SAY GOODBYE TO ARCHIE: A Rex Graves Mini-Mystery

by Challinor, C. S.

  “It’s become something of a trademark, so I always take my quill and green ink when I do book signings. Only Roger and Felicity come into my office and Faye, of course, if I’m not working. But there’s no lock on the door.”

  “Who was here between Thursday night and Friday morning?”

  “People were in and out of the house all day to offer their sympathies. Connie was already here and Charles arrived in the early evening. I was in my study until ten at night. Nothing was amiss that I remember. I first noticed the red on the blotter at eight the following morning. Archie’s definitely trying to tell me something. I’ve been racking my brains. A red blot. Dot. A button? I got my spare key back from Dot. She was quite offended, I think. And Roger’s button in the foxglove patch is suspicious, to say the least.”

  “Pity Archie couldn’t just write the letters and give us more of a clue.”

  Patricia looked at him as though disappointed in a bright pupil. “Well, he can’t write, naturally.”

  Rex noted the present tense. Clearly Archie lived on in her mind.

  “Sewing scissors.” Patricia paused long enough to make Rex ask her what she meant. “Dot had a pair with her yesterday in her knitting bag. I saw them when she cut a length of yarn in the garden. You were sitting out there. You might have seen them. Before that, the bag was in the kitchen, on one of the chairs, and Roger’s cardigan was in the back parlour were he left it.”

  “You’re suggesting someone used the scissors to snip off his button?”

  “Or else Roger lost it when he was getting the foxglove Wednesday night to poison Archie’s food with.”

  “But would Roger wear his favourite cardigan to rummage in the garden?”

  “Roger is not gifted with the greatest good sense,” Patricia remarked. “But I’m convinced the red on the blotter points to either Roger or Dot.” She sat back wearily in her leather chair. “Or could it be blood? It’s all rather sinister, especially in light of the note.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Rex admitted. “But I didn’t want to alarm you.”

  The old lady sighed dispiritedly. “Please tell Connie I won’t be having dinner. I’m not hungry. I’ll just stay here awhile.”

  “Can I bring you anything? Some tea, perhaps?”

  “No, thank you, Reginald. I just need a bit of peace and quiet. It’s been rather a tiring day.”

  “Patricia,” he asked on his way to the door. “Do you have a paper knife?”

  “Just this,” she said, pulling out a wooden envelope opener with a handle carved in the shape of a thistle. “It was a present from your mother.” She gave a wan smile.

  Rex felt a small measure of relief. It did not look at all deadly.

  *

  Dinner promised to be a sombre affair. Clearly Charles was only staying out of politeness, and he had made it clear he needed to leave immediately afterwards to get back to London. Connie heated up the casserole and set the table in the kitchen, “Since it’s just the three of us,” she said. She extracted a batch of rolls from the microwave. The fluorescent lighting accentuated her crow’s feet, the tramlines between her brows, and the brackets around her mouth. Charles opened a bottle of claret and after the first glass became more animated. After the second, his already ruddy cheeks were well flushed. Inevitably the conversation turned to Archie’s death, and brother and sister talked in hushed tones even though Patricia had gone upstairs to bed.

  “She would have left him the house. And a cat charity gets most of the money,” Charles divulged, his tongue loosened by wine.

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Connie said, ladling out seconds of stew to which Dot had added potatoes and carrots from her garden.

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” Charles revealed. “I saw the will.”

  “You never!” Connie exclaimed. “When?”

  “Thursday night when I was… Well, never mind what I was doing. Mother’s desk was unlocked and curiosity got the better of me. I got a paper cut for my trouble.” He showed his sister a pale scar on his index finger. Rex had to wonder if the man was accident prone. A cut, and then a twisted ankle. “I’ve always wanted to know what was in that wretched will,” Charles said. “And now I do.”

  Rex remained quiet during this exchange. In the siblings’ excitement he was all but forgotten, although Connie gave him a guilty glance before eagerly asking her brother, “Well?”

