A Simple Country Mystery

by Blythe Baker

  “My apologies,” I said, inclining my head. “I won’t bother you any longer.”

  I turned away, my skin crawling.

  With any luck, I won’t be the one to bother you again…I thought as I walked away from their table. But who knows what Sam Graves might think when I tell him how much you despised Abigail Lowell.

  10

  I waited another hour before I left the teahouse. I knew it would be suspicious if I were to wait only on Tessa Harmon and her friend, so I helped Irene with some other customers, all of whom were a great deal more kind to me. I always found I enjoyed working at the teahouse, as it gave me a chance to interact with the community more easily, and without having to count buttons or spools of thread.

  Tessa Harmon and her friend left soon after finishing their tea, which they complained about far too loudly, saying it was subpar quality, even for these difficult times.

  Irene just glared at them as they left. “Don’t they know that we still buy the very best tea available, straight from India? They likely wouldn’t buy tea that expensive, even for themselves at home.”

  I bid her and Nathanial goodbye, and asked Nathanial if I could borrow the newspaper so that I could bring the article to Sam.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said in an undertone, passing it to me. “You are worrying Irene something awful. She is beside herself most of the time, worrying about the situations that you are getting yourself into.”

  “Everything is fine,” I said. “All I am doing is relaying information. I’m not chasing after the killer this time.”

  “As far as you know,” Nathanial said. “Just…please, be careful, all right? For our sake?”

  “I will,” I said, and made my way from the teahouse.

  I was surprised about Nathanial’s comment. I had known that Irene was displeased with my involvement in all this, yet to hear it so starkly from him made it all the more real to me.

  I needed to be careful. My life wasn’t just about me any longer. There were people who cared for me, even here in Brookminster.

  The clouds had returned in the sky, making it seem much later than early evening. I shivered as a cool gust of wind rushed down the street.

  I turned into the wind, starting toward the police station.

  I hadn’t walked more than three houses away when a chill raced down my back.

  I glanced over my shoulder, half expecting Tessa Harmon to be standing there, having somehow overheard the conversation I’d had with Irene.

  No one was standing there, though.

  Fear, hot and stinging, surged through my veins.

  This is just like the last time…I thought.

  I picked up my pace, wanting to put as much distance between myself and whatever it was that I felt was after me.

  It was just the wind, I assured myself. You haven’t been outside properly in days. When was the last time you smelled the fresh air?

  The air held the sharp scent of rain, and smelled of coming storms, and lingering heat.

  I only walked a few more steps before the feeling returned.

  There was no one else on the road with me; not up ahead, and not behind. And yet, I was utterly convinced that someone was watching me.

  But who? And where?

  I searched around, my eyes narrowing as I squinted through the hazy, cloudy evening.

  A movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I whirled around.

  A shadow seemed to shift in the darkness of an alley between the post office and the grocer’s.

  I glared in the direction of the shadow.

  The longer I stared, the more I convinced myself that I was losing my mind. The shadows were unmoving, and I was wondering if I’d just seen them move out of sheer exhaustion.

  I slowly started toward the alley, hoping not to make much noise with each step I took. Perhaps it was nothing more than a cat, or a stray dog. Nevertheless, I still needed to be careful so as not to frighten the poor creature…

  But something deep down within me told me that it wasn’t an animal. I had felt a gaze on my back. It was as if someone had been waiting for me, and had known precisely where I would be this afternoon.

  Which makes utterly no sense, I thought. How could anyone have been able to follow after my footsteps today? I was all over the town.

  Something in the shadows moved once again, which startled me.

  Someone is there! Someone is watching me!

  “Hello?” I shouted after them, starting after the shadow in a run. I didn’t have time to stop and think about how foolish I was being, chasing after this shape, this person.

  I plunged into the shadows, and came to a quick stop.

  There was no one there.

  The dim light of the cloudy day washed the wall up ahead, filtering down through a gap between the buildings.

  I stared around, suddenly feeling a great deal more vulnerable than I had before.

  Whoever it was had gone. They’d somehow managed to turn a corner before I could catch up.

  I took several steps backwards, back out of the alleyway and onto the road, my heart hammering against my ribs.

  This felt just like it did the last time. Whoever it had been was now gone. They’d disappeared, just like before.

  I turned and started toward the police station once again, wrapping my arms around myself, trying to stop the goose pimples that were appearing on my body.

  I’m not crazy, I thought. I know there was someone there. Just like a few weeks ago.

  This mystery was far too closely tied to the other mystery that had seemed to be following me...the series of break-ins that had been happening at my home.

  Both of these incidents had happened twice now. Both times I had not been able to catch whoever it was that was doing it, nor had I been able to find any trace of them, either.

  Someone is going to great lengths to hide from me, I thought, my face draining of all color. And I wonder if it’s the same person who was looking for something of mine, breaking into my home as easily as if it were their own place of residence.

