Stitches and Witches: A Paranormal Cozy Mystery (Vampire Knitting Club Book 2)

by Nancy Warren

  By the time I returned from the kitchen with a pot of good, strong English tea, a plate of cheese sandwiches, and biscuits, she was already busy at work. She seemed calmer, now her hands were occupied.

  She’d begun with a row of red. I recognized the wool. Gran had made me a cherry red sweater out of it, which she’d given me just last Christmas.

  “Do you know, Lucy, this is the first time I’ve felt relaxed since that poor man keeled over dead in my tea shop.”

  I poured our tea and settled back with mine. Nyx had followed me and, after a lunchtime snack of her own, jumped up and settled in my lap.

  Mary Watt put down the knitting when I offered her a sandwich. “This is the first food I’ve fancied today. A murder in one’s tea shop is as good as a slimming diet.”

  “I think there’s more on your mind than poor Colonel Montague.” I gave her the opening and it was up to her if she wanted to talk further about her troubles. I didn’t want to pry, but sometimes just being able to talk about troubles halved them, or so Gran liked to say.

  Mary Watt regarded me over the top of her flowered teacup. “You’re very like your grandmother, aren’t you? She was a perceptive woman and you’re growing to be very like her.”

  “There isn’t a greater compliment you could pay me.”

  “You’re right, of course. I was troubled well before the murder. It’s Flo, you see.”

  She picked up her knitting again and as she began to talk, the stitches seemed to fly from one needle to the other as though keeping pace with the torrent of words. “And that awful Gerald Pettigrew.”

  I had thought that was the source of the problem. I nodded.

  “Florence thinks I’m a jealous old cow, but that’s not it. If she can be bothered to take on an old man at her time of life, more power to her.” She raised her gaze to mine and I could see how troubled she was. “But not Gerald Pettigrew.”

  She finished one row and immediately flipped the needles and began another. “I don’t know how the man’s got the gall to come back here. I thought I’d got rid of him once and for all. But he’s a sly old devil, and he knows he’s got me.” She dropped the knitting to her lap and turned to me. “Oh, whatever am I going to do?”

  Since I couldn’t make head nor tail of what she was talking about, I kept my mouth closed and looked at her with sympathy.

  She sighed and picked up her knitting again. “You must think I’m a lunatic. I don’t make any sense. I see I must take you back. A long way back, to long before you were born. Back when we were young, Flo and I.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Her stitches slowed now as she began to talk of the past. “We were neither of us anything to look at, even when we were young. I think it’s one of the reasons Mother and Father worked so hard to make a go of the business, so we’d always have a livelihood.”

  “They brought the two of us into the tea shop very early. It was always understood that we would take over Elderflower. We came of age in the 1960s. The swinging 60s. It was the time of the Beatles and, for the first time since the war, England was beginning to get back on its feet.

  “London was exciting again, and people were full of hope. There was more money about. Rationing was over. Girls wore short skirts and danced in clubs until all hours. But Flo and I weren’t in London. I’m not sure we’d have done any better if we were. We were a couple of plain, plump girls living in Oxford and working in an old fashioned tea shop. The swinging 60s virtually passed us by. However, people were beginning to have a little more money to spend, and very often they would come and spend it in the tea shop.”

  I felt as though she were looking back into the past and I remained quiet, fascinated to see the Oxford of her youth.

  “You might think that being in Oxford, we’d be surrounded by eligible young men at the colleges, and we were. We just never really took, Flo and I.” She sounded remarkably matter-of-fact about their lack of a love life, though I wondered how much of her pragmatism had come with age.

  She laughed softly. “We were the sort of girls to whom young men turned for advice about their girl problems. We were like their plain cousin. I think Flo minded more than I. She was always more romantic. Perhaps she’d have left and tried for a different life given the chance. But Mother died.”

