Aunt Dimity: Detective Part 9

He seemed somewhat dismayed to find Nicholas and me standing on his doorstep on such a rainy morning. He fidgeted with the collar of his plaid shirt, mumbled a response to my greeting, and plunged his hands into the pockets of his corduroy trousers before looking up at Nicholas.

"You're the nephew," he said bluntly. "If you're collecting for the church, you can tell your uncle that I give generously every Sunday."

His boldness surprised me. The George Wetherhead I knew would have given his last tuppence to the church rather than make a fuss. Miranda's treatments had evidently strengthened his mind as well as his body.

"We're not collecting anything," I a.s.sured him, and held up the cardboard box Lilian had filled with her tangy-sweet confections. "We've come to give you something."

"What's that?" he said, eyeing the box suspiciously.

"Aunt Lilian made lemon bars last night," said Nicholas. "She wondered if you might-"

"Lemon bars?" Mr. Wetherhead seemed to relax. "I thought you were going to land me with a load of the Pyms' rubbishy gingerbread, the way you've done everyone else. Never could stand the stuff. But lemon bars, that's different."

I could almost hear his mouth watering, so I decided to strike while the iron was steaming. "Would it be too much trouble to show Nicholas your trains as long as we're here?"

"Oh, yes, please," Nicholas chimed in. "I'd love to see your trains. Lori's told me so much about them."

"I suppose . . . Yes, alright." Mr. Wetherhead acquiesced grudgingly after I handed over the box of lemon bars. "Museum's not open till May, but I suppose I can make an exception for the vicar's nephew. . . ."

I'd seen grown men regress instantly to childhood upon entering Mr. Wetherhead's humble abode. He'd furnished the front room with a series of plywood sheets on sawhorses, upon which he'd built an astonishingly detailed miniature mountain range. The snowy peaks and verdant valleys were so realistically rendered that I half-expected tiny trout to leap from the sparkling river. Precisely laid ribbons of train tracks wound from one Alpine village to the next, traversed fields, farms, and forests, and crossed the shining river on a cunningly constructed trestle bridge.

The prodigious display of craftsmanship rendered me speechless, but Nicholas wasn't quite so overwhelmed. He said the right things, and said them in a properly awestruck tone of voice, but as he spoke, his searching gaze moved past the mini-Matterhorn to the closed door at the far end of the room.

"Aunt Lilian tells me you've a notable collection of railroad memorabilia," he said, stepping toward the door. "Is it through here?"

"The memorabilia room is closed to the public," Mr. Wetherhead announced.

"Come, now, Mr. Wetherhead," Nicholas chided, still edging toward the door. "Lori's not the public. She's an old friend, and I hope you'll come to regard me as-"

"Here, you, stop!" shouted Mr. Wetherhead, but though he was more agile than he'd once been, he still wasn't quick enough to keep Nicholas from breezing into the next room without a backward glance.

Mr. Wetherhead hobbled after him in high dudgeon, and I took up the rear. As I entered the darkened room, I caught a telltale gleam of light from the small gap in the heavy draperies covering the window where Nicholas had played Peeping Tom.

The memorabilia room had been tidied since I'd last seen it. The helter-skelter acc.u.mulation of station signs, signal lanterns, and timetables had been organized by category and neatly labeled. The most noticeable difference in the room, however, was the floor s.p.a.ce that had been cleared around Miranda Morrow's portable ma.s.sage table.

Nicholas strode directly to the table. "What a curiously modern artifact," he mused aloud. "Was it used by the train crew or the pa.s.sengers, I wonder?"

"It's none of your business," barked Mr. Wetherhead.

"You're quite right, sir. It isn't." Nicholas faced the infuriated little man. "But I wish you'd confide in me before the police ask you to confide in them."

"The p-police?" Mr. Wetherhead paled. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about murder." Nicholas stood motionless. In the dim half-light, he looked almost menacing. "It's not a nice subject, but it's one I think you know something about, something you haven't told the police."

Mr. Wetherhead blinked nervously. "I t-told them the t-truth," he stammered.

"I'm sure you did," crooned Nicholas, placing a hand on the ma.s.sage table, "but did you tell them the whole truth or only part of it?"

