by Morgana Best
Murder Most Fowl
(A Sibyl Potts Cozy Mystery, Book 2)
Copyright © 2015 by Morgana Best
All rights reserved
License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The personal names have been invented by the author, and any likeness to the name of any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book may contain references to specific commercial products, process or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, specific brand-name products and/or trade names of products, which are trademarks or registered trademarks and/or trade names, and these are property of their respective owners. Morgana Best or her associates, have no association with any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, specific brand-name products and / or trade names of products.
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Strepsiades.
What are you doing up there in the air? Please tell me.
Socrates (pompously).
I am passing through the air and contemplating the sun.
Strepsiades.
So it's not on the solid ground, but from the height of this basket, that you insult the gods.
Socrates.
I am mingling my fine wit with the kindred air, in order to penetrate the things of heaven clearly. I would have discovered nothing, if I had remained on the ground to consider from below the things that are above. The earth by its own force attracts the sap of the mind to itself. It's
just the same with watercress.
(Aristophanes, Clouds. Play. 423 B.C.E.)
"A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas."
(H L Mencken, Quoted by Geoffrey H Hartman, Easy Pieces, Columbia University, 85)
Chapter One.
I was sitting in the largest, mustiest room on the longest, most boring day of my life. Early afternoon sunlight was filtering through old and yellowing curtains and shining onto the enthusiastic faces of those sitting around me. I was at the monthly philosophy club meeting, no matter how much I wished I wasn't.
Philosophy was never my strong suit, and I very much wanted to keep it that way. I found the whole thing immensely boring, but my landlady, Cressida, had insisted I come along, and eventually I had caved. I found myself sitting there, not knowing how much time had passed. It felt like hours, but I knew it had probably been minutes.
Everybody was discussing Immanuel Kant's works on esthetic interpretation. Up until now, I had always thought philosophy was the study of existence, reality, and life; it turns out it was more likely designed to kill people through boring monologs and abstract notions involving cats in boxes. I sighed and looked out one of the massive Victorian windows of the boarding house.
We were all sitting in one of the largest rooms of the boarding house into whose grounds I had moved in recent weeks. Through the window I could see a majestic garden, beautifully maintained by a new gardener, who had taken over from Mr. Buttons, a resident of the boarding house. Mr. Buttons hadn’t actually been hired to be the gardener, but seemed to have some kind of obsessive tendency toward cleaning and maintenance, and thus had pulled out as many plants as he had weeds. The end result resembled the Sahara Desert. It dawned on me that Mr. Buttons had been in the meeting earlier, but now he was nowhere to be seen.
“Well, Sibyl? What do you think?” Cressida asked me earnestly. Cressida owned the boarding house, and even though we didn't have too much in common, we had gotten along very well since I’d moved to the small Australian town of Little Tatterford. I hadn't been paying attention at all to their discussion, and that fact was becoming increasingly obvious.
“Oh, I, uh...” I stammered. “Could you repeat the question?”
Cressida shot me a disappointed look, but repeated it anyway. “We were discussing whether objective morality can exist without a God. What are your thoughts?” She seemed quite eager to hear my answer.
Not only did I not know, but I couldn't care less. “Yes,” I answered.
Cressida didn't seem particularly excited by my answer or lack of an explanation, but at least she moved on and asked the man sitting next to me, Martin Bosworth.
Martin was a new boarder - an irritable man, he had moved here temporarily in order to have some peace and quiet away from his annoying university students and staff, as he put it, while organizing a conference on the ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates. So far, he had been nice enough in conversation, although he seemed to try to avoid socializing as much as possible. The philosophy club was one of very few exceptions. I attempted to pay attention to the discussion, before I realized that I still couldn't care less.
I counted myself lucky that I had managed to avoid the monthly philosophy club meetings until now. Cressida was particularly excited about this meeting, as the leading lights of philosophy from the universities (as we Aussies always call colleges) on the east coast of Australia had descended upon the nearby city of Pharmidale in readiness for a big philosophy conference on Socrates, a conference organized by Martin Bosworth.
As I listened to the conversation, I remembered why the ancient Athenians had ordered Socrates put to death. There is only so much philosophy one can take.
I took another look out the window. It seemed to be roughly two or three in the afternoon, which meant that the meeting was hopefully coming to a close. The focus of the conversation had moved to Colin Palmer, one of the other new boarders at the house. I didn't know much about him, as we had barely talked, but he seemed nice enough.
Other than some members of the club I didn't recognize, the only other member present was Lord Farringdon, the fat cat. He was sleeping soundly on a chair. If only I could be so lucky.
Mr. Buttons returned, holding a tray of cucumber sandwiches and cups of tea for everybody. When he began to portion out the food and drinks, one of the men I didn't know spoke up. “I must say, this is quite unusual. Do you not have a maid?” As he asked the question, he seemed genuinely bewildered.