  Her hands stilled and she paused for a sip of tea. “She caught a bad cold. It was winter, but she wouldn’t rest. We had the business to run, after all. The cold turned into pneumonia and she went quite quickly. Father was never the same after that. Flo and I took over more and more of the responsibility and he seemed to fade away. Neither of us were really surprised when he, too, passed not a year later.” She smiled, sadly. “We’ve always said he died of a broken heart.”

  “They must have loved each other very much.”

  “Yes. We were a very happy family. We’d really never thought too much about money. We had the tea shop, of course, and we knew that Father had bought the building. But he’d also been investing, surprisingly well. We weren’t wildly wealthy, but we were very comfortably set.

  “We carried on, of course, because we knew that’s what our mother and father would have wanted. And it was all we knew.” She seemed to smile at the past. “The world is always changing, Lucy, but a good cup of tea and a decent scone doesn’t. The best part of Oxford doesn’t.”

  “I’ve always felt that way about Harrington Street. It changes, but not too much.”

  She nodded. “Well, one day, Flo came back late from doing the shopping. She was absolutely glowing. She’d met someone. It was Gerald, of course. He met her by chance it seemed. Though I don’t believe that for an instant.”

  What did she think Gerald Pettigrew was, a stalker of plain well-to-do women? How would he even have known? I suspected jealousy at work though I still remained silent.

  “Oh she was thrilled, and so happy. She said it was like something out of a film the way he’d walked smack up to her and said how heavy her bags looked and could he help carry them? Next thing I knew, they were off punting on the river and going on picnics and to the pictures. He had a car, which was much more exciting in those days than it is now, and he took her on drives around the countryside.”

  She put her knitting down and swivelled toward me, her hands on her hips. “And who do you think was running Elderflower?” She poked herself in the chest. “Poor old Muggins, that’s who. I had to hire daily help to manage. Flo was so infatuated she couldn’t see straight and she certainly couldn’t think straight.”

  Our eyes met and she smiled ruefully. “You probably think I was jealous. I suppose I was, a little. I also admit to a certain sadness that I would be losing my sister and my best friend. I could see it happening already, but I genuinely tried to be happy for her.”

  “When I asked about his job and prospects she was a bit vague. He was in sales. Motorcar sales. When I tried to pry deeper into his affairs she became annoyed with me and told me it was none of my business.”

  That didn’t sound good, and I said so.

  “It wasn’t. I suppose it was none of my business, but I am the eldest and with Mother and Father gone I felt some responsibility. Also, she’s my sister and I love her. I wanted to approve her choice.

  “I suggested she bring him home for dinner on a Monday night. That’s the only day we can entertain guests. Well, he came and he put himself out to charm me. But I saw through him right away. He was one of those people who was all charm and no substance. I suspect flattery may be his greatest talent.”

  “He looks as though he might be good at sales?” I ventured.

  She snorted. “Selling himself to gullible women. Oh, yes. He’s very good at that. When I asked him a few questions about his automotive business he chuckled and made comments suggesting that as a woman I wouldn’t be able to understand. I found him patronizing and also evasive.”

  I had a grim picture of a very uncomfortable dinner party.

  “After he left, of course Flo asked me what I thought of
him. I suppose I made a grave mistake. I warned her most earnestly to find out more about him before she committed herself.” She shook her head. “I didn’t take into account how badly she was smitten. She must’ve told him what I’d said, for the next thing I knew she stopped telling me of their plans. She’d make comments about how controlling I was. I was certain they had come from him and his mission was to separate her from me.”

  “Oh, that must have been awful.” I’d never had a brother or sister and always wished for one.

  “It was,” she agreed. “Then, he asked her to marry him, when they’d only known each other a few weeks. She was over the moon. Fell into his hands like the pigeon she was, ripe for the plucking. I asked her what was to happen with Elderflower? She did look sheepish, then. Said she wanted us to sell up so that she could have her half of everything.” She bit her lip. “That is the only time we have ever had a genuine shouting match. We both said things that we probably regret to this day.”

