Muffins and Mourning Tea (Oxford Tearoom Mysteries ~ Book 5)

by H. Y. Hanna

  “But wait… what about the village residents?” I said. “They’re always saying how they like the simple, rustic style of my tearoom. They’re not going to take kindly to having their cakes and scones presented on a multi-tiered silver platter—they’ll think that’s a lot of poncy nonsense for tourists in London hotels!”

  “Well, you can offer both! If the locals just want to come in and have their cuppa with a slice of cake on an old chipped plate, you can do that,” said Cassie with a grin. “But there’s nothing to stop you offering the full experience for tourists, complete with all the fancy trimmings. Trust me, Gemma, it’ll work out great! And I could design special menu cards for the packages,” said Cassie, her eyes lighting up. “I’ll do a couple of watercolours of a teapot and cups, maybe some cakes and flowers—we can print these in the bottom corner… and then the name of the package in lovely, old-fashioned calligraphy across the top… and then a list of all the foods included in that set menu, together with the choice of teas. And we can have a version online… I’ve been telling you to sort out the tearoom website, Gemma—have you done anything about that?”

  I gave her a sheepish look. “No, sorry—it’s on my To-Do list but I’ve just been too busy.”

  Cassie heaved an exasperated sigh. “Gemma! How can you expect to do business in the twenty-first century without a website? People need to know where to find us, our opening hours, what sorts of things we serve, the history of the place… You could get some great artistic shots of the tearoom and put them in a gallery on the website.” She gestured around the room, indicating the inglenook fireplace and the picturesque dark wood beams across the ceiling. “This place! It’s the perfect chocolate-box setting for Olde World English charm. You know how much foreign tourists love these kind of things! You’ve got to milk it more.”

  “Yes, I know—you’re right. I’m sorry, I’ll get onto it… I promise.”

  “No, you won’t,” said Cassie cynically. “Listen, I’ll tell you what: I’ll do it. If you don’t mind leaving it in my hands—I’ll set up a website and design the pages… and I’ll get my brother, Liam, to come and take some photos of the tearoom. He’s getting quite good with his camera, actually, and I know he’d love the project. It would be great for building his portfolio.”

  I gave her an impulsive hug. “Thank you so much, Cassie! Yes, I’ll hand everything over to you, but… on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I want to pay you a fee.”

  Cassie frowned. “Don’t be silly, Gemma—”

  “No, I mean it,” I insisted. “If I hire a professional website designer, I’d be paying a huge fee anyway. Think of it as a commission, Cassie. If someone asked you to paint them a portrait, you wouldn’t do it for free, would you? This will be taking up your spare time—so I want to pay for it.”

  “Well, all right…” said Cassie reluctantly.

  I had a feeling that when it came to it, she would probably insist on only charging me “discounted rates”—that was the kind of generous friend Cassie was—but at least this was a start.

  “A website would make all the catering orders a lot easier too,” Cassie continued enthusiastically. “I could set up an online form that people can fill in with their requirements so that we get all the necessary information when the request comes in, rather than all this back-and-forth calling and taking messages at the moment. It’ll free up a lot more time for us and look more professional and be a way to promote any monthly specials we might have running—”

  “You sure you want to be an artist?” I said to Cassie jokingly. “I think you’d have a brilliant career as a marketing manager in a top executive company.”

  Cassie made a face. “Me? Work in the corporate rat race? No way!”

  ***

  I had just flipped the sign on the tearoom door from “OPEN” to “CLOSED” and was tidying up the counter when the Old Biddies marched up to me, an expectant look on their faces.

  “Are you ready, dear?” asked Mabel.

  I looked at her blankly. “Ready? For what?”

  “To go to Haverton College, of course!” she said. “We’re going to speak to the students there.”

  “For the murder investigation,” added Glenda, her eyes sparkling. She held up a plastic carrier bag. “And we’ve got disguises!”

  “Disguises?” I gaped at her.

  As I watched in bemusement, Glenda reached in and pulled out four frilly pinafore aprons from the bag, whilst Ethel said, with a little bounce of excitement:

  “We’re going to wear these and pretend to be scouts!”

