by Beth Byers
“How do you know that?” Harriet asked.
Georgette glanced at Marian and then, with a tilted head and examining gaze, Georgette replied, “She tried to get me to reveal what my secrets were.”
Harriet paused for a moment, eyes narrowed. “You don’t have secrets, Georgette. What an odd little woman Miss Schmitz is to focus on you when there are those of us who actually have things to hide. It must be nice for you.”
“Why?” Marian asked as she handed her teacup to Georgette to refill. “What is nice for Georgette?”
“To have a simple life without secrets. A pure life, really.”
Georgette blinked rapidly into her teacup and then sipped it before she attempted to reply. Of all the cheek, she thought. To look at Georgette’s life and the cage that Bard’s Crook had put her in as a pure life?
“Surely we all have something we would do differently,” Marian asked. There was something in her tone that had Georgette turning to stare at her friend. “You, perhaps? Is that why you said that?”
Georgette glanced back at Harriet and knew immediately that Harriet did have something to hide. The startled, horrified look in her gaze was answer enough, and Georgette remembered how she had found Harriet weeping over a letter. A letter lost afterwards.
“Did she find your secrets out?” Georgette asked carefully in a sweet tone that one would assume wasn’t prying.
Harriet’s hands were shaking when she tried to mask her concerns with her teacup. The cup rattled against the saucer and she hastily set it down, trying for a smile and failing into something more like a grimace.
“She did, didn’t she?” Georgette said, certain. “She found out something about you.”
Harriet’s lips quivered. “I suppose she must’ve. I received a letter in the mail demanding money or my secret would be revealed. I didn’t think anyone knew.” She sighed heavily. “My husband had an idea. He wrote a book with quite a tirade on unrighteous women and dedicated it to me, you know. His little revenge along with all of the petty day-to-day things he did.” She sniffed and pressed away a tear with her ring finger. “He didn’t even know he had it right. If he had—my goodness, he’d have made it a special mission to make me suffer.”
“Those days are over,” Georgette told Harriet kindly. “Chin up.”
“The threats are over as well, I imagine,” Marian said. “As someone discovered who was behind your letter and killed them.”
“You are assuming that Miss Schmitz sent the letter,” Georgette told her.
“Who else could it have been?”
Georgette stood and paced as she considered. Harriet seemed grateful for a distracted Georgette. Perhaps Mrs. Lawrence expected for Georgette and Marian to demand an explanation of what Miss Schmitz knew about Harriet, but Georgette didn’t want to know.
She considered who she’d seen acting oddly around Miss Schmitz. Mrs. Yancey, Mrs. Hanover, Jasper Thornton. Georgette, herself, she realized with a little smile. Her own situation showed Georgette just how little acting odd around the woman mattered for motive to kill. She sighed as she paced, considering Harriet. If someone had asked Georgette who might have engineered Miss Schmitz’s impending death, Georgette wouldn’t have even guessed that Harriet Lawrence would have a reason for a grudge.
Georgette looked at Marian. They needed to track down Detective Aaron and ensure he knew that Miss Schmitz had possibly been playing a dangerous game. She recalled what she’d seen at Miss Schmitz’s home. It had been small, cramped, and quite poor. The food, what little there was, had been sparse and cheap. Georgette had seen the bowl of potatoes and onions and had little doubt that Miss Schmitz and Mrs. Dogger had been eating as poorly as Georgette had before the success of her book.
“Did you pay?”
Harriet’s mouth twisted as she nodded. “Rather more than I’d like to admit.”
13
CHARLES AARON
“I don’t like any part of this,” Charles said.
Joseph was going through Miss Schmitz’s cottage. He’d gathered up the paperwork and letters and put them in his satchel, and he’d carefully gathered the chocolates and sent them off with the constable. They needed to discover just what Miss Schmitz and Mrs. Dogger had been poisoned with. Dr. Wilkes was betting that the poison was strychnine, but they needed to be entirely sure.
