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“Let’s go to the sitting room,” Ben suggested, and smiled when everyone sighed with relief and hurried out of the room.
Mark put the packaging paper back onto the table and looked at them. “Right, well, until ownership can be established, given what is written on the packaging, I consider that the plant is yours Beatrice. You should not hand it over to anyone.”
Ben took that moment to hand Mark the piece of paper he had prised out of the dead man’s hand. He put it beside the single line of writing on the packaging paper, and was unsurprised to find the writing was identical.
“So the dead man is the person who delivered the plant,” Mark murmured thoughtfully.
“Beatrice also saw him outside the window during the worst of the storm, when it was really black outside.”
Isaac frowned. “He didn’t try to get in?”
Beatrice shivered and drew her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “Nobody knocked on the door, so he didn’t want to get in. He was just looking through the window at us. One minute he was there, the next minute he had gone.”
Mark nodded although couldn’t exactly recall how bad the weather had gotten outside yesterday. He hadn’t gone to church because he had been called to investigate a burglary in Great Tipton, and Harriett hadn’t gone because she had been feeling a little unwell. They had spent their free hours enjoying the delights of matrimony and, as a result, he had been too engrossed in his wife to care about what was going on outside. Still, he could vaguely recall that it had grown dark for a while, and had lain with his wife in his arms listening to the rain for quite some time. He carefully tucked those tender memories aside and turned his attention back to Beatrice and Ben’s afternoon which, by all accounts, had been completely different.
“I can only assume that he may have been checking to see if you received the plant. If he went to the woods, he may either have been sheltering from the rain, or intended to make his way home once it had been delivered,” Mark reasoned. “I think that the plant is yours. The label certainly seems to suggest it. However, for now, you should keep it in the study with the curtains drawn so that anybody who looks into the house won’t see it. Also, keep Hargraves – if that is his name – out of the house.” He picked up the list of names they had found, and shook his head in disbelief. He thought that the village would be able to enjoy a period of peace and calm after the Psychic Circle debacle. Heavens, how wrong he had been.
Beatrice tapped the sheet that contained the diagrams and Latin names. “I think that these are cultivation notes. We had planned to go to see the people on the list this morning to see if the plant we have is something my uncle had worked on.”
“Does this look like his writing?”
“I am not sure. My uncle used to write in spidery scrawl. It was highly unusual for him to write in block capitals like this. I have tried to compare the handwriting on these notes to his writing, but it is really difficult to tell for certain if they are one and the same.”
Mark compared the writing, and knew what she meant. However, the more he studied them, the more he suspected that the notes had been written by a third person.
“Where did you find them?” He placed both pieces of paper back onto the table with a sigh.
“They were tucked away in this book on Rare and Tropical plants. We know from this that the plant we have is definitely an orchid, however we cannot find our particular variety. There is nothing even remotely similar to it in there.”
“It is most probably rare,” Mark conceded thoughtfully.
“We think that the notes we have relate to the cultivation of the rare variety that arrived yesterday,” Beatrice sighed.
“I think you need to be very careful, Beatrice. Leave the investigation to us,” Mark said quietly. “It may be that this man had the plant and was killed over it. Someone may come and ask for it back.”
Beatrice swallowed and felt a little sick. “Like Hargraves has.”
“I am not suggesting for one second that he is the killer. However, for the time being, do not, under any circumstances, let any strangers, especially Hargraves, into this house. Keep the doors locked and don’t answer the door to anyone you don’t know. I would also strongly recommend that you don’t go out at night, and try not to walk the lanes.” He mentally winced at just how many orders he had given her. He had effectively placed her under house arrest and knew from the mulish look on her face that she wasn’t going to comply.
“I refuse to be a prisoner in my own home,” she retorted flatly.
Although the words sounded confident, a small voice reminded her about the incidents in the lane yesterday. She began feel a little sick at the prospect of just how dire her situation could have been. “While I agree not to answer the door to strangers, and will now keep it locked whenever I am at home, I do have a life to live. I cannot just stay at home and wait. I have to go about my daily life and, given where I live, it is impossible to go anywhere without using the lanes.”
“Getting about isn’t a problem, Beatrice. I can take you in the carriage,” Ben assured her. “It is safer than you walking. Given how proud Hargraves is of his carriage, I doubt that he would be foolish enough to crash into us.”
Beatrice felt the small hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
That being the case, she thought. Why did he risk damaging his carriage by attempting to run me over yesterday?
She turned her attention back to Ben and she frowned when his eyes met and held hers meaningfully for several long moments. She had no doubt that he too was thinking about the journey they had planned to take today, however neither of them mentioned it in front of Mark and Isaac. She wondered if Ben was going to succumb to Mark’s dictates by forgetting about visiting the people on the list either. Somehow she doubted it.
“Look, I have to go to London tomorrow to give evidence at this trial for the clairvoyants. I am going to be gone for the rest of the week, but will hand over some of the investigative wor
k to my colleagues to continue with while I am away. They need to check out Hargraves’ address, and work on identifying the deceased. He may be one of the men on the list, we don’t know yet. I just don’t want you getting involved in this any more than you already have, Beatrice. This is a dead body we have here, not a note of warning.”
She nodded and reluctantly admitted that he was right. Still, the thought of having to sit around and do nothing while he toddled off to London to deal with the court case, didn’t sit well with her at all. Just thinking about all of that inertia made her want to fidget.
It took an age before Mark had finished asking his questions, and issuing orders. Eventually, both he and Isaac appeared to be satisfied that they had enough to go on and quietly left.