  “Er… don’t you think you look too… um… well, mature to be scouts?” I asked.

  “I don’t think I look a day over sixty-nine,” said Glenda, tossing her head and patting her hair. She had obviously just had a particularly powerful blue rinse and her hair looked almost aqua.

  “Don’t worry—nobody will suspect, especially since we have props!” said Florence, pulling more things out of the bag. She brandished a plastic spray bottle and an enormous rainbow-coloured feather duster in my face.

  I sneezed violently. “Uh… I don’t think this is going to work,” I said, rubbing my nose.

  “Nonsense! Young people nowadays… you have no imagination!” said Mabel, pursing her lips.

  “Don’t worry, Gemma dear, we haven’t left you out. We went to the second-hand charity shop in Oxford and these are for you. You’ll be disguised as a student.”

  I looked down with dismay at the pile of clothes that Ethel had thrust into my hands. There was a pair of faded drainpipe jeans with rips at the knees, a baggy T-shirt, and some kind of strange top that looked like a cross between a poncho and a shower curtain. I suppressed a shudder. Did I really have such bad fashion sense when I was a student?

  “And I got you a pair of glasses as well, dear,” added Ethel, holding up a pair of thick horn-rimmed classes which would have made Velma from Scooby-Doo proud.

  “You’ll need to do something about your face, though,” said Mabel, examining me critically. “We need you looking different from your normal self! Put some colour on your cheeks, so you look young and blooming.”

  Thanks, I thought. Obviously my normal self looks pale, old, and haggard.

  “Would you like me to help you with that, dear?” said Glenda eagerly, taking a compact out of her handbag. “I’ve got some blusher here. I can apply a bit of a rosy hue to your cheeks—”

  “Uh… no, no thanks,” I said hastily, taking a step back. Judging by the bright pink glow on her own cheeks, Glenda’s idea of “a bit of a rosy hue” would probably leave me looking like a feverish clown.

  “Well, hurry up and change, dear—we haven’t got all day,” said Mabel, making a shooing motion with her hands.

  I hesitated. It was on the tip of my tongue to say that this was a ridiculous idea and I wasn’t going to allow them to do it—and to repeat the lecture that Devlin had given me the other night about amateurs meddling in murder investigations. But to my surprise, what came out of my mouth instead was:

  “All right—give me five minutes.”

  As I struggled to change in the tearoom toilet, I asked myself why I was going along with the Old Biddies’ ludicrous plan. Okay, so I had to admit—maybe I did want to go to Haverton College to snoop around a bit, and the Old Biddies had given me a convenient excuse. As for Devlin… well, it wasn’t as if we were doing anything really illegal, was it? I mean, as a member of the University alumni, I was allowed to visit any of the colleges any time I liked. And as for the Old Biddies—well, there wasn’t any law against wearing pinafore aprons, was there? It wasn’t their fault if people mistook them for scouts.

  I was still trying to reassure myself with these excuses some forty minutes later as we stood outside the imposing eighteenth-century baroque façade of Haverton College and surveyed the giant iron-studded double doors which guarded the entrance to the college. They were still open, thank goodness. Like m
any colleges, Haverton didn’t close its main gate until twilight. We just had to figure out a way to get through the gate and across the wide expanse of the Front Quadrangle without catching the eye of the college porters.

  “This is the tricky bit,” Mabel hissed. “Once we’re past the Front Quad and into the Rear Quad, we’ll be fine. Ethel—you go first. You are the smallest and people are least likely to notice you. Just keep to the right side of the quad, in the shadow of the cloisters, and keep walking very purposefully. The key is to look like you belong there and then no one will question you. Go through the archway on the far side of the quad and wait for us there.”

  We all held our breaths and watched as Ethel tottered through the main gate, past the door of the Porter’ Lodge. So far, so good. No one seemed to have noticed her. She turned right and followed the wide flagstone path, which ran around the outer edge of the pristine square of grass in the centre of the quadrangle. Finally, she reached the far corner where a large archway led the way through to the Rear Quad and disappeared.

