by Morgana Best
Mr Buttons finally found his voice. “Yes, please, Cressida.” I expected he thought they were a lesser evil. After all, it could have been much worse. “I’m feeling a little faint. Would you mind if I waited in the car?”
Cressida waved one hand at him. “Of course not.”
“I’ll take him to the car,” I offered quickly.
When we reached the safety of the car, I burst out laughing. “I can’t believe Cressida thought that was a pet shop,” I guffawed. “That’s hilarious!”
“I was mortified, simply mortified,” Mr Buttons said in a small voice. “I have never been in an establishment of ill repute before. Goodness gracious me, I just didn’t know where to look. That will haunt me to my dying days.”
I quickly suppressed my laughter. I had no idea Mr Buttons had taken it to heart. “Just as well she didn’t buy you a collar or a whip,” I couldn’t resist saying.
Mr Buttons nodded solemnly. “I actually do like the gift that she chose in the end,” he said. “It is quite an unusual novelty gift, and who doesn’t like koalas! Plus they will warm one’s nether regions in this cold weather.”
I stared at him for a moment, wondering if he was being sarcastic. I still had not made up my mind when Cressida popped into the car and handed Mr Buttons a gift bag. He thanked her and then took out the underpants. On closer inspection, I couldn’t believe my eyes. They were huge white underpants, featuring an add-on: a toy grey and white fluffy koala complete with claws and a shiny black nose.
“Do you like really like them?” Cressida said anxiously.
“Oh yes, I do, Cressida,” Mr Buttons said. “I love them. Thank you.”
“They’re quite tasteful really,” Cressida continued. “The koala neatly covers your unmentionables. It’s a pity I’m not a portrait artist, or you could have posed for me in them.”
“Err, yes,” Mr Buttons said. He quickly stuffed the item back in its bag.
“Mr Buttons, are you going to be well enough to go for a walk today?” I asked him. “Maybe at the dog park? Blake dropped Tiny off to me this morning, but I couldn’t take him for a walk with Sandy, because she leaps over him and licks him. I can’t manage both dogs by myself.”
“When do you want to go?” he asked me.
“How about as soon as we get back?” I said. “Then I can get stuck into some paperwork. This investigation has put me behind.”
“Speaking of the investigation,” Cressida said, “there’s something we haven’t told you yet, Mr Buttons. This morning, Sibyl and I went to the council and they told us that Adrian doesn’t work for the Office of Geographic Names.”
Mr Buttons’ shoulders stiffened. “That’s right,” I said. “They said such an office doesn’t even exist in New South Wales, and here it’s called the Geographical Names Board. They said there’s no one from that department in Little Tatterford at the moment, so clearly it’s a complete fabrication.”
“I suspect he’s a journalist,” Mr Buttons said.
“A journalist?” Cressida asked, swerving to miss a rabbit that ran across the road. “But he arrived before the murder, so why is a journalist here?”
Mr Buttons shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“What makes you think he’s a journalist?” I asked him.
He shrugged again. “I can’t be certain, but I have that impression.”
After that, Mr Buttons clammed up. He didn’t say another word all the way back to the boarding house. “I’ll just make myself a cup of tea and some cucumber sandwiches and put on some warmer clothes, so could you come to the boarding house in half an hour? I’ll be ready for you.”
“Sure.” I left Cressida and Mr Buttons at the boarding house and continued down to my cottage. Sandy and Tiny greeted me wildly. It was as if they hadn’t seen me in years. “Another walk won’t hurt you,” I said to Sandy. “Then you’ll both be tired, and I’ll be able to get some work done later.”
“*&^% off!” Max squawked. “You &^&%* loser! Where’s your toy boy? Pretty boy. Pretty boy.”
I sighed. That’s what I got for leaving the window from the enclosed back area open. I opened the door to let Max out, but he just sat there on the edge of a chair, berating me. “Honestly, Max, you’d make a sailor blush,” I told him. I fetched a treat and put it outside on his perch, and he flew out. I shut the door behind him and leant back on it.