  Charles cleared his throat and leaned in conspiratorially. “Thanks to Archie popping off first, the terms of the will are more in line with what one might expect, though not enough to make either of us rich. Excuse us,” Charles apologized to Rex. “You must think us very indelicate to be discussing private matters in front of a non-family member. But Connie and I don’t get much of a chance to talk except on the phone. And Archie’s death, murder, what have you, made me wonder about my mother’s will. I knew she’d made some outrageous provisions in it in the event she went first. She was always talking to Archie about it. ‘Don’t you worry, Archie, you’ll be well taken care of. You’ll never have to go back to that horrible shelter!’ ” he mimicked in his mother’s lowland Scots voice.

  “Still,” Connie hurriedly added for Rex’s benefit, “We were shocked by Archie’s murder. It was murder, Charlie,” she insisted. “Dr. Strange wouldn’t lie about a thing like that.”

  Rex read in Charles’ expression a measure of relief that someone had bumped Archie off and released the property to the children. Charles gulped down the last of his wine and regarded the empty bottle with an air of regret. Florid of complexion, pouchy-eyed and jowly, he exhibited the signs of an habitual drinker.

  “Who do you think killed Archie?” Rex said, setting his knife and fork in his empty plate.

  “No one we know,” Connie replied. “No one was in the house Wednesday evening when Mother was at the book club. Dot, who’s the only other person apart from us who has a key, as far as I know, was at the book club too. And we weren’t here, were we, Charlie? I arrived later.”

  “I was in London,” her brother alibied.

  “Your mother said you were here on Wednesday afternoon, though,” Rex contradicted. Patricia had told him it was Charles who had picked up the anonymous note posted through the front door.

  “In the afternoon, yes. But it was a lightening visit. There was a matter I wanted to discuss with Mother, but she was busy with Felicity.”

  “What matter?” Connie asked.

  “I needed a small loan, if you must know. Anyway,” Charles told Rex, “I didn’t hear about Archie’s death until Thursday morning.”

  “Mother said she tried to reach you on your mobile and on your landline.”

  “I didn’t get her messages until Thursday morning. And even then, all she said was, ‘Charles, call me back. It’s urgent.’ ”

  “I drove over straightaway,” Connie told Rex. “Mother was beside herself. Dr. Strange had just left with Archie to perform a post mortem at her insistence.”

  Rex worried about Patricia’s state of mind. Aside from her loss, she was under a lot of strain and pressure, not least of which was her looming deadline. “Does she often go to bed this early?” he asked.

  “She said she was too upset to eat,” Connie said. “I took her up some warm milk. She’s beginning to look a bit gaunt, don’t you think, Charlie? But she often goes to bed early to read,” she told Rex. “And gets up at the crack of dawn.”

  *

  Rex did the same and next morning found Patricia making tea. She appeared more composed and said she’d managed to sleep out of sheer exhaustion. She prepared hot buttered crumpets and placed a glass dish filled with homemade strawberry jam on the table.

  “From Dot’s garden,” she informed him.

  Rex tasted the jam, which burst with summer flavour. “It’s excellent. Seems Dot has a green thumb. The stew was delicious, incidentally. Connie left you some for your lunch.”

  Patricia joined him at the kitchen table with a pot of tea. “D
ot is very good at the domestic stuff. Now, tell me: Did you find out anything useful over dinner?”

  “Well, for one thing, Charles received a paper cut in your study. Possibly he used the blotting paper to absorb the blood on his finger.”

  Patricia added sugar to her tea. “I see. No doubt he was snooping about hoping to find my will and see what I’ve left him. He’s in dire financial straits, you know.”

  “Be that as it may, the blot was likely not a sign or an omen. You must push all such notions from your mind, Patricia. Especially since I think I may know who our culprit is.” He had tossed and turned in Charles’ single bed that night brainstorming. Patricia stiffened in her chair. “And once that person is exposed,” he continued, “they will not dare harm you, if indeed that is their intention.”

  “You really have a clue who poisoned Archie?”

