Marveling at my sudden popularity, I sent Giles upstairs to find himself a shirt while I went to the door.
“Good afternoon, Simon,” said Jane Hardwick after I had opened the door. “May I come in?”
I gestured with my left hand, realizing belatedly that I was still holding in it Giles’s abandoned shirt.
“Have I interrupted your cleaning?” Jane asked, slightly puzzled.
Giles chose that moment to come bounding back downstairs. “How’s this one, Simon?” he asked. “It looked as if it might fit.”
Giles paused at the foot of the stairs, and I could see that, indeed, the shirt did fit. Very snugly, that is, showing off his well-muscled arms and chest. “Oh, hello, Miss Hardwick. How are you?” he inquired politely.
“Quite well, Giles,” she responded. “And you?” She looked at me with an amused glint in her eyes.
Giles smiled and said, “I’m doing very well, thank you. But if you’ll both excuse me, I had better get back to work.” So saying, he disappeared into my office and closed the door, but not before I had thrust his torn shirt into his hands.
I accompanied Jane into the sitting room, where she chose everyone’s favorite chair and sat down. I dropped onto the sofa and stared at her. “Well, go ahead,” I told her after waiting in silence for nearly a minute.
“Go ahead?” she asked innocently. “Why, whatever do you mean, Simon?”
“Go ahead and ask me how Giles got his shirt torn and why he was upstairs in my bedroom,” I answered, starting to see the humor in the situation.
“Why, Simon,” Jane purred, “I never expected you to have such a dirty mind. I’m sure poor Giles somehow tore his shirt—most innocently, of course—and you simply offered him the use of another.”
I pretended to glower at her. “Very funny.”
“But that doesn’t quite answer what Giles meant about getting back to work,” Jane continued, ignoring my attempt at humor.
“I got the bright idea that I needed a secretary. Really, it started out as a dodge with which to approach some of the suspects and grill them without their realizing it,” I explained. “The trouble is, Lady Blitherington told Giles, and he came to me to apply for the job.” I paused for a moment. “And I hired him.”
I fully expected Jane to chide me for getting myself into such a situation, but she surprised me.
She looked quite thoughtful. “This may be just what Giles needs, Simon. How clever of you to have thought of it.”
Jane puzzled me. “From our earlier conversation, I had rather got the idea that you didn’t think much of Giles.”
She shook her head. “No, I’ve always thought he had potential, but I knew it was going to take the right person—a man, naturally—to bring it out in him.” She smiled wickedly. “And something tells me that you may be just the man to do it.”
Groaning, I leaned back into the sofa. “’Enry ’Iggins I’m not,” I protested in my best imitation cockney.
“The best part of it all,” Jane went on gleefully, “is Prunella’s reaction once she finds out I hope I’m somewhere nearby. This is going to be tremendous fun.”
“I’m delighted to be able to provide you with so much amusement,” I told her dryly. “Whatever did you do before I came to Snupperton Mumsley?”
Jane held up a hand, silencing me. Moments later, Giles’s head popped into the sitting room. “I’ve done all I can for now, Simon,” he informed me. “I have something I have to do this afternoon or I’d stay longer.” His tone expressed his regret at having to leave. “So I’ll just push off now if you don’t mind. What time would you like me to be here in the morning?”
I avoided looking at Jane. “How about ten o’clock?”
Giles beamed at me. “That’s fine. See you then. Your servant, Miss Hardwick.” He nodded at Jane and then was gone. The front door closed behind him seconds later.
“What on earth have I gotten myself into?” I asked the air around me.
The air steadfastly ignored me, as did Jane.
“Now tell me, Simon, what have you discovered about Abigail’s murder?” she asked.
I sighed. “Pitifully little thus far. Detective Inspector Chase told me that the police are indeed treating it as murder, but I’m sure you knew that already.”
Jane nodded impatiently.
“I’ve talked to Lady Prunella, the result of which is getting myself saddled with her son. I talked to the vicar and earned the undying enmity of his dearly beloved, and I spent a lot of money at Trevor Chase’s bookstore.” That reminded me. “I also overheard a bit of an argument between Trevor and Giles.” I repeated the little that I had heard. “So what’s the deal between those two?”
“I’ve never been entirely certain,” Jane admitted after a moment’s silence, “just who is chasing whom with those two. They seemed to go out of their way to avoid each other when Trevor first moved to the village. That was about a year after Giles got sent down from Cambridge. Or was it Oxford?” She shook her head. “Not that it matters greatly. But within a year or so they seemed to have overcome whatever initial antipathy there had been between them. They seem to blow hot and cold with each other. It’s rather a strange relationship, and I’ve not figured it out yet.”
That was quite an admission from her, I thought. “Very interesting,” I said. “Trevor seemed a bit jealous this morning when Giles talked to me, but I couldn’t figure out which way the feelings were directed. Did he want Giles to himself? Or did he fear that Giles might make a play for me?” I shook my head. “Rather odd vibes from him.”