  As it always was, my greatest fear was that it had something to do with the murder I was currently investigating. It proved to not be true the last two cases I’d involved myself in, but how could I be sure that someone wasn’t following my progress, or hadn’t somehow discovered my desire to be involved?

  The police station appeared up ahead, and there was no sign of the mysterious, shadowed person following after me. Even if I didn’t feel as if whoever it was followed after me now, I still couldn’t shake the crawling feeling in my skin as I thought about just how starkly I had been able to feel their gaze upon me.

  I saw a group of people gathered out front of the station, and as I drew closer, heard their angry voices all trying to talk over one another.

  I recognized Sam Graves’ profile from behind the mob, his arms outstretched, and trying to call out over the heads of the other townsfolk.

  “Why are we allowing that camp to exist?” I heard an elderly woman shout out as she clung to her walking cane.

  “Those Germans could come to the village and kill us all!” said a gentleman that I saw frequently outside of the pub down the street from my cottage.

  “Why are the police just sitting here, and not finding out who the article writer is?” asked a woman with an infant strapped to her back.

  “Everyone, if you would please wait your turn to be spoken with,” Sam shouted over their heads, his hands cupped over his mouth. “The chief only has so much time in his day.”

  I made my way around the edge of the crowd, the same newspaper I had clutched in my hand being waved in the air by one older gentleman, and stomped underneath the foot of a woman who was probably ten or so years younger than I was.

  “Inspector Graves?” I asked, coming toward the front of the group.

  Sam’s gaze shifted toward me, and immediately I could see that I had picked the wrong time to come and visit him.r />
  “Lightholder…” he said, in a surprisingly informal way. He frowned. “As you can see, I’m very busy.”

  “I came about this,” I said, holding the paper out to him. “But I had some other things to share with you as well. About – ”

  “Yes, I know what about,” he said, cutting me off.

  “You’re going to talk to her, but not to us?” asked a woman whose skin was so wrinkled it rivaled a currant.

  Sam ignored the woman. “Come with me,” he said to me, waving me up toward the station doors.

  The crowd was none too pleased with the Inspector’s decision.

  “Tuttle, I need you out here,” Sam said, opening the door and leaning in. “Keep them under control while I speak with a consultant.”

  The man named Tuttle had an impressively thick moustache. “I just came in an hour ago,” he said, his equally bushy eyebrows furrowing. “You want me to go back out there?”

  “I’ll take your night shift next Friday evening,” Sam said coolly, his gaze sharp.

  Mr. Tuttle’s moustache quivered, but he met Sam’s stare easily. “Fine,” he said after a moment, getting to his feet. “But you’ll take next Friday as well as the night shift after that. I’ve got a new baby at home and my wife could use the sleep.”

  Sam stepped aside as Mr. Tuttle walked past him back out onto the landing.

  “All right, all right, keep it down,” Mr. Tuttle said, putting his hat on his head. “No, Mrs. Myer, the chief isn’t ready to see you yet.”

  Sam jutted his chin toward the door, asking me to follow.

  I slipped in the door, Sam following. When he closed it, the quiet that followed was blissful.

  “So, consultant, huh?” I asked as we started toward his office at the back of the building. “I hadn’t been informed about my promotion.”

  Sam shot me a sidelong look. “Consultant is a term that we use around here for someone who gives us information for free, so don’t flatter yourself,” he said. But he still looked down at me, smiling somewhat. “So let me guess…you’re here for the same reason that all of those coots outside are? That ridiculous article published in the newspaper this morning?”

  I smiled up at him. “Well, well, I can certainly see why you are the inspector, seeing that you have such a keen intuition.”

  He stopped at the door to his office, pushing the door open. He chuckled, deep in his throat. “Yes, well, I suppose something had to be good enough about me to get the job, right?”

  I waited until we were inside and he closed the door behind himself to speak.

  “I also wanted to talk to you about Mrs. Lowell,” I said. “I think I found out who her secret lover was.”

  He had reached to pick up some papers, and was just tapping them on his desk to straighten them when my words apparently registered in his mind. He slowly looked up at me, his blue eyes as piercing as they always were. “Did you now?”

  I nodded. “The description that Evangeline gave us? It matches a man named Mr. Fenton here in the village. He owns the local bookshop.”

  I thought it best to make it seem as if I had simply stumbled upon this information like a happy accident, instead of letting it be known that I had shared everything that Evangeline had told us in confidence with Nathanial, Irene, and Sidney that night at dinner.

  Sam’s eyes narrowed, and my face flushed. Did he know that I was hiding something from him? He was an inspector, after all. His whole profession revolved around discovering the truth about people, and discerning whether or not they were lying to him.

  And as lying did not come easily to me…

  “I take it you went and investigated it yourself?” he asked, resuming the organization of his papers.

  “I did,” I said, somewhat relieved that he didn’t press to know where I’d learned the information. “I went to visit the bookshop and ran into him, as well as overheard some interesting conversations with some of the customers.”

  I filled him in on the conversation that Mr. Fenton had with Mrs. Charles, as well as about Tessa Harmon’s appearance.