Mr. Wetherhead's gaze was drawn inexorably to the table. His cheek twitched, and beads of perspiration appeared on his domelike forehead. "I . . . I . . ."

"Who are you protecting?" Nicholas pressed in a voice as soft as velvet. "Yourself or Ms. Morrow?"

"I'm not . . . I'm . . ." Mr. Wetherhead lifted his chin defiantly. "If you try to lay the blame on Miranda, I'll say that she was with me when that woman died."

"You'll say she was with you?" Nicholas's velvet voice became a battering ram. "But that's not true. That's not even partly true. Your lies may have worked with the police, sir, but they won't work with me because I know what you've been up to. I know that Ms. Morrow leaves here at six A.M., and I know that Mrs. Hooper died between five and nine." Nicholas struck the table with a clenched fist. "Tell me the truth, sir, or-"

"Miranda should get a medal for killing Pruneface!" cried Mr. Wetherhead. "The evil-minded cow deserved to die!"

Chapter 14.

The silence that filled the room was broken only by the sound of lemon bars rattling in the cardboard box. Mr. Wetherhead was shaking so badly that I feared his legs would give way beneath him. I shot a reproachful glance at Nicholas and took the little man gently by the elbow.

"Come on, George," I said, guiding him toward the kitchen. "I'll put the kettle on."

Mr. Wetherhead wasn't the only one shaken by Nicholas's performance. I was as rattled as the lemon bars. The browbeating bully who'd surfaced in the memorabilia room bore little resemblance to the soft-spoken, kindly man who'd wrapped a blanket around my shoulders in the vicar's study. I understood why Nicholas had employed such harsh tactics, and I was glad of the results, but the confrontation had made me uncomfortably aware that my newfound friend could be as ruthless as he was charming.

He turned on the charm when we reached the kitchen. While I made tea, he sat across from Mr. Wetherhead at the Formica-topped kitchen table and offered a sincere apology for his behavior.

Mr. Wetherhead wasn't mollified. "You're no different from her," he mumbled, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Come here all sweetness and light, pretending to tell me things for my own good. Being neighborly, she called it-pah! You're exactly like her."

"We're not like Mrs. Hooper." I placed the sugar bowl and the cream jug on the table and transferred the lemon bars from the box to a serving dish. "She wanted to make trouble. We want to clear it up."

"Clear it up?" Mr. Wetherhead moaned. "How can you clear it up?"

"By discovering the truth," Nicholas answered. "That's what we're trying to do, and we can't do it without your help."

Nicholas said nothing more until I'd taken my place at the table and poured the tea. The pause, the tea, and a large bite of lemon bar seemed to restore Mr. Wetherhead's composure. When Nicholas spoke again, the little man was no longer shaking.

"We know why Miranda Morrow has been coming to see you," Nicholas told him. "We know that she's been acting as your physiotherapist. Why don't we start there?"

"It was Miranda's idea." Mr. Wetherhead gave a small moan and sipped his tea. "She'd done a course in rehabilitative therapy, you see. She was convinced that therapeutic ma.s.sage combined with regular doses of her herbal medicines would ease the stiffness in my joints. . . ."

The whole story came out in short order, and it was much as I'd imagined it would be. Mr. Wetherhead had been tempted by the prospect of improved mobility but embarra.s.sed by the hands-on nature of the treatment. When he'd proposed conducting sessions at an early hour, to ensure privacy, Miranda Morrow had agreed to give it a try.

"I wanted to protect her reputation," Mr. Wetherhead explained. "You know how people talk in Finch if they think someone's fooling around. The things I've heard about you two would curl your-" He looked from my tousled curls to Nicholas's cascading waves and ducked his head. "Well, anyway, it'd make you blush."

A smile tugged at the corner of Nicholas's mouth, but he mastered it and asked soberly, "Did Mrs. Hooper suspect you and Ms. Morrow of fooling around?"

Mr. Wetherhead's face twisted into an indignant frown. "She stood there in that window of hers and looked down on the rest of us like she was some sort of holy saint. Came here to shake her finger at me and tell me to stop philandering or-" The words seemed to catch in his throat. He broke off abruptly and took a long pull on his cup of tea.