  “I do. A few clues.”

  “Well, who on earth is it?” she demanded in agitation.

  First Rex proceeded to tell her about the darkly clad figure Noel thought he had seen on Wednesday night, but added that her neighbour might be making up the story to avoid personal blame. Or perhaps it had been Patricia he had seen looking for her cat. Noel had said it was getting dark, and Archie would have already been dead, according to the vet, whom she had called after nine when she found him in the flower bed.

  “Or else Noel is making up the story because it was him,” Patricia declared. “I was not dressed in particularly dark clothes. But he couldn’t have been in the house Wednesday evening. In fact, today was the first time since the injury to his dog’s nose that he’s been round here. How could he have tampered with Archie’s food?”

  “By using a gardening implement or other tool to hook the bowl?”

  “Yes, of course! How silly of me not to have thought of that. No one had to be in the house, did they? The bowl could have been pulled outside and pushed back in. Reginald, I’m so glad you came. I feel now we might be getting somewhere!” She straightened in her chair, all business.

  “Tell me everything that happened Wednesday evening,” Rex said spreading jam on a dimpled crumpet. “From the time you put out Archie’s food in the conservatory.”

  “Well, Felicity was here. We were working on an interactive edition for the e-book version of a Claude story. She came with me to the book club afterwards and then drove straight back to London.”

  “She was with you the whole time?”

  “Never out of my sight. We left Madeline’s shortly before eight and walked back here, where she picked up her car. I really wish now that I had not gone to the book club!”

  Rex knew all about the “if only’s.” How many times would Patricia recreate in her mind the events of that night so she could have prevented Archie’s death?

  “You said you usually put out Archie’s food at six?”

  “That’s right. We were running late. I think I must have called him and then left for the book club. Felicity was our guest of honour.”

  “Did anyone leave during the book club?”

  “Leave? No. We were all there until the end.”

  “No temporary absences?”

  “None, apart from the usual bathroom breaks.”

  “Think hard now,” Rex coaxed, hoping against hope his theory was correct.

  Patricia screwed up her face in concentration, pushing her lopsided glasses back up her nose with two fingers.

  “Take yourself back and recount events in order as best you can.”

  “We arrived at the B&B. Madeline greeted us at the door. I introduced Felicity to everyone. Dot, she had already met. Katrina is a young mum with a toddler at home, but she never misses the book club. Says it keeps her sane, although I don’t know when she finds the time to read the books. She’s married to an architect and lives in one of the converted barns.”

  Rex grit his teeth, waiting for useful information, yet not wishing to interrupt Patricia’s train of thought.

  “Jackie writes romantic mysteries and was keen to meet Felicity. They’re about the same age, that’s to say mid-fifties. They seemed to hit it off, and Jackie was very excited when Felicity agreed to look at some of her work. Then there’s Cecilia, who lives in the first cottage you come to in the village. She’s well into her nineties, but still likes to garden. And Cheryl. She runs a lunch place in Seaford. Late thirties, married, has a step-son.”

  Rex was mentally knocking his head against the table by this point.

  “That’s seven, plus Felicity.” Patricia did a count on her fingers. “Yes, all present and accounted for. After wine and hors-d’oeuvres, we discussed the current book, a mystery set in the Shetlands, and then Felicity answered questions about her role as a literary agent and how best to submit, et cetera. That’s it, really.”

  “Felicity had read the book you were discussing?”

  “Actually, no. She had to take an important call and left us to it. Unless it was a pretext to smoke. She smokes rather more than she should.”

  “She left the room?”

  “I believe so.”

  “How long was she gone?”

  “I’m not sure. Not more than ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “Enough time to run back to your house. It’s only a wee village. Was she wearing heels?”

  “Boots, I think. It was windy and raining on Wednesday. Are you suggesting it was Felicity who murdered Archie?”

  “At what point did she disappear?”

  “We got into the book discussion about half an hour after we arrived.”

  “Six-thirty?”

  “Thereabouts.”

