Page 65 of And Then There Was the One
“Well, Mr. Penbaker is dead, Mr. Fletcher-Ford,” Miss Singh said very gently, as though worried about offending him.
“He is,” Georgie agreed. “Which doesn’t necessarily mean that hedidn’thave anything to do with any of the previous cases, but which does rather beg the question—” She glanced over again at Arthur, whose pen at this point was moving so quickly it seemed in danger of levitating.
Sebastian finished her thought for her.
“Of whether his wife is the one who killed him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was another hour before the group called it a night and the Murder Tourists—still wildly flattered to have been considered suspects, albeit briefly—retreated to the Sleepy Hedgehog, presumably to rehash the evening’s developments in greater detail. Arthur informed Georgie that he would speak to Lexington about gaining access to the evidence—including the all-important letters—from the other murder investigations.
“Will you be wearing clothing for this conversation?” Georgie asked, unable to help herself, and Arthur shot her a repressive look.
“Should I ask you and Fletcher-Ford the same thing?” he asked, and Georgie, annoyingly, blushed.
“Iknewthere was a romantic subplot in this book!” Miss de Vere called over her shoulder smugly as she departed.
Sebastian glanced at Georgie, and she wondered what he saw in her face, but he said nothing more than a casual “Shall we?” and offered her his arm.
They were quiet on the walk down the high street to the edge of the village, the only sound their footsteps on the cobblestoned streets, and it was not until they reached the long gravel lane that led to Radcliffe Hall that he said, quite casually, “What are you thinking?”
Georgie glanced at him.
“You get a little wrinkle just here”—he reached out with an index finger to gently press the space between her eyebrows—“whenever you’re deep in thought.” They drew to a halt, the night quiet around them, the moon just peeking out from behind a cloud. He was handsome in the moonlight, but in a less shocking, golden sort of way than he was in the daylight, when he drew the eye and seemed to somehow emanate his own light. Here, the angles of his cheekbones were more pronounced, his eyes shadowed, and she could see the evening stubble on his face. He looked… rougher. More raw. She liked this version of him, one that felt different than the man the rest of the world saw by day.
She pushed these thoughts away and said merely, “I suppose I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that… you might have been right.”
“It does happen once a decade or so, darling Georgie.”
She rewarded him with a small smile but pressed on. “About the murders being connected, I mean.” She paused, her mind still turning over the day’s revelations. “Either Mr. or Mrs. Penbaker sent at least one of the letters that prompted someone tocommit murder—if Arthur and Lexington find that they sent the others, too…”
“But why would they do it?” Sebastian asked, shoving a hand in his pocket as they walked. “Don’t mistake me, I will cherish forever the memory of you telling me I’m right—might have it embroidered on a pillowcase, actually—”
“Sebastian.”
“But,” he continued, undeterred, “what do the Penbakers stand to gain from turning Buncombe-upon-Woolly into a Murder Village?”
“Murder Tourists,” Georgie said without missing a beat, and he blinked at her. “Think about it. Who has a perfect motive to commit all the murders in the village? The man who has spentyearstrying to draw more tourists to Buncombe-upon-Woolly, without success—until the murders started! It’s precisely what he wanted.Or, perhaps, his wife, who has seen his fruitless struggle, and who thinks he might stop all of his unhinged schemes once and for all if the tourists actually come?”
“But wouldn’t they have worried that a crime spree would have the opposite effect?”
Georgie shook her head. “I don’t think so. Remember what Miss Halifax said? About how Mr. Penbaker became obsessed with Agatha Christie novels after she introduced them to him? That was about a year ago—just before the murders started. The timing makes perfect sense.”
She turned and started down the drive toward Radcliffe Hall, Sebastian deep in thought beside her. They walked in silence for a few minutes, and Georgie did not break it, allowing him to catch up to the conclusion she’d arrived at.
“But,” he said, as they drew close to the front door, “arrests have been made in all those cases.Youhelped solve most of them, as you pointed out to me, when I first raised this theory.”
“I know,” Georgie said, with a note of suppressed triumph. “Because they didn’t get their hands dirty by committing the murders themselves—I think they simply gave the killers a… nudge, of sorts.”
“With the letters,” he said, comprehension dawning.
“With the letters,” she confirmed.
They’d arrived at Radcliffe Hall; rather than entering through the front doors, Georgie led him around the house, through the kitchen garden, and in through the kitchen door. The kitchen was quiet and gleaming; on the counter was a plate covered with a napkin, complete with a scrap of paper labeledSebastianin Mrs. Fawcett’s careful script, and Sebastian whipped off the napkin with a triumphant cry to discover a few shortbread biscuits, a fat slice of Victoria sponge, and a cheese-and-pickle sandwich.
“She watched you eat a half dozen sandwiches not three hours ago,” Georgie said, incredulous, as Sebastian began inhaling the biscuits.
“Mrs. Fawcett understands that I cannot work on starvation rations,” he informed her.