“Why would you like it?” Joseph asked. “This is a mess of notable proportions. Quiet little village, little old maid being struck down for doing what lonely old women do. You know, the last murder case I worked was here in Bard’s Crook. Since then I’ve worked all kinds of crimes, but not a murder. How is it that this pleasant little village is more dangerous than a city as large as London?”
Charles paced in the tiny hall while Joseph examined the cottage, looking for anything out of the way. “If some meddling little woman like this Laurieann Schmitz was in danger, what would happen to Georgette? If these people knew?”
“We need to get Georgette and Marian out of here,” Joseph told Charles as he found a notebook and shoved it in his satchel. “It would be nice if we could get more than a scrap of their time.”
Charles laughed. “I out and out asked that bloke, Parker, what his intentions were towards Georgette. Do you know that I could ask a half-dozen women to marry me in London and be assured of a positive response? What have I come to?”
Joseph shot his uncle a mocking look. “If you want to be bored, you could marry one of those women. You’d end up with two sons, one daughter, a pot belly, and a woman who has gone to fat and is still boring.”
Charles didn’t dignify his nephew with a response.
Joseph, however, paused in looking through the little house. “Are Parker’s intentions towards Marian?” Joseph asked, bypassing Charles’s potential worry. “Bloody hell, we sound like a couple of clucking hens.”
Charles snorted as Joseph locked up the cottage, and they walked towards the constables’ offices. Joseph intended to go through the paperwork and see if he could narrow down what Miss Schmitz had been up to while Charles was going to try, once again, to garner Georgette’s attention.
“Detective Aaron,” Marian called as they turned onto the street where the offices were located. “We have been looking for you.”
The two men turned and found the dual objects of their affections walking arm in arm with their dogs surrounding them like a barking windstorm. Georgette was slim in one of her newer dresses. Charles didn’t think he’d seen this one before. It was peach with a large white collar and reached her mid-calves. Her brown hair glinted with gold streaks in the sunlight.
“If we’re successful,” Charles told his nephew in an undertone, “this is the view we would become accustomed to.”
“I’d be happy to grow so accustomed.”
“They’d be happier if they found themselves neighbors in whatever village I find for Georgette and myself.”
“You find?” Joseph laughed aloud but kept his words quiet. “You have a woman discovering that her wants and choices matter. She’s going to have a rather vociferous vote, I bet. She’ll find this village, and you’ll find yourself merely hoping for a good pub.”
Charles chuckled and then said in a nearly undetectable voice, “At least Georgette would listen to me to some degree. Your Marian will choose wherever Georgette lives, and you’ll be entirely without a voice at all.”
“Or they’ll choose together without regard to either of us, and we’ll be chasing after them rather like we are at the moment.”
“Gentlemen,” Georgette said pleasantly, ignoring their whispering. “We’ve come across a rather surprising bit of information.”
“Have you?” Charles asked. “I find that I am entirely unsurprised. You did, after all, warn me you would.”
Georgette smiled at him, just a little, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t want her in danger, but he also didn’t want her upset with him. He didn’t think that anyone would discover her secrets if she were careful, and
he had to admit she’d kept her secrets rather well for far longer than he’d been involved.
“We think,” Marian said almost triumphantly, “that Miss Schmitz was blackmailing some of our fellow Bard’s Crookers.”
Joseph choked. “Surely not.”
Georgette simply lifted a brow at him while Marian shot back, “You heard how she treated Georgie. If Miss Schmitz operated so aggressively with others who aren’t as kind as Georgette, well—clearly someone poisoned the woman.”
Georgette hesitated and then admitted. “I had been thinking she was acting so odd that it would make a perfect blackmail plot. I was considering it for my next book about Harper’s Bend.” The last two words were whispered. Georgette leaned down to scratch her favorite dog’s ears. “Miss Schmitz was certainly a foolish woman, but even foolish women act as they do for a reason. Money is always a compelling reason, and really, it’s not like poor Miss Schmitz could easily support herself in other ways.”
