Any Given Sundae (Australian Amateur Sleuth Book 5)

by Morgana Best

  It was all Cressida and I could do not to laugh when it was Mr. Buttons’ turn to be questioned. In typical form, he spent most of his interview telling Constable Andrews that he needed to scrub a small stain out of the table. They’d eventually managed to ask him all the usual questions, and his story matched up with mine, as was to be expected.

  Blake and Andrews interviewed Dorothy next, though she was her usual unhelpful self. All she did throughout the interview was complain about their manners and the state of the boarding house, and eventually Blake let her go with a frustrated sigh. She marched out of the room and announced that we were to fetch Prudence Paget for questioning, and that she was going to guard the door to make sure that no one listened in. She crossed her arms over her ample bosom as she said it. I led Mr. Buttons away before he managed to reply.

  “Mr. Buttons,” I said as we reached the dining room and I stood with my back to the fire, “Blake will have to call in the detectives, and I’m sure they’ll suspect me.” I hoped Mr. Buttons would disagree.

  “I’m afraid you’re right, Sibyl,” he said solemnly. “A man appeared in your house and died after eating a sundae, so they will no doubt assume it is suspicious.”

  Chapter 5

  “Thank you so much!” The woman beamed as she took her Bernese Mountain Dog out of the grooming tent while he desperately tried to sniff something nearby. I laughed as he shot me a look that could only be described as goofy before disappearing from sight.

  I sighed, sitting down in my chair and leaning back. It had been a long day, though a lucrative one. I was at the Pharmidale Dog Show, grooming show dogs before they went and had their day in the sun, so to speak. The best part about working at a dog show—other than the pay—was that the dogs were generally much better behaved. The humans weren’t, necessarily, but at least most of them had been friendly. I guessed that some of them were simply succumbing to stress, and having a stranger groom their dog probably added to that. Otherwise, a small percentage of them seemed to be natural-born jerks.

  The major events were beginning, so I suspected I’d have a bit of a break before another onslaught of customers. I appreciated all the work, but I appreciated the rest a whole lot more.

  To my surprise, two men walked into my tent. My heart sank as I recognized Detective Roberts. He was with Blake, which made me feel a little better, but I doubted they’d come to watch me work.

  “What do you want?” I asked, cutting straight to the point. Today wasn’t the time to beat around the bush.

  “We need you to come down to the station with us,” Blake said seriously, wearing the grimmest expression I had seen on him. He shifted uncomfortably as he said it and cleared his throat. Detective Roberts, on the other hand, looked as calm as could be.

  “You can’t expect me to leave right now,” I said, exasperated. “It’s the dog show! I’m working all day. This is the busiest day of the year for me, and leaving now is out of the question.” It was a ridiculous ask. On any other day it would be frustrating enough, but leaving the dog show, especially this early, was simply asking too much.

  “This is a serious matter, Miss Potts,” Detective Roberts said, taking a step forward. “We need you to come down to the station this very second.”

  “Well, unless you have a court order to drag me down there screaming, you’re out of luck.”

  “Sibyl, please,” Blake pleaded, still standing at the entrance of the grooming tent. I suspected that he wanted to be in this situation even less than I did. “Detective Roberts is right—this is serious. We need you to come with us. Please?” he added.

  “Can you legally force me there?” I asked. If they could, I’d have no choice. Leaving the dog show immediately would be financially disastrous, but being dragged kicking and screaming by the police would probably be a tad worse.

  Roberts cleared his throat as Blake shuffled uncomfortably. “I thought so,” I said, annoyed at the whole thing. “So please let me get back to what I’m doing and I’ll come around when I’m finished here.”

  “These charges are grave, Miss Potts,” Detective Roberts said sternly. “Make sure you don’t forget. I don’t want to have to get a warrant of any kind, which is why I came here first.”

  “I get it, really,” I said, sighing. “I’ll be there as soon as I’m done.”