Nicholas waited until Mr. Wetherhead had slaked his thirst before murmuring sympathetically, "I do realize how difficult this must be for you. Would it help if I told you that nine times out of ten your worst fears don't come true? You may think you know what happened to Mrs. Hooper, but you may be wrong."

"I could be wrong," Mr. Wetherhead said, as if the idea hadn't occurred to him before. "I didn't actually see who smashed her head in."

Nicholas flinched, but his voice was soothing. "Of course you didn't. But Mrs. Hooper came here to see you. She ordered you to behave yourself or . . . ?"

Mr. Wetherhead bowed his head. "Or she'd turn Miranda in to the drug squad."

Nicholas's eyes met mine across the kitchen table. He looked as bewildered as I felt.

"Pardon?" he said. "Did I hear you correctly? Did you say the, er, drug squad?"

"It's all lies!" Mr. Wetherhead's head came up, and his face was desperate. "Miranda's herbal remedies are as wholesome as my granny's chamomile tea. There's no question of her using illegal substances. Miranda may be a witch, but she's a law-abiding witch. I'll swear to it."

"Is that what you told Mrs. Hooper?" Nicholas asked.

Mr. Wetherhead glowered. "What I said to Pruneface Hooper isn't fit to repeat in mixed company."

Nicholas's face remained impa.s.sive. "Did you tell Ms. Morrow of Mrs. Hooper's unfounded accusation?"

"I had to, didn't I?" The little man was pleading now.

"Miranda had to know what she was up against. When I told her, she laughed and said that the Prunefaces of the world had been holding matches to her feet for hundreds of years but they hadn't burnt her yet because . . . because witches know how to protect themselves." He paused to take a shuddering breath.

"That's why you suspect Ms. Morrow of killing Mrs. Hooper," Nicholas clarified. "You thought Finch's resident witch might have been protecting herself." He leaned back in his chair and gazed at Mr. Wetherhead reflectively. "Why would Ms. Morrow need to protect herself if Mrs. Hooper wasn't telling the truth about the herbal remedies?"

"I could be wrong," Mr. Wetherhead said doggedly. "There's others who could've done it. Billy Barlow could've. Mrs. Taxman was saying only this morning that Billy was on the square early that day, and he hated old Pruneface's guts."

"Why did he dislike her so intensely?" Nicholas inquired.

"She kicked his terrier," Mr. Wetherhead replied. "I saw her do it, right there in front of the Emporium, the Sunday before she died."

I gasped. "Pruneface kicked Buster?"

Mr. Wetherhead nodded eagerly. "Claimed Buster'd nipped her grandson. More likely the other way round, if you ask me, but Pruneface lashed out at Buster anyway. I thought Billy Barlow would throttle her on the spot." Mr. Wetherhead's face brightened suddenly, as though a ray of hope had shone through the dark cloud of his foreboding. "He's disappeared, hasn't he? No one knows where he's gone or when he's coming back. He's on the run, is my guess." He pointed at Nicholas. "You concentrate on finding Billy Barlow and leave Miranda out of it."

"It may not be possible to leave Ms. Morrow out of it," Nicholas told him, "but I'm grateful to you for speaking with us." He stood. "Would you be willing to listen to a word of advice from a younger, less experienced man?"

The dark cloud had settled once more over Mr. Wetherhead, but he nodded.

"All of this sneaking about is doing more harm than good to Ms. Morrow's reputation," said Nicholas. "I suggest you reschedule your treatments during normal business hours."

Mr. Wetherhead put his head in his hands and groaned. "You don't understand," he said. "There won't be any more treatments if your so-called search for truth lands Miranda in prison."

It was still raining. Nicholas and I stood beneath the peaked roof sheltering Mr. Wetherhead's front door and contemplated the dense thorn hedge that shielded Briar Cottage from Saint George's Lane.

"Our next stop," said Nicholas. "I'm rather looking forward to meeting Ms. Morrow."

"She won't be bullied as easily as Mr. Wetherhead," I muttered.