  Rex sat back in his chair. “Can you remember what else she was wearing on Wednesday?”

  “Business attire. Much the same as today, but maybe slacks? She was wearing a red raincoat and had an umbrella. But it wasn’t raining when we walked to Madeline’s. It felt good to be out, I remember. The air felt very fresh after the rain. I also remember thinking Archie might be out in the garden after being cooped inside all day. His fur always smelled so good after he’d been outdoors.” Patricia lost herself in a moment of nostalgia, and then came to again. “But, seriously, Reginald. Felicity can’t be your suspect.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it doesn’t make any sense! She made a living off Archie, same as me and Roger, though to a lesser extent.”

  “Did she ever show Archie any affection?”

  “Not especially. She’s allergic to cats. Sometimes I had to put him outside the study when she was visiting, as her eyes would start to get irritated.” Patricia stared at him through her lenses, her pupils dilated. “That is no reason to get rid of my cat!”

  “Well, there’s a bit more to it than that. I’m sorry to have to inform you that it was probably her who murdered Archie. Not that anyone on your list would have been good news.”

  “I never really suspected Felicity. She offered to come when I called her with the news of Archie’s death. Felicity Parker? Can you prove it?”

  “I have a wee trick up my sleeve. It was on Felicity’s sleeve, actually. I picked it off her jacket yesterday when Charles almost knocked her off her feet.”

  “He can be very clumsy, that boy. But I’m not sure I follow.”

  “If you could boil the kettle and bring me the Say Goodbye to Archie note and some glue, I’ll show you. And I’ll need Felicity’s home address so I can pay her a personal visit.”

  *

  As Rex got off the train at Victoria Station he wondered if he would catch Felicity at home on a Sunday morning. Yet he felt it unlikely she’d be at church. After all, murdering poor Archie wasn’t a very Christian thing to do. Fortunately, she didn’t live far away, and if he took a taxi he would have enough time to see her and get to King’s Cross for his scheduled train back to Edinburgh.

  When he arrived at her address in a nondescript block of flats located in a mainly residential neighbourhood, with an Indian restaurant on the corner, he asked the cabbie to wait while he went
to see if the person he was calling on was home. Hoping and praying that she was, he rang on her bell at the front entrance. Felicity’s voice answered on the intercom. He gestured to the cabbie that he would be fifteen minutes, and the man nodded and opened a newspaper.

  The agent sounded surprised and pleased when he announced himself, and invited him up to her flat. At the door she glanced down at his hands as though expecting flowers. It appeared she had applied a fresh layer of lipstick in the time it had taken him to reach her floor in the lift.

  “There’s something important I need to discuss with you,” he said, stepping into the narrow hallway.

  “Oh. Right. Well, come on through.” She led him into a small but comfortable sitting room where stacks of manuscripts bound in elastic bands weighed down a low coffee table. “I brought some work home for the weekend,” she explained. “Sometimes I don’t get time to read at the office.”

  “I won’t detain you. I have a train to catch, so I’ll get straight to the point.”

  She gave a flirty smile. “Not even time for a drink?”

  “Thank you, no.”

  Felicity indicated for him to take a seat in an armchair and sat facing him on the sofa, leaning forward with her hands in her lap, a blank look on her face. She knows what I’ve come to say, he thought.

  “This is not pleasant,” he began. “For I have reason to believe you are responsible for the death of your client’s cat.”

  Felicity jumped up, rather like a cat herself. “This is outrageous!”

  “Please bear with me while I outline how I came to this conclusion. You will have an opportunity to refute anything I say at the end.”

  She sat back down with an exaggerated sigh.

  “As an agent of not only children’s literature, but also of mysteries and gardening books, you would know about the deadly properties of foxglove and, no doubt, reading loads of mysteries would have provided you with a few ideas. Your motive apparently was to silence Patricia’s muse and end the Claude series before it deteriorated too far. Sales were down, you told me, and you could generate publicity from the cat’s death. Make a killing, so to speak.”