Marian scowled and then she sighed. “Truthfully, they put our sex on a pedestal, Georgette. They’re thinking that no good woman would behave in such a manner.”
Georgette smiled wickedly, winking at Marian. “No good woman, but perhaps a bad and greedy one.”
“It would have been a very ham-handed blackmail plot,” Charles said. “If you wrote it, Georgette, I’d tell you that it was unbelievable and that blackmailers would be more secretive with their actions. I’d expect better of you.”
“Well, yes,” Marian laughed, “of Georgette, certainly. But we’re considering the desperate actions of a poor, foolish woman.”
“What we do know,” Georgette told them, “is that one of our neighbors has said she was being blackmailed. We know that Miss Schmitz certainly acted as though she intended to use any secrets she uncovered and that generally kindly women despise Miss Schmitz. We know that someone blackmailed our neighbor, and it certainly seems likely that, were it Miss Schmitz, whether she was a good blackmailer or a very bad blackmailer—she angered someone to the point where they decided to kill an otherwise harmless old woman.”
Joseph cleared his throat. “Nicely and quite accurately summed up, Georgette. You’re very right.”
“It is a bit mad, though, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Charles said fervently.
“I can’t really see it, either,” Georgette admitted. “But the facts sort of lead themselves, don’t they? If we find proof that Miss Schmitz was the blackmailer.”
“They do indeed,” Charles told her. “Perhaps we can help Joseph by discussing who has been acting odd around Miss Schmitz and then narrow down where he should focus next? I know that Joseph could use your help in going through her paperwork, Marian.”
Joseph paused at that, given it was out and out a terrible idea and probably against regulation. Better, Charles thought, to have them interfere with Joseph and Charles nearby than off on their own doing who knew what. It was a simple chocolate that was killing Miss Schmitz after all.
“I was thinking of visiting Ruth,” Georgette told Charles. “Do you want to visit with me? I haven’t felt right about leaving her.”
Charles nodded. He did not want to visit the woman. No one was really sure if she was a servant or just another even poorer relative of Miss Schmitz and neither of them had been in the position to be asked. He did, however, want Georgette’s attention, and if he had to get it by following her around on her good deeds, then he would.
He held out his arm, and they made their way through the village towards the doctor’s house and surgery. Georgette was mostly quiet as they walked and finally he asked her, “Are you all right, my dear Georgette?”
She glanced up at him. “No, not really. I don’t think two women should have to die because of the stupid actions of one. I don’t think that things should be so hard and that so many should be suffering. Children are going hungry in our country, Charles. Women like Miss Schmitz don’t have someone to support them, and the ways of the past aren’t any use to them now. What was she supposed to do?”
“Other than blackmail?” He felt his face transforming to gentle again. “Write a book like you did?”
Georgette huffed. “Whether or not I’m as talented as you say—”
“You are.”
“Not everyone is. Perhaps I am—”
“You are.”
Georgette smacked his forearm, shooting him a glance. “If I wasn’t? I’m just as unemployable as she is, Charles. Her life? Her worries? There but for the grace of God, go I. It would have been so easy for her life to be mine.” Georgette shook her head. “This is bringing it all back. The worries about supporting myself. The horror when I realized my dividends would not take care of me and Eunice anymore. The realization that there was nothing I could do. Even keeping chickens—and I hate chickens—wouldn’t have been enough. Taking in mending? No one pays for that now. The whole of the world is struggling to survive, and with Miss Schmitz and I? There’s nothing to recommend us.”
Charles paused and pulled Georgette into the shadow of a great oak tree. “You are not Laurieann Schmitz.”
“I know I’m not, but—” Georgette shook her head, eyes shining too brightly to be anything other than tears.
Charles cupped her face, tilting her gaze to his when she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “It isn’t just that you have talent as a writer, Georgette. When you were faced with the same dilemmas as Miss Schmitz, you found another way. It’s true that things are harder now than they were a decade ago. It’s true that banks have failed, and the whole of the world seems to be going bankrupt and hungry. It’s true that for you and for Miss Schmitz things are harder than they are for Marian Parker.”