  I suddenly pictured the two of them lobbing day old scones at each other like missiles.

  “But I wasn’t jealous and greedy, I was terrified for her.”

  “That must have been awful,” I said. As an outsider, I could see both sides. I sympathized with the romantic Flo in love for the first and only time, and yet, I also sympathized with her remaining spinster sister.

  “I was beside myself. When I asked her what she and Gerald proposed to do with the quite substantial amount of money she would get, she said they were planning to travel, to see the world and then they’d settle down in Australia or Canada.” The outrage from all those years ago was fresh as she stared at me. “He wasn’t even going to let her stay in the same country.”

  “And you’d have lost the shop and your livelihood.”

  She nodded agreement. “I may have led a sheltered life, but I’m not a fool. I foresaw nothing but heartbreak and ruin for my poor sister.”

  “And yet, they did not marry,” I said softly. She’d been rattling the needles together as she knitted one rapid row after another. The way she was going she would have a seventeen-foot long scarf completed before we finished our tea. “No. She didn’t. Perhaps it was underhanded of me, but I hired a private investigator.”

  I was well and truly intrigued. Also pretty sure Mary Watt was an awesome big sister. “What did you find out?”

  She looked triumphant. “He was already married.”

  I don’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t that. “You mean he was in the process of getting divorced?” I knew divorce was a bigger deal then, but unless you were in the Royal Family or very religious, was it enough to break up a couple in love?

  “Ha! He had no intention of getting divorced. My investigator followed him to Leeds. He was living with a woman who had inherited the house they lived in and a private income. They had two children. The woman was perfectly happy, except for the fact that her husband was so often away on business.”

  “He was planning to be a bigamist?” I’d heard stories like this, read them in newspapers, but never actually knew anyone with two spouses. The idea was incredible.

  “Yes.”

  “So you told your sister?”

  She put her head in her hands, nearly stabbing herself in the head with her knitting needles. “I am such a fool. By that time, my sister and I were barely speaking to each other. To be honest with you, I don’t think she was rational. She wouldn’t have accepted the truth, even if it was given to her. I asked at one point, ‘What if you found out something terrible about him?’ And Flo’s answer was, “There’s nothing you could tell me about Gerald that would make me love him less.”

  “Wow. She really had it bad.”

  “He was such a smooth talker, you see. He’d make her believe anything. And what if she went away with him and I never saw her again? I couldn’t bear it. I did what I thought was the kindest thing for my poor sister.” Her head was still in her hands and now she shook it vigorously. “I’m not sure I was rational at the time, either. He’d gone back to London, supposedly, and his job. But I knew where he really was.”

  This story was better than a TV show.

  “I took out quite a large sum of money. And I drove up with the private investigator to Leeds. We confronted him together. Not at his house. Though perhaps we should have. We followed him, and, as he was about to go into a pub, I accosted him.”

  I could picture the scene. “He must have been stunned.”

  “Not that one. He’s as sly as the devil. He tried to brazen it out. We went into a quiet café, the private investigator laid out his findings. Gerald claimed he hadn’t been able to break the news to his missus, but he was going to ask her for a divorce so he could marry my sister, the love of his life. It was nauseating. However, he hadn’t done anything illegal, yet. In hindsight I should have waited until he’d married Flo, while still married to the woman in Leeds. But how could I let Flo be humiliated that way?”

  “I made Gerald Pettigrew a bargain. I told him I would give him money if he would leave Florence. I didn’t care what he said to her; he could make up any story he liked, a dying mother in another country, a secret assignment from the government. He was very good at making up stories, I was sure he could invent one that would satisfy her.”

  “You paid him off?” I asked, sounding as astonished as I felt.

  “I believed I was doing it for the best. I told him that he could take the money and go. But if I ever saw him again, I would tell Flo the whole story. Furthermore, the investigator had found out some rather unsavoury facts about his past that I thought the police might quite like to know.”