I made myself a cup of coffee and sat by the remains of the fire, trying to relax. I debated whether to light the fire again, but I thought I would save the firewood and light it when I got home. Still, it was unpleasantly cold. The murderer had not struck again, so that was some consolation. Blake had told me the previous night that Detectives Roberts and Henderson were completely stumped. He said he had tried to suggest to them that Mr Buttons was not the intended victim, but they hadn’t taken his words kindly. I could tell Blake was worried.
The half hour passed quickly. I popped the leashes on Sandy and Tiny, secured them in my van, and drove the short distance to the boarding house. Sandy was being her usual Labrador self, happily slobbering all over Tiny and not realising that he was getting more irritated by the minute.
Mr Buttons looked a little bit brighter when I collected him. I was burning with curiosity as to what his secret was, to be honest, although I knew it was none of my business. I just wished Adrian wouldn’t upset him too much. Perhaps the walk in the fresh spring air would do him a world of good.
“Tourists,” Mr Buttons said when I parked in the parking area at the dog park.
“What makes you think they’re tourists?” I asked, eyeing off the group.
“They’re all armed with cameras, and they’re looking around,” he said. “Who else would come to the dog park without dogs, and in such numbers?”
“We’ll have to keep the dogs on the leashes until we’re well clear of them, because Sandy will be too friendly and she might scare them.”
Sure enough, two men broke away and walked over to us. “Crocodiles?” one said hopefully in a German accent. “Are there crocodiles in that creek?”
I shook my head. “No, sorry. There are no crocodiles in this state. You’ll need to go up north, to Queensland.”
The men looked confused.
“And if there were any in the creek, it wouldn’t be safe to stand here,” I continued. “Crocodiles move awfully fast on land.”
The men looked upset and went back to their group. I figured they had relayed the news, as a collective sigh went up from the group.
We gave the German tourists a wide berth and set off along the track. The wide grassed area soon turned into a little bush track through gum trees. It was here that I had to watch for snakes in warm weather. “I don’t think we’ll need to worry about snakes today,” I said to Mr Buttons. “It’s still quite cold.”
I pulled my scarf more tightly around my neck. To my dismay, we were not able to let the dogs off leash, because some of the tourists had wandered off to the far end of the park. I knew it wouldn’t take Sandy much to knock someone over when she was trying to lick their faces in a show of exuberance.
On our way back, we came across some tourists looking up a tree. “There’s a cat stuck up a tree,” one of them said. “Poor kitty. She can’t get down.”
“Oh my goodness,” Mr Buttons said. “She’s right, Sibyl. There is a very large cat up that gum tree. See? Perched right in the fork. It’s hard to tell because that huge bottlebrush tree is growing around the gum tree.”
“I should call someone,” I said.
Mr Buttons held up his hand. “No, I should be able to get it down.”
I was aghast. “Mr Buttons, please tell me you’re not thinking of climbing that tree?”
“I’m quite limber,” Mr Buttons said smugly. “It will be no trouble. Do not worry. Leave it to me.” He took off his coat and scarf and handed them to me.
When I saw Mr Buttons nimbly swing onto the lower branch of the tree, I remembered that he had been a gymnastic
s champion in his youth. “Be careful,” I called out as he disappeared from sight, into the masses of leaves of the bottlebrush bush. I watched with trepidation as Mr Buttons emerged from a gap in the bottlebrush tree and climbed higher and higher into the gum tree. “Don’t go out on one of those branches,” I called out. “That’s a white gum tree. They’re known for dropping whole limbs for seemingly no reason.”
Mr Buttons did not respond, but climbed ever higher up the tree. Finally, he reached the limb holding the cat and swung himself onto it. The tourists gasped.
Mr Buttons carefully reached out one hand for the cat. The cat apparently did not want to be rescued and hissed at Mr Buttons, lashing out at his hand. It lightly jumped past Mr Buttons and ran down the tree. The tourists clapped their hands with delight.
I heard a slight cracking sound. I knew what that meant—that sound always immediately preceded a white gum dropping a limb. “Mr Buttons!” I screamed, but too late.