A tear slipped down Georgette’s cheek.
“I suppose that the world taught you that you needed someone to save you, to come along and take care of you.”
She nodded.
“When that didn’t happen, you had choices. You could look for some…some…”
“Mr. Collins,” Georgette told him with a watery laugh.
“A Mr. Collins,” Charles agreed, instantly understanding her reference to Jane Austen. “Some way out that wouldn’t have given you happiness even if it gave you a roof over your head. But you didn’t.”
“I would have,” Georgette admitted.
“Perhaps.” Charles very much doubted it. “But when no one came along to save you, what did you do?”
“I saved myself,” she said. “I wrote my book.”
“I have little doubt that some other publisher would have picked up your book,” Charles told her. “But, I also have little doubt that if that plan failed, you’d have found a way to another one and another one and another one, until one stuck. None of those plans would have been blackmail. Sympathize if you must with Miss Schmitz. Empathize with her loneliness or her struggles or how you guess she must have felt as she realized her circumstances had changed as yours had. But, remember, you aren’t her.”
Georgette’s mouth twisted and she stepped away. With her movement, Charles let his hand fall. She took in a deep breath and walked from the shadows under the oak tree back to the lane.
“Have you thought more about leaving Bard’s Crook?” Charles asked as they restarted their walk.
14
GEORGETTE DOROTHY MARSH
“Yes, actually,” Georgette replied, her voice fading as Mrs. Baker and Miss Hallowton left the doctor’s house. Georgette muttered, “Lovely.”
She sighed and then ensured her gaze stayed on the ground; trying to find that vague, absentminded expression was becoming more and more difficult. It was these very moments that made her think again of leaving Bard’s Crook. Perhaps she’d go visit a few little villages not too far from London.
“Miss Marsh!” Mrs. Baker said with a cutting tone. “You and Mr. Aaron seem to be chummy.”
Georgette laughed emptily. “How is Miss Schmitz and Mrs. Dogger?” she asked Miss Hallowton.
“They wouldn’t let us see them,
” Miss Hallowton said sourly. “I don’t know why not.”
Georgette guessed it was because Mrs. Baker was there for the gossip and Miss Hallowton was about as comforting as a sharp elbow jabbed in the side.
“Don’t bother trying to see them yourself,” Mrs. Baker said. Her bright eyes flicked over Charles and Georgette, and then Mrs. Baker purred to Charles, “Tell me, Mr. Aaron, you’re visiting from London, yes?”
“Yes,” Charles said agreeably. “Lovely to get out of the city.”
“But Bard’s Crook. Really?”
“My nephew took a liking to it when he was here last.” Charles lied so agreeably that Georgette had to hide a snicker.
“Indeed? Now, he’s the detective, isn’t he?”
Charles nodded.
“What do you do, Mr. Aaron?”
Georgette kept her gaze vacant as though she were bored. Inside, however, she was offended. It wasn’t that she expected Mr. Aaron to desire her, but Mrs. Baker could at least throw herself at him when Georgette wasn’t holding his elbow.
“I work in an office, Mrs. Baker.” There was snap in his voice that had Georgette risking a glance to him before she dulled her face again.
Oh! It was hard pretending to be entirely unaware at moments like these. It had been, she thought, far easier to let her mind write stories when nothing interesting was happening around her. Perhaps she hadn’t been pretending all these years so much as she hadn’t been any more interested in them than they were in her.
“I do think I should just step inside and see Mrs. Dogger,” Georgette said. She let go of Charles’s arm and stepped forward, glancing back at him with a smirk. Yes, she would leave him to those two.
Georgette hurried towards the doctor’s house, hearing Mrs. Baker say as she went, “I don’t know why Miss Marsh expects them to let her in when they wouldn’t let us in.”
“Ah,” Charles cleared his throat and Georgette hid her snicker as she knocked on the door.
