Page 2 of And Then There Was the One
Georgie retrieved her books, straightened, and cast her sister an inquiring look. “Are you unwell?” Abigail appeared to be positively blooming with good health and cheer, as always.
“No,” Abigail said slowly. “Only, well.” She paused, adopting an expression of martyred suffering that Georgie found a bit much to swallow from someone who routinely slept until ten in the morning. “I’m a bit fatigued.” She sighed, rubbingat her eyes—which, Georgie noted, displayed no telltale dark circles or lines or any other hint of exhaustion. “Perhaps we ought to summon Dr. Severin.”
Georgie’s eyes narrowed. “Indeed? You feel that poorly?”
“Well, you never know. One ought to be cautious with one’s health, Georgie.”
“I suppose if Dr. Severin were notquiteso young and handsome, your desire to summon him would remain unchanged?” Georgie asked with a skeptical lift of one brow.
“Georgie!” Abigail clapped a dramatic hand to her breast; Georgie was unmoved.
“You’re perfectly fine,” she informed her sister shortly as she made her way up the stairs past her in her stockinged feet, clutching her armful of books. “And they’ve arrested Mrs. Marble for her husband’s murder,” she tossed over her shoulder in passing, relishing the slightly shocked expression on Abigail’s face.
“But she always made the most delicious cheese tart for the village fete!” Abigail said mournfully. “I can’t believe anyone who makes cheese tarts could be a murderess!”
“I will inform the constabulary of this logical objection at once,” Georgie called, before continuing up the second flight of stairs to the top floor of the house. Here, she made her way to the far end of the hallway, opened the door to her bedroom, and shut it behind herself with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary.
“Sisters,” she muttered to Egg, her elderly beagle, who raised her head inquiringly from the battered blue-and-green tartan pillow she had, until moments earlier, been slumbering upon.
Egg twitched an ear in Georgie’s direction, which Georgie took to be a gesture of sympathetic commiseration, and after depositing her library books in an untidy pile upon her desk, she settled herself on the floor, reaching out to stroke Egg’s soft ears. Egg let out a satisfied sigh, allowing her head to sink back down atop her cushion. Ordinarily, Egg would have accompanied Georgie on her excursion, but Miss Halifax had made it clear to Georgie that under no circumstances whatsoever was she to bring her dog into the library.
Georgie looked around the room, her fingers still rubbing an absent-minded pattern on Egg’s ear: Radcliffe Hall, the ramshackle estate that had been home to her family for three hundred years, had certainly seen better days, but itdidhave turrets on either end, and Georgie had resided in one of these turrets since she’d been old enough to be moved out of the nursery. Her walls were painted a deep forest green and decorated with a number of framed botanical prints; the four-poster was pushed against one wall opposite a window so that she could lie in bed and take in views of the rolling hills that surrounded Buncombe-upon-Woolly. There were books and empty teacups scattered haphazardly upon nearly every available surface; a record player sat atop her dresser, a teetering pile of records stacked next to it; her favorite tweed jacket was tossed upon a particularly comfortable armchair; the entire room smelled faintly, but not unpleasantly, of dog.
Georgie leaned down to press a quick kiss to Egg’s head. She stretched out her legs before her, wiggling her toes in her stockings which, annoyingly, seemed to be forming a hole over one toe yet again. Mrs. Fawcett trulywasgoing to murder her—although Georgie had the faint, dissatisfied feeling that perhaps she ought to stop speakingquiteso flippantly of murder, given recent events.
It was irritating. The entire pastyearhad been irritating, in fact; her thoughts returned to her conversation with Arthur earlier. One murder in a village of this size was a shocking tragedy; two was an unpleasant coincidence; but three—and nowfour?Georgie was a creature of science, of reason, and she simply did not think it normal. Of all the villages in England, why didhershave to be the one that had suddenly become a hotbed of murder—and, possibly even worse, a hotbed of Murder Tourists? The Murder Tourists—who had flooded the village over the course of the past year, drawn by lurid headlines and eager to visit the scenes of Buncombe-upon-Woolly’s various crimes—had quickly become the bane of Georgie’s existence.
There was a tap at the door, interrupting these dissatisfying thoughts. “Come in,” she called absently, not moving from her spot on the floor; the door opened and her father poked his head in. Egg thumped her tail several times in greeting.
“Georgie, love, you haven’t seen my spectacles, have you?” Papa asked, looking vaguely harried. “I can’t seem to find them, and I just received my copy of this year’sArchaeological Journal.” He rubbed his hands together at the thought of this promised treat.
“Check the tea tray in your study, Papa,” Georgie said. “If Mrs. Fawcett brought you your usual three o’clock cup of tea, you might have left them beside the pot.” A fact she knew because he did this precise thing at least once a week. (He was also in the habit of losing them atop his head.)
“Of course, of course,” Papa said absently, squinting down at the envelopes in his hand; evidently the afternoon post had arrived. “Any news from the village?”
“They’ve arrested Mrs. Marble for her husband’s murder.”
“Have they?” Papa asked, still staring at the letter in his hand. “Never thought her capable of murder. Too short.”
“I do not believe height is a prerequisite for homicide, Papa.”
“I suppose not,” he said, looking up at her at last. “You’d know more about it than I would, love.” He waved vaguely before retreating; as soon as she heard his footsteps on the stairs, Georgie flopped back onto the floor. She stared up at the ceiling as Egg offered her a politely inquiring tilt of the head.
“Is no one else in this village capable of rational thought?” she asked Egg, stroking a gentle finger down her snout.
She should be glad, she knew, that the police had managed to make an arrest without her assistance this time. And yet, she could not stop the niggling worry that had been present at the back of her mind since the moment she and Arthur had witnessed Mrs. Marble’s arrest a few hours earlier. She didn’twantto solve another mystery and she wasn’t going to involve herself in a case that seemed to have been resolved, whatever her misgivings.
She turned her head on the Turkish rug—one that, from this vantage point, quite clearly needed a good beating; she resolutely ignored this fact—and stared into Egg’s mournful eyes.
“I didn’taskto become an amateur sleuth, you know.”
Egg whined sympathetically.
“And it’s about time the police started doing their jobs without me.”
Egg’s tail thumped encouragingly on the floor.
She crossed her arms over her chest, noticing that a small hole was forming in the sleeve of her brown wool cardigan; that would be another project for Mrs. Fawcett, as Georgie’s mending skills could be charitably described as limited. “Even if the—thecouncil chairman, of all people, were to keel over, that would be none of my concern.”
