Romantic Interlude

Hello, and welcome to my 2025 Blogging From A To Z April Challenge! This year, I’ve written you a complete murder mystery novelette. The setting is rural England, a few years after WWI. The extra challenge that I set myself for this story is that the first murder will not take place until the letter “M”–halfway through! And the second murder will happen at “S.” There may be murders after “S,” of course, but they are less structural or foundational or something.

And now, without further ado…

Romantic Interlude

The next day, the police came back. They asked the same questions they’d asked before. They searched the house from top to bottom. They also spent quite a long time trying to sneak by Stephen in his bedroom and Hettie in the upper parlour—and failing every time.

All of this meant a restless day for the Grimsbys. Wherever they went, there was a policeman, just turning the corner. It is perhaps not altogether surprising that various members of the Grimsby family fled the house to seek comfort elsewhere.

*

“Hello,” Nigel said, with an expression that was more wince than smile. “Thought I’d find you here.” Here was the part of the great house’s undercroft that stored the mops and buckets and other humble necessities. “That is, if I waited long enough.”

“As I am a servant, Mr. Nigel, you’d likely find me in the servants’ quarters,” said Dotty.

Nigel groaned. Dotty’s eyes were concerned for a flickering second, then hard again. “You’ve been drinking,” she said.

Nigel looked at her with a curious intensity. “I’m not drunk, if that’s what you think. But I’ve discovered something awful about myself. I am absolutely terrified of being hanged. Isn’t that funny? I’m not afraid of dying per se—the war beat that out of me, or anyway it got so I could just ignore it, like the sound of crickets in the summer—but I am afraid of dying like that. At a scheduled time, you know, and having to walk up to the platform, and then standing there while people say pointless prayers for you, and then, suddenly—whoosh!” He laughed shakily, and tilted his head suddenly to one side, as if his neck were abruptly snapped.

Dotty had gone pale. “But they let you go,” she said. “Surely there’s no danger now.”

“It seems,” said Nigel, “that only two people had means, motive, and opportunity. Those two people are myself and Reggie.” And he ticked the points off on his fingers.

“Means: we both could have drugged Uncle Jack’s drink—anyone could have, we were all moving around—and we’re both physically capable of stabbing him—apparently that’s an entirely open field, too, even Mother could’ve done it.

“Motive: no-one bothered to tell either of us that Uncle Jack’s proposed changes to his will weren’t going to ruin us.

“Opportunity: Stephen was having one of his bouts of insomnia, and he’s absolutely sure no-one passed his door that night, so again it looks like me or Reggie. Reggie could have committed the murder when he helped Jack up to bed; I could have done it any time I liked, by going through the Blue Bedroom.

“Father comes in a distant third, as he had means and opportunity—he wouldn’t have to pass Stephen’s door to get to Uncle Jack—but no real motive—he knew that Uncle Jack wasn’t proposing anything catastrophic in the new will. No, it’s me or Reggie—and look at Reggie. Even I don’t believe he did it. So it must be me. All perfectly logical—the only problem is, it wasn’t. And I don’t see how that will stop them hanging me. No, it rather looks like I’m for it, Dotty. I—thought you should know. And also—but there’s no point.” His hands were shaking. Dotty reached for them—but checked the movement. He saw this, and looked into her face, his eyes questioning.

“I don’t care—I can’t afford to care!” Dotty cried. “Don’t you realize—but I suppose you haven’t heard. I suppose it isn’t important enough to have reached you upstairs.” Dotty looked at Nigel with hot anger in her eyes.

“Heard what?”

“I’ve been given my two weeks’ notice. Back to Mother—and she’ll be pleased to see me, I don’t think!” Dotty grabbed up the mop she’d come down to fetch, turned on her heels, and ran from him.

*

During the whole of his two-hour session with Crowner, one thought had sustained Reggie. When he was done, he could pop in on Geraldine for tea. He pictured it. Just the three of them—himself, Geraldine, and Dr. Camphor. Perhaps, after tea, Dr. Camphor would leave the two of them alone, and he could tell Geraldine all about how horrid the police had been, and Geraldine would be sweet and womanly about it.

But when he got to the doctor’s tea table, the doctor himself was absent, and sitting in his usual place was Wilhelmina Crabbe.

“Oh Weggie—how nice to see you!” said Geraldine with a bright smile. “Isn’t it charming? I’ve decided that—as a doctor’s daughter, you know—almost an official position—that I weally must make an effort to get to know all of our neighbors—especially older wesidents, who might at any moment become daddy’s patients. Not that I mean you, Wilhelmina dear—you are so vigowous, no-one would take you for forty.”

“I’m forty-five,” said Wilhelmina. “As Weggie—ah, Reggie—terribly sorry, Ger, but a lisp is so catching—as Reggie knows full well. We are the same age, remember. Do sit down, Reggie, and have some of these little pink cakes.”

“Run,” said a voice within Reggie. “This is a trap.”

“Ahhh?” said Reggie aloud.                           

“Sit!” Geraldine barked.

And so Reggie sat.

The women smiled.

“Where’s your father?” asked Reggie, thinking wistfully of that mild eccentric—or any fourth party at all, actually.

“Out walking with Penelope Grimsby,” said Geraldine.

“Walking with Penny? Now that’s a rum thing,” said Reggie, hoping to diffuse the situation with a little light gossip.

“She obviously wants to marry Daddy,” said Geraldine. “Fwankly, I hope she does.”