“There is some mystery attached to Trevor Chase,” Jane said. “He’s never talked that much about his background before he came to Snupperton Mumsley. From what I know, he was an English master at some minor public school before he came here. He inherited money from some aged relative, which enabled him to give up teaching and purchase the bookstore. He seems to do well enough at it.”
“So you never tried to find out more about his past,” I said.
“No,” Jane said. “There never seemed to be enough reason to warrant that much nosiness on my part.” She smiled wickedly. “But perhaps I was wrong. At this stage, the more we know about everyone’s past, the better.”
“And that includes the vicar and his overprotective wife,” I commented, then went on to relate to Jane the story of my encounters with the Butler-Melvilles.
“Perhaps I should have warned you about Letty,” Jane said. “But I had no idea you’d go right to Neville and burden him with such distressing news.” She laughed. “The poor man is so easily overset. Or at least he pretends to be.”
“Do you think it’s his way of avoiding the less pleasant aspects of his calling?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me in the least, Simon. Our vicar is not the world’s most energetic caretaker of souls.” I reprised my brief conversation with Letty Butler-Melville, and Jane looked very thoughtful. “Letty can be so prickly that it’s difficult to get much out of her. But we’ll have to try again. The question is, what would be the best approach?”
“I think I might leave that one to you,” I said. “The woman gives me a headache.” (No, before you ask, vampires don’t get headaches that easily, but old patterns of speech are hard to lose sometimes.)
“We’ve been thinking about motive,” Jane said, “but what about the method of murder?”
I nodded. “Yes, whoever did it had to be fairly strong. I imagine strangling someone takes a bit of strength.”
“Abigail was not a large woman, but she was quite active. She would not have been easy to overcome unless someone sneaked up on her from behind.”
Jane paused, and I knew we were both imagining the same scene in our minds. A rather unpleasant one it was. I shuddered. The poor woman! She had suffered a very nasty death, whatever her sins.
“If we get in the murderer’s way,” I said lightly, to break the sudden tension, “we could be targets as well.” I grinned. “Though we are impervious to most of the usual methods.”
Jane laughed. “You have to admit, Simon, that as amateur sleuths go, you and I are going to be disgustingly difficult to get rid of unless the murderer just happens to stumble upon our little secret.”
I shuddered at the thought of a stake through the heart. That’s the one thing that will still do away with us, irrevocably. Unless, of course, you take away our magic little pills for a few days and then expose us to the sun. Or maybe pump us full of garlic. Ye gads, I was giving myself the willies with such gruesome thoughts.
Turning my mind from such unpleasantness, I focused on the case at hand. “What we need,” I said to Jane, “is to find out more about the secrets that would have been worth killing for, things Abigail Winterton knew that were dangerous for someone.”
“That’s obvious, Simon,” Jane commented as I paused.
“Yes, quite,” I said a bit testily.
“I was thinking out loud. If I may continue”—Jane nodded, smiling sweetly— “the question is, how do we go about digging up the dirt?”
“I fancy,” Jane said, watching my face closely, “that a little expedition to the post office is in order.”
“How on earth are you going to snoop around at the post office at this time of the day? I’m sure it’s sealed off as a crime scene, don’t you think?”
Jane shook her head. “I didn’t mean this very moment, Simon! In the dead of night, naturally, when the rest of Snupperton Mumsley is fast asleep. When creatures of the night are abroad.” Her voice dropped to a sepulchral whisper. “When vampires can break and enter and not get caught.”
“Oh, goody,” I said, delighted. “What time shall I meet you?”
“A bit after the witching hour should suffice, don’t you think? About one?” Jane said. “By that time we should be done with dinner at the Stevenses and the rest of the village is sound asleep.”
“So you’ve been invited to dinner as well,” I said, a bit surprised. I had thought I was the guest of honor.
“Yes, Mrs. Stevens likes to have a balanced table, and you and I will join her and her husband and their little menage.”
She refused to answer my questions in response to her choice of words. “You’ll see what I mean tonight.” She stood up. “I must get back to my work. We are expected at seven-thirty for cocktails and dinner at eight. Shall I drive, or will you?”
Fascinated to find out what kind of car Jane drove, I said I’d ride with her and that I’d be at her door promptly at seven-fifteen. I showed her out and closed the door behind her with a sense of relief. After all the busyness of the morning and afternoon, I was more than ready for a bit of time to myself. As always, there was writing to be done, not to mention the fact that I had to figure out what I was going to have Giles do when he reported for work the next morning.
I had just changed into my comfortable and shabby working clothes when the doorbell rang yet again. “Drat!” I muttered over and over as I moved swiftly downstairs to the door. This was getting to be ridiculous.
I swung the door open, not quite having wiped the scowl off my face. There stood Trevor Chase, a book clasped in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other. Maybe this wasn’t so ridiculous, after all.