“While everyone was toasting the happy pair, I went to the top of the tower and waited for Polly’s aunt. I used the hat pin to force her over the edge—wasn’t difficult as Gwen was tipsy and woozy from her climb.”
Rex nodded pensively. “I was on the right track, but thought at first your mother-in-law had executed the plan. She must have panicked and hidden the crumbs in the dovecote when she realized arsenic had been put in the cake, and she’d be blamed if the poison was traced back to her house. I suppose she got rid of the bride and groom figures for the same reason.”
“I really would have liked to have got rid of the whole rotten lot of Newcombes,” Donna said with grim wistfulness. “Timmy would have inherited the money, and Dud would have been able to finagle what he needed out of him. When Polly’s baby is out of intensive care, Dud wants us to bring it up with our own two, if she’s too sick to look after it. That’s what he told me on the phone. The nerve!” She sniffed in derision. “Of course, he has no clue what I did and has always said his mother was bonkers.”
“And so many accidents can befall a baby, isn’t that right, Donna?”
“I wouldn’t hurt him now everybody knows he’s Dudley’s. He’s the ticket out of our financial mess, more than Timmy.”
“You won’t have financial concerns where you’re going. Her Majesty’s Prison Service will provide adequately for you.”
“You’re going to turn me in, then?” Donna slumped into a sitting position on the doorstep. “Well, of course you are. But I’m almost too tired to care.”
“I called Detective Lucas on my way here. Why, Donna?”
She stared out over the square of damp grass beyond her porch to the glistening road and row of uninspiring houses on the other side. “My wedding was a fairytale. It was perfect, every girl’s dream. And then it ended. I spent my time planning the getting married part and didn’t give enough thought to the being married part. I should’ve listened to my mom. Polly carrying my husband’s child down the aisle was the final straw.”
“‘Those whom God has joined together, let no one put asunder,’” Rex murmured as a police siren replaced the memory of a joyful peal of bells heard at All Saints’ Church earlier that day.
An inauspicious day, as Rex had rightly predicted.
The End
About the Author
Born in Bloomington, Indiana, and now living permanently in Florida, C. S. Challinor was educated in Scotland and England, and holds a joint honors degree in Latin and French from the University of Kent, Canterbury, as well as a diploma in Russian from the Pushkin Institute in Moscow. She has traveled extensively and enjoys discovering new territory for her novels.
Table of Contents
Copyright Information
Dedication
Cast of Main Characters
Invite
“The Darling Buds of May”
R.I.P.
The Merry Widow from Wales
Quo Vadis
Family Skeletons
Bad Omen
“Cake, Vicar?”
Foul Play
Witch’s Brew
Quod Erat Demonstrandum
Snuffed Out
The Winding Stair
Doubts and Suspicions
The Cavalry
Ducks in a Row
Brass Tacks
Secret Assignation
Boxed in
In Flagrante Delicto
Thick as Thieves
Unrequited Passion
Disappearances
The Clinic
“Hell Hath No Fury”
A Bridge too Far
Ransom
Secrets
Paternity
“M” for Murderer
Revelations
What’s in a Name?
Happily Ever After
About the Author