  The pair left me in peace, and I sat back down in my chair, breathing a sigh of relief. The rest of the day went smoothly enough, yet all I could think about was how I had to visit the police station. I was worried about what exactly was going to happen to me, as I imagined the police wouldn’t show up at work unless they had a serious reason. Plus Detective Roberts had said something about having to get a warrant, which worried me even more.

  Once the show was finally over, I drove straight to the police station, leaving my booth laid out as it was, meaning I’d have to come back and pack it up as soon as I was able. I had to trust that everything would work itself out and that, in my case, the police wouldn’t arrest an innocent person.

  When I arrived, a police officer I didn’t recognize ushered me into an interrogation room. He sat me down and, politely enough, fetched me a cup of coffee. It didn’t exactly taste great, being some sort of bitter brown water, but it was just barely better than nothing. I sat in the interrogation room for several minutes before Detective Roberts and Detective Henderson arrived and sat opposite me. Henderson shot me a weak smile, while Roberts maintained his best poker face.

  “Can you tell me what this is about?” I asked, desperate to get this over with. My heart was pounding in my chest, and I wanted nothing more than to be at home. Of course, I knew this had to be something to do with Roland’s death, but I didn’t know any more than that.

  “We know you were having an affair with Roland Cavendish,” Detective Roberts said, leaning forward in his chair.

  I was shocked. I looked at Henderson, though he was awkwardly staring at his feet instead of looking at me. “Why on earth do you think that?” I snapped. Roberts shot me an angry glare, but I couldn’t care less. They had no idea what was going on.

  “We have our sources,” Roberts said, clearly not intending to clarify further.

  “Well, your sources are ridiculous,” I said. “I don’t need to sit here and take this. I know you don’t have evidence, because none of this is true. Besides, I have an alibi!”

  “Yes, you said you were with Mr. Buttons,” Detective Roberts said, leaning forward. “Miss Potts, for all we know, Mr. Buttons is covering for you.”

  “Why would he do that?” I asked. “This is all insane. Are you going to arrest me for something that you can’t prove I did?”

  “No, we’re not going to arrest you—yet,” Roberts said in a monotone. “We just need to ask you some questions.”

  “You’ve already asked me questions,” I said, standing up. “I don’t have the time or energy for this, especially when the accusation is so ridiculous. I’m all for doing whatever I can to catch whoever’s responsible, but we’re just wasting time here,” I said, desperate to leave. I was embarrassed and frustrated that I was being accused of having an affair with Roland.

  “Sit down, Miss Potts. We’ll detain you if we have to,” Roberts said calmly.

  I sat back down and crossed my arms, feeling myself getting angrier.

  “I’ve got nothing more to tell you,” I said with a shrug. “I was walking with Mr. Buttons, and when I returned home, Roland was there, and he was dead. I don’t know why he went into my home. To be honest, I’d assumed that figuring out that sort of thing was your job,” I said with a glare of my own.

  “Did you give him the ice cream sundae?” Roberts asked.

  I shook my head. “No! As I’ve already told you, I invited his wife, Sally, over for one later in the day. I hadn’t even prepared it.”

  Henderson looked up from making notes. “But you had purchased the ingredients?”

  I nodded. “Sort of. I already had all the ingredients in the house.�
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  The questioning continued for another couple hours, though we were really just going over ground I’d already covered. I felt like Roberts was just doing this to spite me, since none of us really discovered anything new, except that police station coffee loses its flavor on about the seventh cup.

  Eventually I was released, though Roberts was sure to let me know that they were keeping an eye on me and that I wasn’t to leave town. They told me that I had to give them notification if I wanted to leave town, and that struck me as ridiculous. Still, I decided that I should do as I was told, since I didn’t want to give them any more reason to suspect me.

  I drove back to my booth at the dog show and packed it away, wishing my day had gone better. I had been worried that somebody might have stolen something, but everything seemed to be in place when I returned, much to my relief.