Chapter 13
The branch holding Mr Buttons made a further crack, a thunderous one this time, and crashed just in front of where I was standing, splintering into a thousand pieces. The tourists screamed. I held my breath as Mr Buttons fell, disappearing into the bottle brush bush. After I realised that he wasn’t lying on the ground, I let out the long breath I’d been holding.
“Are you all right, Mr Buttons?” I called up onto the tree, straining my eyes to see where he was.
“Yes, I’m caught up in here.” His voice was faint and muffled.
I reached in my jeans pocket for my phone and realised I had left it in my van. I turned to the tourists. “Would you hurry and get your tour guide? Tell her to call for help. Tell her a man’s stuck up in a tree.”
Two of the tourists nodded, and took off at a run.
It was then I saw Mr Buttons’ trousers caught in a sharp branch jutting out of the fallen limb on the ground. I peered once more into the tree, and this time saw Mr Buttons’ naked ankles wrapped around a lower branch.
“How long can you hold on there?” I called. “I’ve sent for help.”
“It’s too far for me to jump from here,” he said, worry evident in his voice.
“Here comes the tour guide now.” To my relief, the tour guide was hurrying to us, accompanied by the entire group of tourists.
“What happened?” she called out before she reached me.
“Some of your tour party saw a cat up a tree, and Mr Buttons climbed up to rescue it. The cat ran off, and this branch collapsed.” I pointed to the branch on the ground. “Mr Buttons is stuck in the tree. I don’t have my phone on me so I couldn’t call for help.”
The tour guide whipped her phone from her pocket and called emergency.
“Oh look, there’s a koala in the tree!” one of the tourists said with great excitement.
All the other tourists gathered around him, and pointed. “There it is,” one said after the other, their cameras all clicking.
“I doubt a koala would stay around after all that commotion,” the tour guide muttered after she had finished her call.
I was thinking the same thing. I turned to the tour guide. “I don’t know how long he can hang on up there.”
The tour guide made to respond, but the tourists were all yelling, jumping up and down, and pointing to the koala in the tree. The tour guide appeared exasperated. “There isn’t a koala in the tree.”
“Yes, there is,” one said. “Look.” He walked closer to the tree and pointed. “There’s the koala! It’s hanging upside down in that tree! Can we pat it?”
I stood directly behind the man to see where he was pointing, and then I gasped with shock. It was a koala all right, but not the sort of koala the tourists thought it was. The tour guide likewise gasped, and put her hands over the nearest tourist’s eyes. “Well, I never! All of you, we must leave now!” she added in a commanding tone. She marched the protesting tourists back in the direction of the park entrance.
Thankfully, a group of fire fighters with a ladder arrived moments later. “He climbed the tree to rescue a cat, but the cat ran away and that limb broke,” I told them. I pointed once more to the limb on the ground. “Can you hurry? He’s hanging from the gum tree! He’s caught up in that bottlebrush.”
“Oh, look! There’s a koala in the tree,” one of the fire fighters said.
The other fire fighters peered into the tree and then burst out laughing.
“Whatever possessed you to wear those koala underpants Cressida bought you?” I asked Mr Buttons, when we were debriefing over a cup of tea and a plate of cucumber sandwiches, minus the crusts, of course.
“They were warm,” Mr Buttons said in a small voice. “Sibyl, I am absolutely mortified! Absolutely mortified, I tell you.” He snuffled. “Those fire fighters laughed the whole time. I hardly thought I would be disrobed by a gum tree while attempting to rescue a cat.”
“And those tourists got more than they bargained for,” I said, doing my best not to laugh. “I don’t think the tour guide will ever look at koalas again in the same way. You might find pictures of your, um, koala, on the internet.”
“It’s not funny, Sibyl,” Mr Buttons admonished me.
Cressida sailed into the room. She sat on one of the armchairs and poured herself a cup of tea. “You two had quite an adventure this morning, didn’t you!” Her voice was altogether too cheerful, and I knew that Mr Buttons would not respond well to that.