Wilhelmina contrived to look shocked. “But my dear,” she said, “she’s young enough to be his daughter!” She covered her mouth, her expression synthetically penitent. “Oh, I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean anything about your union, of course. It’s just that Dr. Camphor seems so like an adult, whereas with Reggie, one tends to forget that he’s actually older than your father.”

Reggie mechanically took a little pink cake.

“There are advantages for a girl in marrying an older man—if he weally loves her, that is,” said Geraldine, studying Reggie critically.

“Yes,” said Wilhelmina, “but from the perspective of the older man, there are some terrible disadvantages, too. People will see them together and think he looks rather shop-worn and sad. Chewed at the edges. Possibly even ridiculous. I don’t mean anything about your father, of course, dear—one cannot picture him looking anything but distinguished.”

“We all know what you mean,” said Geraldine.

Reggie really should have chewed the cake before swallowing it. Now, the thing was stuck, and he was choking. Good, thought Reggie, as he struggled to breathe. Dying would end this ghastly conversation.

Geraldine got up and whacked Reggie expertly between the shoulder blades. The cake shot out. “There awe advantages,” she said complacently, “in mawwying a doctor’s daughter, after all.”

 “I’ll be mother,” Wilhelmina said, with vicious intensity, and poured more tea into Reggie’s cup.

 

*

Penny and Dr. Camphor were walking in the Manor woods. The afternoon was nearly over; among the trees, the shadows were long.

“What’s that?” said Penny, pointing to a picturesque ruin moldering in the middle of the forest. Lichen had turned the stone a blotchy yellow. Immense trees grew in what had presumably once been the inside of the structure. It was hard to see what it had been, hard to picture it ever being an important part of the fabric of human existence.

“Oh, part of an old castle,” said the doctor, rather dismissively. “These woods are full of pieces of it. It’s rather a nuisance. People are sentimental about it, and that means a lot of fuss whenever anyone wants to build anything new here.”

“I take it that you aren’t sentimental about it yourself.”

“Yes I am, actually. Terribly. I just wish there weren’t so many bits, so inconveniently placed. Last year, we were going to modernize the village plumbing, and we couldn’t. The castle was in the way.”

“It’s not very big.”

“Ah, but like a fungus, the largest part is under the ground. This castle had systems of cellarage running like roots all through these woods. Even now, some of the cellars around here are just a part of the old castle cellars.” And then the doctor took a breath and seemed to brace himself. “Penny,” he said, his voice thick. “I think you know—but perhaps I shouldn’t say anything at the moment. Your father—I am so sorry.”

“So am I,” said Penny. “But I don’t see why that means some subjects are off-limits.”

“Logically, I agree. But I feel like a cad, pressing my suit when you are in mourning. Especially since—and I recognize that this is rather the reverse of a romantic thing to bring up—I am an older man, and you just lost your father. I’m sure Freud would have some terribly clinical way of characterizing the whole situation. And that makes me deeply uncomfortable.”

“Is that why you’ve been so stiff and formal since—”

“My dear, I am always stiff and formal,” said the doctor. “That is part of my charm, if any. But yes, I suppose I’ve been more so of late.”

“But you’re not a bit like Pop!” said Penny. “Why, he didn’t even like you!”

“Ah.” There was a long silence. “And now he’s dead,” said the doctor.

Penny’s eyes welled with tears. “Yeah,” she said. “You’re right, of course. It’s a problem for me that he didn’t exactly cotton to you. And there’s a hitch about us getting—but that’s assuming a lot.”

“Penny,” said the doctor, “I definitely want to marry you. If you feel strange, admitting that you and your father spoke of me under that assumption—well, don’t. I’m yours for the marrying.”

Penny looked closely at the doctor. “That isn’t a proposal,” she said.

“No, it isn’t. A proposal would be wildly inappropriate in the circumstances. But I didn’t want you to go back to America thinking—” and the doctor shrugged helplessly.

“Yeah.” Penny kicked a rock. “I see.” And, after a moment, “it would help if you were more he-man about this.” She spoke now with an annoyance stemming primarily, perhaps, from the strain of the past several days. But Dr. Camphor, possibly also feeling a certain amount of strain, stiffened.

“My dear young lady,” he began. “I’m not in the least…”

“Oh, shut up! Shut up!” Penny cried. “Don’t ‘my dear young lady’ me, I can’t take it!”

“Don’t you see,” said the doctor, his usually amiable voice now infused with an edge of temper, “that I’d love to be less formal with you—but I can’t until I know what we are! Am I your lover, or just dear old Doctor Camphor, whom it amused you to take motoring and to have a little meaningless flirtation with? Either will do, but I have to know. Otherwise talking with you is a farce—impossible on any but the most superficial level.”

“Either will do, will it?” Penny felt her cheeks flame.

“I have a preference, of course, but for the purposes of carrying on conversation, yes.”

“Oh, you have a preference, do you? How nice. You—you fish, you! Leave me alone, just leave me alone!” And she ran off into the woods. She knew she was being childish—especially galling when her companion of a moment before was so ostentatiously adult—but she couldn’t help it. She needed to get away from him, couldn’t bear the thought of telling him that she had jam-related responsibilities back in America, that she’d love to settle down here and be a doctor’s wife but it wasn’t in the cards. She’d have to say all that, she knew it, but for now…

She stopped running, winded and ashamed of herself, to find that she was in a part of the Manor woods that she did not recognize.

She was on the point of retracing her steps when she heard the scream.