  I had almost finished packing when my phone rang. “Hello?” I said, resting the phone between my head and shoulder as I packed.

  “Sibyl, it’s Cressida,” she explained, the concept of Caller ID apparently still foreign to her. “I just thought you’d like to know what Lord Farringdon said. It seems important.”

  I sighed. Lord Farringdon had been eerily accurate in the past, considering he was a cat, but it still bothered me that Cressida turned to him for information. “What is it?” I asked, figuring that it was better to ask than to ignore Cressida completely.

  “He said that the killer is closer than we realized.”

  “Well, that’s cryptic and unsettling,” I said, sighing again. “Couldn’t he just tell us who the killer is?”

  “Oh, dear, no,” Cressida said with a laugh, as if I’d asked the stupidest question possible.

  “I’ll have to talk to you later, Cressida,” I said as I nearly dropped the stack of brushes I was balancing. “I’m cleaning up my booth. Thanks for the warning. I’ll talk to you later.” I freed a hand to end the call. I appreciated that she was trying to help, but her warning hadn’t settled my nerves in any way.

  I eventually managed to finish cleaning away my booth, much to my relief. Packing up was always the worst part of these kinds of jobs. I decided that I’d head to a café on my way home for a proper coffee to wash away the awful taste of whatever had passed for coffee back at the police station.

  I stopped in at the first café I saw on the edge of town, ordering the strongest non-alcoholic drink they had, and sitting by the window. I took a moment to gather my thoughts. I did understand why the police had suspected me in the first place—after all, Roland had died in my own home. Yet had somebody tipped them off? If so, that person was likely the real murderer, or at least somebody who wanted the real murderer protected.

  I was so lost in thought that I nearly missed it. A man had come into the café and ordered take out, a fact of no interest until he walked out and got into a car with Sally. She laughed as the man said something to her, and I noticed he’d bought two coffees. Whoever he was, he was certainly good friends with Sally, who now seemed suddenly less concerned about the death of her husband. Still, the man hadn’t paid any attention to me at all, so I doubted he knew who I was. But had Sally tipped off the police to try to frame me? It added up, but maybe I was over analyzing. I took a long sip of my coffee and leaned back in my chair. I needed a nap.

  Chapter 6

  “Oh, the poor roses,” Mr. Buttons lamented, picking off some leaves with black spots and throwing them onto the dirt.

  “It is winter,” I reminded him, gesturing to the landscape before us. The sky was overcast and with a gray tinge, not at all the brilliant deep blue of the familiar Australian sky. Some of the roses had managed to continue this late into winter, and the Sasanqua camellias were in full bloom. I pointed this out to Mr. Buttons, but he did not seem consoled by the fact.

  “Look at those dead trees!” he said, gesturing to a row of bare Alder trees on the horizon.

  I shook my head. “You’re from England,” I said. “You should be used to deciduous trees—you know they’re not dead.”

  Mr. Buttons rubbed his forehead in a gesture of sadness. “I expected to see these sights in England, but in Australia, I would expect that everything should be green and thriving all year-round.”

  I sighed. “You know as well as I do that that’s the case on the coast, but here inland in the mountains, it gets as cold as it does in England in winter. I know the deciduous trees aren’t native Australian trees, but...”

  I broke off, not knowing where I was going with this train of thought. And I had to admit he was right. The landscape was bleak, depressing even. There was no pungent scent, no delicious aroma of perfumed flowers as there was in summer. The deciduous trees had lost the last of their pretty golden and red leaves, and now had bare limbs reaching out like hopeless specters to the equally bleak sky. The camellias were the only flowering plants in the garden. Even the lavenders looked sad and were not flowering. The weeds, however, were entirely different matter. For some reason, they were flourishing.

  My train of thought was broken by an angry Dorothy bustling down the path. “What are you two doing here?” she demanded.