  “So Mr. Fenton is likely the man Evangeline believed was Mr. Smith,” he said, moving the papers to a drawer in his desk. “And then Miss Harmon’s appearance adds another complication.”

  “Precisely what I thought,” I said. “But then that newspaper article appeared, and I was wondering what you might make of all this.”

  He sighed, laying his palms flat on his desk. “The lack of sense from those editors down at the paper,” he muttered underneath his breath. “Why on earth they would ever agree to publish such nonsense…”

  “You don’t think there is any merit to what the writer said?” I asked.

  Sam sighed, standing up straight once again, and reaching for his hat on the hat stand behind his desk. “No,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I can dismiss it so readily. I don’t have any choice but to go and investigate the claims that were made, even if we don’t know if the writer has any sort of authority in this matter.”

  I blinked at him. “You don’t know who wrote the article?”

  Sam rubbed his forehead, and paused to look over at me. “Are you saying you do?”

  “Oh, no,” I said, shaking my head. “No, not at all. I just assumed you would by now.”

  His stern look morphed into a grimace. “Unfortunately, the charming owner of the newspaper refuses to let me know his sources, saying it would be a breach of contract. As you can imagine, we around here find that rather infuriating.”

  “I certainly can imagine,” I said.

  “Well, as much as I would like to continue to discuss this new information about Mr. Fenton and Miss Harmon, I must be off,” he said. “I need to get to that prison camp before it gets much later in the day.”

  “Perhaps I could go with you,” I said.

  He stopped in his walk around the desk and gave me a flat look.

  My stomach dropped. Well…I suppose it was worth a try.

  11

  “I suppose I could use the trip over to the camp as a chance to discuss this information you brought to me,” Sam said, grabbing his coat from the back of the door and shrugging it on. “But if you do come, then you have to realize where I am going.”

  “To the prison camp, I know,” I said, getting to my feet.

  “And you know who they house there, right?” Sam asked, straightening the collar of his jacket.

  “The German prisoners of war, correct?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Indeed. Are you certain that’s where you want to go, given your history?”

  Once again, I was taken aback by Inspector Graves’ kindness. He certainly was more sensitive than I gave him credit for…or what his usual manner made him seem like.

  “I’ll be all right,” I said, putting on a smile.

  As we walked through the station together, though, my heart ached somewhat. How would I handle being around these men who were fighting alongside those that had killed my husband?

  What if some of them were the men who had been flying the planes that dropped the bombs over London that night? What if one of them there was the man who was responsible for Roger’s untimely end?

  I pushed those thoughts away, knowing they were fruitless, and would do nothing except torment me when there was no possible way of knowing the truth.

  I noticed the looks that some of the other officers were giving us as we walked through the station. I saw skepticism, surprise, and even hostility. I ducked my head, wondering if, once again, I’d pushed myself too far into a situation that had nothing to do with me.

  The crowds outside the station were still gathered there, and the cacophony of their voices greeted us as soon as Sam walked outside.

  “Inspector,” said the gangly officer who had somehow taken over from Tuttle in the last few moments. “I could really use a hand here – ”

  Sam didn’t cease his descent down the stairs toward the cars. “I’m sorry, Mable, but I have other matters that need
to be attended to tonight.”

  Mr. Mable’s gaze swept over to me, and his brow creased. “Are you two stepping out to dinner?” he asked.

  Sam lifted an eyebrow. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear anything so foolish, Mable. Now get back to those crowds. Do your job.”

  Mable nodded, and turned his attention back to his work.

  I hurried after Sam as he continued on to the car.

  I didn’t say a word as he started the engine and we pulled out of the parking space. Two of the protestors came up to the window, and began to bang on the glass with their fists, staring angrily inside.

  Sam ignored them completely and eased the car onto the road.

  “I’m sorry about that…” he said after a few moments of driving in silence. “Mable never should have assumed something so foolish.”

  “It’s all right,” I said.

  “Not that dinner with you would be foolish, mind,” he added hastily. I noticed spots of color appearing in his cheeks. “I imagine it would be quite nice, and – ” he cleared his throat loudly, his eyes firmly fixed on the road in front of him.

  Color rose in my own face, much to my surprise. How had this conversation even come about?

  “Anyway…” Sam said, the gravelly note in his voice returning. “I realized that it was best to let you come along with me this time, simply because I knew that you would likely try to go all the way out there on your own anyways. I would rather be with you so I can be around if anything goes awry.”

  “Awry?” I asked. “What could possibly go awry?”

  A smirk appeared on his face as he looked sidelong over at me. “With you? I imagine the worst possible case scenarios.”

  The color in my face deepened in anger. “Oh, really?”

  “It’s just your way, Helen,” he said. “Look at Mrs. Martin. And then with everything that happened up at the Cooke farm. I think it would be easier if I were there already in case something did happen.”

  “It’s as if you’re assuming that some of the soldiers are going to break free from their confinement and come and find me,” I said, still glaring up at him.