  “She made it!” said Mabel. “Right, you next, Florence.”

  “Perhaps I ought to pause halfway and pretend I’m dusting the side of the quad?” said Florence, holding up her rainbow duster hopefully.

  “No! Keep that duster down and by your side. I told you to buy the dark blue one, Flo—rainbow attracts too much attention.”

  “I think rainbow is a lovely colour,” Florence protested. “And besides, I thought once we’re finished here, Gemma could have it for her cotta—”

  “NO!” I said hastily. I made an effort to lower my voice. “Uh… thanks, that’s really sweet of you, Florence but I don’t need a duster.” Especially not one that looks like a giant psychedelic caterpillar.

  “Oh, but of course you do. Every household—”

  “Go on, Florence, before a porter comes out!” said Mabel, giving her friend a shove towards the main gate.

  Florence turned back and glared at us, then straightened her pinafore apron, tucked the feather duster under her arm, and marched through the gate. She began ambling across the quad. Unlike Ethel, who had followed the path around the outer edge of the grass, however, Florence had somehow ended up on the pathway that cut through the centre of the lawn. She stopped suddenly as she realised her mistake and hesitated. But she was already nearly halfway across, and to get to the outer path (without walking across the grass—which was one of the biggest taboos in Oxford) she would have to turn around and come all the way back to the front gate.

  “Keep going!” hissed Mabel loudly.

  Florence squared her shoulders, then turned and kept going. I watched her nervously. Suddenly, two students entered the quad from the archway at the other end and began walking down the centre path towards Florence. I saw them slow down as they approached her and one of them pointed to the rainbow feather duster, but to my relief, all she did was nudge her friend and the two of them burst into giggles as they passed Florence. A minute later Florence gained the other side of the quad and disappeared in her turn through the archway.

  Two down, two to go, I thought, looking at Mabel and Glenda.

  “We’ll go together,” said Mabel to her friend. “Keep your head down and nod as if you’re listening to what I have to say. If we look very busy and important, and walk briskly like we’re heading somewhere, nobody will stop us. In fact, take that little address book out of your handbag, Glenda, and flip the pages as you are walking—and I’ll pretend to point to something in it as I’m talking.”

  I watched in awe as the two of them set off, each enacting their part perfectly. Mabel should have been in the Secret Service—how did she stay so cool and where did she come up with all these ideas? Then my heart lurched as I saw a black-suited figure step out of the Porter’s Lodge. It was one of the college porters. He paused and looked at the two elderly ladies trundling across the quad in their pinafore aprons. I saw his forehead crease in a frown and he took a step forwards as if about to say something. Then he stopped. Somehow, Mabel’s air of brisk importance must have convinced him. He stood and watched them walk to the other side of the quad, then gave a barely perceptible shrug and went back into the Lodge.

  I let out the breath I had been holding. Okay, that was the Old Biddies through. Now it was my turn.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I took a deep breath and tried to channel “carefree uni student”. I adjusted my posture, letting my shoulders slouch backwards and my face relax into a vacant, naïve smile. Shoving my hands into my pockets, I strolled through the gate. To be honest, I didn’t really have anything to fear—I could always whip out my university alumni card if I really got stuck—but it would have been better if I didn’t have to explain myself to the college porters.

  It was a relief when I gained the safety of the archway on the other side of the quad and found the Old Biddies huddled there. They were grouped around a large bulletin board covered with flyers and posters about university clubs and college events. There was an open doorway next to the bulletin board with the letters “J.C.R.” engraved across its top: the Junior Common Room—where undergraduates congregated to socialise, watch TV, eat, drink, and play pool or other recreational games.

  “You go in there, Gemma,” said Mabel, jerking her head towards the J.C.R doorway. “Get chatting with some of the students, dear, and see if you hear any gossip about Charlie or his girlfriend or roommate.”

  “Where are you going?” I asked, looking at the four little old ladies in front of me.

