Page 55 of And Then There Was the One
Arthur shot a withering glance at her. He was looking, Georgie noticed, distinctly frazzled; his dark hair looked as though his hands had been run through it repeatedly, there were ink stains on his cuffs, and his glasses were ever so slightlyaskew. “He doesn’tdespiseme. We’re simply suffering from a… difference of opinion.”
“Well.” Georgie crossed her arms. “If you could perhaps see to it that you smooth his feathers a bit tomorrow, that would be brilliant. And it would be helpful if you could distract him between the hours of, say…”
She looked at Sebastian without intending to, and he said, quite promptly, “Nine and noon. Those are the hours I’ve noticed Mrs. Penbaker is at the exhibition.”
“Thank you,” Georgie said, and glanced back at Arthur.
“Noted,” Arthur said, straightening his glasses.
“I wonder, though,” Sebastian said, his voice turning serious, before trailing off.
“Wonder what?” Georgie asked.
Sebastian grinned at her. “Georgie, I’m flattered. You didn’t even express astonishment that I have sufficient mental capacity to wonder at anything.”
“Sebastian, so help me God—”
“I wonder if we ought to let the Murder Tourists help us somehow,” he finished hastily.
“Not Miss de Vere and Miss Singh?”
“It’s only—well, theywereuseful yesterday, and they seem quite desperate to be involved.”
“They’vebeeninvolved,” Georgie said. She was still slightly irked that Murder Tourists, of all people, had rescued them from the cellar.
“I know,” he agreed. “But I ran into them after church this morning—they were lurking outside as everyone was leaving, eavesdropping and taking notes in that notebook of theirs.After yesterday’s experience, they seem absolutely desperate to uncover another crime.”
“Dear God,” Georgie muttered, rubbing her hands through her hair, no doubt worsening its already (always) disheveled state.
“How long are they staying for?” Arthur asked. “It’s not as though there’s exactly a laundry list of sights to see in Buncombe-upon-Woolly, and they’ve been here for days already.”
“They were oddly shifty when I asked them that very question,” Sebastian said thoughtfully. He shook his head. “But if we could—I don’t know—tell them we need them to be our eyes and ears around the village, perhaps? Give them some sort of task? I think they’d get a thrill from it.”
“And we know how much you love giving ladies thrills,” Georgie said.
Arthur didn’t even bother trying to disguise his laugh as a cough as he rose to his feet. “Why don’t you send them to the murder exhibition?” he asked. “To ensure Mrs. Penbaker doesn’t take a fancy to run home unexpectedly while you’re searching her house?”
It wasn’t the worst idea. If the Murder Tourists kept Mrs. Penbaker occupied, and Arthur kept Constable Lexington blissfully ignorant, then she and Sebastian could search the house in peace. “All right,” she agreed.
“We can speak to them first thing in the morning,” Sebastian said. “They’re staying at the Sleepy Hedgehog—we can pop round there to find them.”
Georgie eyed him narrowly. “You’re just hoping to weasel a second breakfast out of this excursion.”
He flashed that maddening, winning smile at her. “And this, dear Georgie, is how you have come to have a career that even Miss Marple would envy. Look at those powers of deduction at work!”
Georgie reached for the tin of biscuits and proceeded to lob one at Sebastian’s head.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Miss de Vere and Miss Singh were, unsurprisingly, exceedingly thrilled to be invited into Georgie and Sebastian’s scheme.
“The Detective Devotees are at it again!” Miss Singh said as they exited the Sleepy Hedgehog, Sebastian still munching away at the final piece of toast he’d managed to sweet-talk Iris—the innkeeper’s wife and an old friend of Georgie’s—into giving him.
“Solving crimes and saving the day!” Miss Singh continued, brandishing her notebook like a sword. “This is our moment!”
“To be clear,” Georgie said, for at least the third time, “all you are going to do is walk to the village hall and then proceed to ask exceedingly lengthy and annoying questions to ensure that Mrs. Penbaker is kept occupied. Nothing else. No crimes will be solved. No rescues will be enacted.”
“You might have said the same thing before we went toBramble-in-the-Vale,” Miss de Vere said, looking a bit smug. “And yet, if it weren’t for us, you’d be starving in a dark cellar.”