“You could say that,” Mr Buttons muttered. “I’ll be scarred for life.” He popped a cucumber sandwich into his mouth.
I could not resist a giggle. “So will all those tourists.”
Mr Buttons glared at me by way of response. Lord Farringdon walked over, purring loudly, and stared at Mr Buttons. Mr Buttons greeted him.
“Oh well, paperwork is beckoning to me,” I said, anxious to escape before Cressida informed us of Lord Farringdon’s latest pronouncement. “Are we all still having coffee later in town?”
Cressida nodded, spilling some of her tea as she did so. Mr Buttons leapt up and ran from the room, presumably to get something with which to clean it. “Yes, we are,” she said. “We’re not getting very far with this investigation, and I’m sure the police are no further along than we are.”
“I agree, sad to say,” I said. “Okay then, we’ll talk about it later. Say goodbye to Mr Buttons for me.”
When I walked outside, I saw Dennis Stanton sitting on the porch on the old iron seat. He greeted me. “Hello, it’s a lovely day, isn’t it, Sibyl?”
I agreed that it was. “How’s the house hunting going?”
Dennis sighed. “I’ve seen a few, nothing to my liking yet. Still, houses here are so much cheaper compared with Sydney that I’ll be able to afford to do a substantial renovation. I’m sure I’ll find the right one soon.”
“Are you only looking in Little Tatterford, or are you looking in Pharmidale, too?”
“Just in Little Tatterford,” he said.
“Have you been to all the real estate agents in town?”
“Every last one,” he said with another sigh. “You know, I feel quite awkward sitting here, so close to the scene of the murder. Let’s walk through the rose garden.”
I followed him down the steps and onto the path that ran along the front of the house. He stopped at one of the rose bushes and bent over it. “All these leaves look healthy, but there are no roses on them yet.”
I laughed. “You’ll have to get used to the climate here in Little Tatterford. It was a shock for me when I came from Sydney. Here, we’re many weeks behind the Sydney climate. They’ll have roses out in force now, but we won’t get any until next month. Not many pretty flowers will grow at all in this climate. Magnolias grow well here, though, and you can get some very pretty varieties. And it’s awfully hard to get fruit in season.”
He nodded. “I noticed that the mangoes here haven’t ripened yet, still white-green inside.”
“Are you much of a gardener?”
Dennis
laughed, and continued walking at a slow pace, his hands behind his back. “Not really. I like to have a nice-looking garden, but I don’t want to do the work. Still, I suppose there are a few gardeners for hire around here.”
“Plenty, actually,” I said. “You just have to find one who knows the difference between a plant and a weed.”
Dennis laughed again, only I hadn’t been joking. “How many acres does Cressida have here?” he asked me.
I shrugged. “I don’t have a clue, to tell you the truth. I just know she owns all this.” I waved one arm expansively. “Dennis, moving from the city to a small country town takes quite a lot of adjusting. I know, because I did it not that long ago.”
“What sort of adjustments?” he asked, looking at me. “Apart from the weather?”
“Well, there’s the gossip,” I said. An idea had occurred to me, and I wondered how I could bring it to fruition. I decided to take a risk. “For example, it’s all around town that you’re an ex-cop.”
Dennis didn’t exactly gasp, but his pace faltered. “Wow. That’s quite a rumour mill you’ve got going here. I was hoping to be anonymous. I wonder how anyone found out?”
“You’d be surprised,” I said. “Anyway, I was wondering if you could help out.”
We were in the back paddock now, walking past one of the old sheds. Dennis stopped. “What do you mean?”
“I’m wondering if you could look into Wendy Mason and Adrian Addison.”
Dennis frowned. “You suspect one of them murdered that man?”
I shrugged. “Well, if it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t you, and it wasn’t Cressida or Mr Buttons, then it had to be Wendy, Adrian, or Chef Dubois. Gossip around town is that no one has a criminal record, so I was wondering if you could look into it a bit further?”
He rubbed his chin slowly. Before he had a chance to speak, I added, “And see if you can turn up anything to suggest that they were in the murder together.”