  “Investigating,” said Mabel cryptically.

  On second thoughts, I decided that it was probably better if I didn’t know what the Old Biddies were getting up to. I left them huddled whispering outside and went into the J.C.R. It was fairly empty at this time of the day and, for a moment, I wondered if I wouldn’t be able to find anyone to “chat” with. There were a couple of boys around the pool table and a girl curled up in an armchair in the far corner, engrossed in a book, but neither group looked very open to a stranger coming up and starting a conversation. As I was hovering just inside the doorway, wondering what to do, someone else came into the common room and nearly bumped into me.

  “Oh! I’m sorry!”

  I turned around and found myself facing a pretty, plump girl with frizzy yellow hair.

  “No, it’s my fault,” I said quickly, smiling at her. “I shouldn’t have stood so close to the door.”

  She returned my smile in a friendly fashion and I seized the opportunity. I pointed to her feet.

  “I love your shoes! Where did you get them from?”

  She beamed. “Oh, this little shop in the Covered Market. They do loads of vintage stuff. These are actually second-hand—can you believe it?”

  I gave an appropriate gasp of appreciation. “Really? I would never have guessed. What a fantastic find. But then, you’ve got really good taste,” I said shamelessly.

  She flushed with pleasure. “Well, I do love poking around vintage stores—it’s sort of like treasure hunting—and I guess you get a knack. The shoes aren’t very comfy though,” she admitted with a grimace. She hobbled over to a couple of chairs by the TV and sat down with a sigh. She took off one shoe and wriggled her toes. “I think I’m getting a blister…”

  I sat down next to her and she looked at me enquiringly. “Are you a student here? I don’t think I’ve seen you around the college.”

  “Um… I’m at a different college,” I said, telling myself that it wasn’t really a lie. I had been at a different college… eight years ago. Quickly, I changed the subject. “Do you like being at Haverton?” I asked chattily. “I’ve always wondered what it was like being in a college right on the High Street—like with the May Day celebrations and all the crowds…”

  “Oh, it isn’t that bad,” she said. “I mean, the student rooms are set back from the street so it isn’t too noisy if you want to sleep in. Anyway, it’s only once a year and it’s kind of nice to be practically on the doorstep of the celebrat
ions.” She gave a sudden shiver. “Well, except it wasn’t so nice this year—that awful thing that happened on the bridge…”

  “Did you know the boy who died?” I asked. “I heard that he was at Haverton.”

  She nodded. “Yes, he lived on my staircase! He and Damian had the room on the top level.” She opened her eyes very wide. “They’re saying that Charlie was murdered. Can you believe that? It’s just too unreal to even think about.”

  “Was he the type to have enemies?” I asked.

  “Charlie Foxton?” She gave me an incredulous look. “No, he was the nicest chap! Everyone liked him. I can’t imagine anyone who would want to harm him.”

  “Did you know him well?”

  “No… I mean, I knew him to say hello to and we’d stop to have a natter sometimes if we met on the staircase, but I wasn’t really in his crowd. He did invite me to his parties though—he was always really nice like that. Whenever he and Damian had a party, he’d always come round and invite everyone on the staircase.”

  I gave her a conspiratorial smile. “Were they good parties?”

  “They were really popular,” said the girl. “The college porters had to come shut them down a few times.”

  “Oh, was there trouble at the parties?”

  “No, not really. No more than usual. They just got a bit loud and wild sometimes, you know, if people drank a bit too much.” She saw my questioning look and added, “Not Charlie. He wasn’t the aggressive type when he got drunk. Damian, though, is a different story. He can be a nasty piece of work when he’s had one too many. He’s nothing like Charlie, actually—I wonder sometimes why they’re friends. Charlie’s so nice, whereas I wouldn’t trust Damian as far as I could throw him. And Charlie’s so generous too; Damian’s a bit of a leech, always trying to scrounge money off you.”

  “Was Damian hard up?”

  “No, I don’t think so. But I think he liked to live the rich life and, you know, being around Charlie… well, I suppose he felt like he had to keep up with his friend.”