withering look. “I’m a journalist.”
“I don’t think the profession wants to claim you,” Arthur said, shaking his head.
“You’re simply jealous because I have a broader readership than you.”
“Youdon’t,” he shot back, looking outraged. “Besides, no one believes your articles full of wild speculation and conspiracy theories.”
“I am merely giving a voice to the eager public, ravenous for information,” Miss Lettercross said smugly.
“Wheredoyou get your information?” Georgie asked sharply. “Not the conspiracy theories, I mean—the actual details of the crime scenes. You seem to know things that no one who wasn’t present at the time of the murders would know.”
Miss Lettercross folded her hands. “I have my sources.”
“Would you mind expanding on that?” Arthur asked. “Because, naturally, in the exposé ofThe Deathly DispatchI plan to write, it would be unfortunate if I had to accuse its publisher of being a criminal….”