  I held my breath, wondering how Mr. Buttons would take her rude outburst. I didn’t have to wait long. “Kindly desist from your unacceptable tone, madam,” he said haughtily. “I do happen to live here, unless that fact has escaped your notice.”

  “Get back inside, the two of you!” Dorothy said.

  Mr. Buttons’ face turned bright red, and his cheeks puffed up. He looked like a cartoon character who was about to explode. “How dare you address me in that unseemly manner! I shall do no such thing, of that I assure you,” he said stonily.

  I cast a hopeful look at the front door to see if Cressida would emerge. Cressida seemed to be the only one who could make Dorothy behave. I expect that was as she was the one who signed her paychecks. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Cressida, but I turned as I heard the sound of the postman’s motorbike.

  Dorothy tried to push past Mr. Buttons, but he stood his ground. “Get your hands off me!” she yelled at him.

  Mr. Buttons crossed his arms over his chest. “I can assure you, madam, I have neither desire nor inclination to touch you.”

  I left them arguing and went to collect the mail. There was only one item, a large brown envelope addressed to Roland Cavendish. That would not have been surprising in itself, but what was surprising, was that the letters were glued on, just like the pages I had seen in movies where someone cuts out letters and glues them onto a ransom note.

  I turned around to tell Mr. Buttons about the strange envelope, when Dorothy lunged for it. I managed to pull it away just in time, and then Mr. Buttons shouldered her out of the way.

  “Quick, give me that letter,” she insisted.

  “No,” I said firmly. “It’s not addressed to you.”

  “It is addressed to a boarder, and I am the only staff member of the boarding house present.” She said it quite viciously, and her eyes narrowed to slits.

  Mr. Buttons took the letter from me. “This letter is going straight to the police, madam,” he said, “and you are raising my suspicions as to why you were so keen to get it. Maybe you have something to hide?”

  Dorothy appeared to be summing up the situation for a moment, but then turned and stormed back up the path to the boarding house, muttering words that I had only ever heard my cockatoo utter previously.

  Mr. Buttons waited until Dorothy was safely inside before speaking. “Can you believe this, Sibyl? This looks like a blackmail letter. Who else would paste letters on like this? It was obviously sent before Roland died, and that’s why Dorothy was so keen to get it before anyone else saw it.”

  I rolled my eyes. Mr. Buttons had been sure that Dorothy was the murderer in every instance of murder at the boarding house—and, sad to say, there had been several. He was always completely and utterly convinced that Dorothy was the murderer. It seemed that this murder was no exception. “It must have been posted afte
r he died, by someone who didn’t know he was already dead,” I pointed out.

  Mr. Buttons disagreed. “No, because it has a Little Tatterford postmark.” He delicately jabbed his finger at the top right hand corner of the envelope.

  I was puzzled. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Obviously, everyone in town knows that Roland Cavendish had been murdered, so they are hardly likely to mail him a blackmail note after he’s dead.” Mr. Buttons raised his eyebrows at me.

  “But we don’t know what’s in the letter,” I pointed out. “Maybe it was a student prank, or something.”

  Mr. Buttons’ face fell. “You’re right. Of course, we need to read it! Let’s go inside and open it.”

  “But we can’t,” I protested. “It’s most likely evidence in a murder investigation.”

  Mr. Buttons was unperturbed. “We’ll use gloves when we steam it open,” he pronounced triumphantly. “Let’s go to your cottage, Sibyl, because we don’t want Dorothy interfering, especially given the fact that she’s the murderer.”

  I threw out my arms in exasperation, and followed Mr. Buttons down to my cottage. What else could I do? I’d never convince him of the fact that Dorothy wasn’t the murderer. He didn’t seem put out by the fact that he had been proven wrong in every case previously. He just disliked the woman, and there was no getting around it.

  I opened the door to my cottage, and hurried over to stoke the fire, with Mr. Buttons hard on my heels. “If you want to know about mistakes, ask your parents!” came a voice behind us.