“Oh, no,” I replied. “She was sent to jail for fatally poisoning the food of a boarder.” It only occurred to me that this explanation might upset some, when everyone stared at their food and simultaneously sat it aside.
Cressida looked up at me and asked, “Are you okay, dear? You seem distracted.” I knew she was just trying to change the subject, but she was probably genuinely concerned with my well-being as well, given the look on my face.
“I'm fine,” I answered, forcing a fake smile. “But to be honest, philosophy just isn't really my forte. Lord Farringdon here seems to be into it more than I am.” I picked up Lord Farringdon as I said this, and he meowed angrily in response.
"The average dog is a nicer person than the average person."
(Andrew A. Rooney)
Chapter Two.
I stood at the sink, dumping a pot of steaming spaghetti into a strainer sitting in the sink. The spaghetti fell in coils into the bottom of the strainer and the water kept going. I set the pot next to the sink and reached for the strainer, flicking my wrist and tossing the pasta slightly so any trapped water would be drained. I then dumped the pasta back into the pot and set the strainer down.
I reached for a smaller pan filled with bubbling, hot, red sauce -straight from
a jar, of course. As I’m not gifted in the cooking arena, I was concentrating hard and about to tip the sauce onto the noodles, when my cell phone rang from the living room.
I sighed, content to ignore it until I was finished with dinner. The ringtone played out, and then there was silence, and I tossed the noodles with the sauce. I set the pan on the oven again and killed the burner, before opening my cabinet and pulling out a plate. I had just set the plate on the counter next to the stove when the cell phone rang again.
A screech startled me. “Answer the phone, you butt-ugly bimbo.”
“Max!” I shook my head. In the few months that my ex-husband had custody of Max, my sulfur-crested cockatoo, he had taught him to say a long list of rather rude words as well as insults, much to my dismay. I never knew what was going to come out of his beak next.
I left my plate empty on the counter and stomped like an annoyed child into the living room to answer my phone. I looked at the screen, and saw it was my landlord, Cressida, calling. What would Cressida want at this time of evening? I wondered, fearful that Cressida would want to discuss philosophy again.
I figured I had better answer it, so I swiped my finger to the right across the iPhone’s screen and put it on Loud.
“Hey, Cressida,” I said.
“I need you here now!” Cressida’s voice was tight and breathless.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just get here, okay? To the house. Please hurry!”
The line went dead, and I was left looking at the phone until the screen went dark in my hand. I went back into the kitchen, threw a lid on the pot of spaghetti, and tossed it into the fridge before hurrying to the front door.
I pulled my jacket off the hook behind the door, slid on the jacket, and hurried out, before stepping down the steps of my small porch and starting down the path toward the large house in which Cressida and her boarders lived.
It was evening and the sun almost gone, blocked by the trees that rose eerily to the sky on either side of the wide dirt path. The surrounding fields were dark, and birds fluttered this way and that, calling it a day and heading for wherever they called home. The air was brisk, with a sharp coolness that chilled me to the bone whenever the wind picked up. I found the zipper of my jacket after the third such gust and pulled it up to my neck. I slid my hands into the jacket pockets and fell into a jog, but without the benefit of socks, my cheap canvas sneakers rubbed sore spots on the back of both of my heels.
The boarding house loomed over me, impressive and gothic looking through the trees. When I reached the front of the house, the dirt path became a paved one, with a small lot for cars to the left, and a staircase leading up to the wrap around porch directly to the right. I hustled up the stairs and opened the front door.
Cressida was there as I was still pushing open the door, pulling the door handle so hard that it flew open and I stumbled inside. The stale, warm air hit me, contrasting with the clean, cool air outside.
“What’s wrong?” I said at once, alarmed by the expression on her face.
“Oh, it’s happened again. It’s happened again!”
I looked past the frazzled woman, and saw Mr. Buttons standing near the staircase, shaking his head softly, holding a small saucer with a teacup perched upon it and a silver spoon resting next to the cup. His face was white and drawn.
Cressida took my hand and pulled me to the staircase. The two of us hurried up the stairs, with Mr. Buttons right behind us. We went down a short hall and stopped outside a closed door.
“Take a deep breath,” Cressida said, but before I could do such a thing, Cressida let go of my hand and threw open the door.
The room within was impossibly messy, with a writing desk against the wall next to the door, topped with a shiny laptop and sheets and sheets of hand drawn notes. There were piles of clothes around the room, and more notebooks. There were trays with empty plates on them, and empty glasses. And lying face down on the bed, amidst covers thrown this way and that, was a dead man.
“Mr. Bosworth,” I said in shock, averting my eyes. I turned to Cressida. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she said, wringing her hands.
“Were you the one who found him?”
Cressida frowned. “Yes, I did. I was bringing up his dinner. He didn’t eat downstairs with us; I always brought up his dinner. Tonight, he didn’t answer, so I pushed open the door, and there he was.” She pointed to a tray, and to food spilled over the floor.
“You should have called the cops!” I said, throwing my hands in the air.