Nicholas took a deep breath. "I wondered when you'd get around to scolding me." He scuffed his shoe against the doorstep. "I thought you knew what to expect, Lori. You're the one who said we'd need dynamite to open Mr. Wetherhead's mouth."

"I know." I hunched my shoulders as a gust of wind splashed rain against my face. "I just didn't expect you to be so . . . explosive."

"We're dealing with murder," Nicholas reminded me. "We can't always afford to be polite."

"I'd advise you to be polite with Miranda Morrow," I warned, glancing up at him, "or she'll turn both of us into frogs."

"You'd make a fetching frog." He smiled crookedly. "Am I forgiven?"

"There's nothing to forgive," I admitted. "You got the information we wanted. I suppose I can't carp too much about your methods."

"Frogs and carp." Nicholas dabbed a raindrop from the tip of my nose. "You've been in the wet too long, Lori. It's coloring your vocabulary."

I laughed, but as Nicholas turned up the collar of his trench coat and peered at the leaden sky, I couldn't keep myself from worrying about his methods. I didn't mind questioning my neighbors or surveilling them from a distance, but I wasn't willing to shout at them or sneak up to their windows or threaten to sic the cops on them if they refused to speak with us.

Nicholas seemed willing to do anything. What had started as a casual pursuit had at some point become for him something far more serious. Why was he pushing so hard? Was he driven by a sense of duty to his aunt and uncle, or by a compulsion I did not yet understand? As we approached Briar Cottage I couldn't help wondering just how far he'd go to find out who'd killed Pruneface Hooper.

Chapter 15.

Briar Cottage's front garden was a haven for plants most people despised. Once through the squeaky gate in Miranda's thorn hedge, Nicholas and I found ourselves surrounded by beds of nettles, thistles, and teasels, which would, in a few short weeks, be joined by dock, ragwort, speedwell, spurge, and the perennial summer favorite, dandelions. The pesky intruders that drove most gardeners insane were welcome here: Miranda tended her weeds as lovingly as Emma Harris tended her roses.

"The source of Ms. Morrow's herbal remedies, I a.s.sume," said Nicholas, surveying the curious collection.

"She grows hemlock and deadly nightshade in a greenhouse out back," I informed him. "Lucky for her Mrs. Hooper wasn't poisoned."

"Indeed." Nicholas looked at the cottage. "It's a pretty place."

I agreed with him. I loved everything about Briar Cottage, from its s.h.a.ggy thatched roof to its lichen-mottled stone walls. It was a shade too small to accommodate a growing family, but for a single woman living with a cat, it was ideal.

Miranda Morrow opened the front door before we had a chance to ring the bell. A true believer might have surmised precognition, but I suspected a more mundane explanation, which Miranda soon confirmed.

"Lori!" she exclaimed. "How delicious to see you. George rang to warn me of your visit."

Miranda's eyes, like Nicholas's, were green, but whereas his were flecked with blue and gold, hers were as pure as emeralds. She was in her mid-thirties, and her wholesome good looks defied cliched descriptions of ugly witches. Her nose was sprinkled with freckles instead of warts, and her waist-length hair was strawberry-blond, not grizzled gray. She wore a long pale green sweater over an ankle-length skirt made of a swirling patchwork of yellow and gold velvet.

Miranda's green eyes narrowed as they fell on Nicholas's face. She studied him in silence for perhaps thirty seconds before saying, "I know who you are, darling."

"I'm Nicholas Fox," he said. "Lilian Bunting's nephew."

"So I've been told." She stepped aside. "Come in, you splendid creatures, and warm yourselves before my fire."

Miranda's front room was cluttered with the tools of her trade. Tarot cards, faceted crystals, dousing twigs, and a miscellany of arcane paraphernalia littered the rough wood-beam mantelpiece, astral charts covered the walls, and bunches of dried herbs hung from the smoke-darkened rafters, filling the room with a pleasantly pungent melange of fragrances.

Miranda may have used the cards, crystals, and charts as reference tools, but she depended on modern technology to earn a living. She was a telephone witch, dispensing advice, readings, and predictions to all who called. Her state-of-the-art computerized switchboard was tucked discreetly in a nook beneath the stairs to keep it from spoiling the cottage's distinctly pretechnological ambience.