Page 4 of And Then There Was the One
“Of course not,” Georgie huffed, crossing her arms. “Why should I need to read about a fictional cozy village full of homicidal maniacs when I am already inhabiting one?”
“They’re rather good,” Lexington said quietly, and quickly buried his face in his glass.
Georgie cast him a disgusted look. “I would think you get quite enough of that sort of thing in your professional life, Constable.”
“Well.” Lexington lowered his glass. “It’s just, it’s nice to read about them being so tidily resolved.”
“Ihave been tidily resolving them,” Georgie said through clenched teeth. “Should I expect you to take pen to paper and start fictionalizing my exploits?”
“Not really my line of work,” Lexington said, draining his glass. “Shame we can’t summon one of her detectives to come help us—that Poirot fellow would sort this out in a heartbeat.”
Arthur snapped his fingers, a gleam in his eye. “That’s it!”
“What is?” Georgie asked suspiciously; she had known Arthur since he was five years old, and long experience had taught her to be wary when he looked this excited.
“A detective—aprofessionalone.”
“What—hire one?” Lexington asked, a bit doubtful. “I don’t know how much Vincent is paying you to churn out your sensationalist tripe—”
“Excuse me,” Arthur began, outraged, but Lexington continuedbefore he could work himself into a proper indignant fury.
“—but I don’t personally have so much extra coin lying around that I fancy paying a private detective’s fees.”
“I wonder if we could convince someone to come for the sake of an interesting case,” Georgie said thoughtfully. “One who didn’t necessarily need the money, whose interest we might be able to pique. Someone established in their career.”
“What, are we just going to write to Delacey Fitzgibbons and ask him if he fancies a holiday in the Cotswolds?” Arthur asked.
A moment of silence fell as all three of them contemplated this—mad, unworkable, entirely unlikely to succeed—idea. Delacey Fitzgibbons was a legend—the most famous private detective in all of England. He’d been a police officer long ago but had abandoned Scotland Yard after a public falling-out with the police commissioner, and had struck out on his own, solving one high-profile case after another. The man himself was as famous as his detective feats—he was known to always wear the same tweed jacket and cap, no matter the season or the weather, and had a monocle that he was very fond of holding up to one eye to stare at whichever witness he was interrogating. He also had a very bushy mustache, and no hair on his head at all. He was curt and impatient, but undeniably brilliant. There was no chance, none whatsoever, thatDelacey Fitzgibbonswould come to Buncombe-upon-Woolly.
“Worth a shot?” Lexington asked, after several seconds more of thoughtful silence had elapsed.
“Why not!” Arthur said cheerfully, knocking back his ginger beer.
Georgie cast another irate glance at the table of Murder Tourists, who were now laughing uproariously at something in the latest issue ofThe Deathly Dispatch.
“Come on, George,” Arthur wheedled. “Think how good it would be for theRegisterif we found out something spectacular and I had the scoop. It would be nice to remind everyone that theRegisteris a real paper employing actual journalists covering legitimate news, and worth considerably more than some anonymously authored vehicle for conspiracy theories.”
Georgie pressed her lips together, and then Lexington said, without looking up from his glass, “I expect if thereissomething to be uncovered here, and we were able to prove that Penbaker was murdered, Chief Constable Humphreys would be absolutely humiliated.”
This, ultimately, was all the convincing Georgie needed. “All right,” she said, draining the last of her cider. “I’ll write to Fitzgibbons as soon as I get home tonight, inviting him to come stay at Radcliffe Hall—but,” she added, raising a hand, “I think it’s best not to get our hopes up. What could we possibly have to offer someone as famous as Fitzgibbons?”
“Murders in a cozy setting,” Arthur said wisely. “Peoplelovewhen murders feel cozy, you know. He won’t be able to resist.”
Annoyingly, Arthur was right.
“Itoldyou,” he said triumphantly. “Itoldyou that no one can resist the allure of a grisly crime in a cozy village setting!”
“Yes, yes,” Georgie muttered, returning her gaze to the letterin her hand, as if the contents would have changed at some point in the past thirty seconds. The neatly typed words on the page remained the same, however:
Russell Square, Bloomsbury
7 June
Dear Miss Radcliffe,
I was pleased to receive your letter detailing the unusual circumstances in your village—I had read one of the Times articles on the subject some months back—and appreciate your invitation to come investigate the untimely death of your village council chairman. Unfortunately, my own caseload at this juncture is so full that I am unable to manage a visit to Gloucestershire, but my assistant, Mr. Sebastian Fletcher-Ford, would be delighted to travel in my stead, and to keep me apprised of any developments. Mr. Fletcher-Ford has my utmost trust, and you may confide in him as you would in me personally.
He’s arranged to arrive on the noon train on Thursday the 14th, and looks forward to meeting you at that time.