“She did.”
I looked down the hall to see Sergeant Blake Wessley making his way toward us. He stepped past the three of us and went to the bed. We all followed him into the room. I clutched Mr. Buttons’ arm and tried to avoid looking at the body.
“What’s that?” Blake said, gesturing to a note pinned to the suit on the back of the body.
The three of us inched forward. On a piece of note paper were the words, Crito, we owe a rooster to Asclepius.
“What on earth does that mean?” Cressida said, to no one in particular.
“It’s just nonsense words,” Blake said.
I cleared my throat. “Actually, those were the last words Socrates uttered before his death, which was caused by drinking hemlock.”
Everyone stared at me.
Mr. Buttons was the first to speak. “Sibyl, how did you know that? I thought you didn’t like philosophy.”
I nodded. “Yes, and that’s why. I did a semester of ancient philosophy when I was at university, and it was all about Socrates. It was simply ghastly.”
“Well, that’s all well and good,” Blake said, “but what specifically does that have to do with Martin Bosworth? He’s a professor at the university, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” Cressida said, “and he was the one who organized the big conference on Socrates that starts next week. That’s why I have so many borders at the moment; they’re all speaking at the conference. Most are from out of town, but the others live in Pharmidale and are staying here on a philosophy retreat.”
I peered at the note again. “It’s clear he was murdered by someone who knows something about philosophy,” I said, “as they knew enough to quote Socrates’ last words.”
Blake readily agreed. “But what does Crito, we owe a rooster to Asclepius mean?”
I shrugged. “Crito was his friend, and Asclepius was the god of healing. As for the meaning, that’s been debated for centuries. However, I think the murderer wanted us to know that Martin Bosworth was poisoned by hemlock.”
Cressida gasped. “Sibyl, how did you jump to such a conclusion?”
“Don’t tell me you can smell it,” Blake said, his eyes narrowed.
I glared at him. I happened to have the genetic ability to smell cyanide, which is how I recognized the method of murder used on the last victim at the boarding house.
“Of course not,” I snapped. “It’s simple Philosophy 101, critical reasoning.” I held up four fingers and counted them off. “One, Martin Bosworth was murdered. Two, he was a leading Socratic scholar. Three, the note quoting Socrates’ last words was pinned to his suit. Four, Socrates was killed with hemlock. What better way to kill an eminent Socratic scholar than with hemlock?”
Mr. Buttons nodded, but Blake and Cressida looked at me as if I was making no sense. I don’t know why; it made sense to me.
Blake pointed to the door. “The three of you go and wait out there. Don’t leave the house. I’ll stay here to secure the scene and wait for forensics, Constable Andrews, and the detectives.”
An hour later, the three of us were sitting in the kitchen, sipping hot tea laced with copious amounts of sugar in an attempt to get over the shock. Blake had already questioned us one by one, and warned us that he had called the detectives who would soon be here to take our statements, as well as the statements of all the boarders.
Constable Andrews had been stationed outside Martin Bosworth’s room
, and the forensics team was currently in there.
I set down my piece of carrot cake - I’d eaten the only part I like, the icing - and rubbed my temples. “Blake’s assured me that he’ll ask the pathologist to test for hemlock. Do you think he really will?”
Mr. Buttons nodded. “Absolutely. The murderer left a note, and that had to be for a reason.”
“I think Blake has a soft spot for you, Sibyl,” Cressida said. She didn’t look up at me, but just continued to stir her tea.
Mr. Buttons and I exchanged glances. “Cressida, are you all right?” I asked.
“I took up his last meal,” Cressida wailed. “It must have had the poison in it. Lord Farringdon says they will blame me.”
I made soothing noises and looked down at the fat cat purring around Cressida’s legs. “Surely Lord Farringdon isn’t always right, is he?”
“Yes, he is,” Cressida said. Her wailing grew louder. Even Lord Farringdon stopped purring around her legs and stared up at her in alarm.
I looked at Mr. Buttons for help, but he had taken to his feet and was dusting cat hair from Cressida’s black shoes.
It was then that I fell into a vision. Thousands of quail attacked me, and I fell to the ground as they pecked me. It was just like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s film, The Birds.
"No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does."
Christopher Morley
Chapter Three.
I came to on the floor with Mr. Buttons and Cressida leaning over me. “I’m all right,” I said. “It must have been the shock.” I hadn’t told Cressida or Mr. Buttons about my visions, and indeed, I’d never had a vision before where I had passed out.
Thankfully, my explanation appeared to satisfy them. I straightened up in my chair and rubbed my forehead where I had banged it on the edge of the kitchen table.
My thoughts stayed with my vision. Why quail? I knew Cressida had been collecting chickens (or chooks, as we call them in Australia) lately: some Silver-Laced Wyandottes, some black Frizzle hens, and even some quail. Were Cressida’s quail about to attack me? Surely not; there must be a different interpretation of the vision. But what?