  She looked very satisfied at that last bit.

  “His phony charm dropped off his face like the mask on a street player. I truly believe that if the private investigator hadn’t been there, and we hadn’t been in a public place, he might have done me a violence. He agreed, in the end. He really had no choice.”

  Full marks to Miss Mary Watt.

  “He told my sister he’d been called away. I’m not quite sure what pretext he used. He made it sound that it was his duty, and his heart was broken as hers was. It was nauseating, but at least he left Flo her dignity.

  “Over time, my sister and I mended our fences. And we continued to run the shop together. During all these years, no other man has ever come between us.” She laughed softly. “No other man has tried.”

  “And now Gerald Pettigrew is back. How could he have the gall?”

  “Because I was a fool and he knew it. His wife is dead, you see. She was a fair bit older than he. Now that she’s gone, he really is free. I can’t tell Flo now that I separated them. You’ll think me sentimental, but the older one gets, the more relationships matter. Flo is all my family and my best friend.”

  I thought that a woman who had sufficient gumption to hire a private detective and frighten away a fortune hunter wouldn’t let the same fortune hunter steal her sister a second time. “What do you intend to do?”

  “I honestly don’t know. Of course, he’s got my measure now. He never would have come back here if he didn’t know that he has nothing to hide. Naturally, I immediately went on the internet and searched. His wife is dead. Has been for seven years.”

  My attentiveness was caught at that. “Seven years? Why did he take so long to come here?”

  She picked up her knitting again and began winding the wool around the needle as though it were a rope around Gerald Pettigrew’s neck. “I don’t know. Perhaps he thought his wife would leave him enough money that he wouldn’t need to defraud my poor Flo. Perhaps he tried and failed with a few other rich spinsters and widows. Maybe he’s run through all the money.”

  “I wonder if it’s worth hiring another investigator? A man who will be a bigamist once, might do it again.”

  She let out a sigh. “Lucy, I am eighty-two years old. Flo is eighty. I am too tired to fight this man again. If she’s too foolish to realize that man is a fortune-hunting liar, then perhaps I shou
ld let her enjoy her happiness. Even if he steals all her money and leaves her, I’ll still have enough left to support the two of us.”

  “It just seems so wrong that he should profit by seducing naïve women.”

  “He’s not the first, and he won’t be the last.”

  I’d been thinking. “What if he were offered a richer prize?”

  She turned her head and looked at me in a puzzled fashion. “Richer prize?”

  I was thinking aloud. “Colonel Montague’s wife is, according to local gossip, a very wealthy widow. If the colonel was planning to divorce her, she can’t be inconsolable. Maybe a much richer widow, and one who doesn’t need to sell a business and properties in order to come into her money, would be more palatable to Mr. Pettigrew.”

  “But, Lucy, it’s possible that Mrs. Montague murdered her husband. Would you want to push even a man as despicable as Gerald Pettigrew into the arms of poisoner?”

  “I’d say Gerald Pettigrew is well able to look after himself. Besides, there is such a thing is divine retribution.”

  Mary Watt seemed much more cheerful when she left. I had taken an extra long lunch hour, but when we reached the shop Katie seemed calm and the shop running smoothly. She was, at that moment, ringing up a large order.

  Miss Watt greeted her perfectly cheerfully and said she was pleased she’d found another job. Katie thanked her and said she hoped Elderflower could open again soon.

  I walked Miss Watt to the door and even outside it. It was nice to take a few breaths of fresh air. She said, “I have to say that girl is a damn sight better working in your business than she was in mine.”

  “At the risk of sounding crass and hard-hearted, I have to say that your loss is my gain.”

  Miss Watt laughed. It was good to hear the sound. I suspect it had been a while since she had laughed and, the way things were going, it might be some time before she had another opportunity. She put a hand on my arm. “Thank you, Lucy. You’ve done me a great deal of good. I hope your grandmother’s looking down on you, now. She’d be so proud.”