A Murder Most Irregular Ch 1

Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room is always a warm and welcoming place. On entering, one is immediately overwhelmed by the delicious scents of fresh baking, hot coffee, spices, and sugar. The summer sun streams through wide front windows. Espresso machines emit steam, customers chat, friendly counter staff call out takeout orders, and equally friendly waitresses take table orders. The public areas are decorated to suit the name of the establishment with paintings of castles and sheep grazing on green fields lined with hedgerows. A portrait of the late Queen
Elizabeth II hangs on the back wall. Shelves display rows of fine china teacups, teapots, and an assortment of locally sourced jams and jellies and preserves offered for sale.

It is my habit to come into Mrs. Hudson’s at quarter past nine on my way to work to order a large tea, properly made, and something from the day’s selection of fruit muffins. Depending on how busy the place is and what’s on my mind for the day, I might pop into the kitchen to say good morning to my friend and business partner, Jayne Whitehall, née Wilson.

Whereupon I pop out as quickly and politely as possible before being asked to do any work. A kitchen is not my natural environment.

Today, I hesitated in the act of coming through the doorway and looked around in surprise. The slightest differences were immediately obvious. The restaurant was as pleasant as ever, most of the tables occupied, a line at the takeout counter. Jocelyn placed plates of pastries and breakfast sandwiches in front of four elderly women who’d already been served their coffees.

Fiona accepted payment from a couple of construction workers in heavy boots and high-vis vests, while Miranda arranged a fresh batch of muffins and sandwiches on the display counter.

It was all perfectly normal, but something was clearly off. I mean off in a good way.

A small vase of fresh flowers—a single peach rose and a sprig of fluffy white baby’s breath—was on every table, while crystal vases at each end of the counter overflowed with roses and more baby’s breath. Jocelyn’s hair was so perfectly cut and styled she must have had her mother, a professional stylist, around extremely early this morning. Today she wore a dress under the Mrs. Hudson’s uniform apron featuring a steaming cup of tea next to a pipe. It was a bright, colorful, short, sleeveless summer dress with a deep neckline, definitely not the black blouse and dark trousers she normally wore to work. And those strappy sandals with three-inch heels were definitely not the well-worn trainers she usually wore to spend a day waiting tables.

I glanced at Fiona. She’d applied more makeup than usual, meaning today she wore makeup. In the height of the season, the staff at the restaurant have so little downtime some of them dispense with makeup altogether, not wanting to take the time to keep refreshing it. Her eyes were rimmed with black and her lashes thick with mascara. Her cheeks were pink and her lips a light red.

I looked further. The shelves displaying teapots and teacups and preserves had been tidied and so recently dusted the gold trim on the cups reflected the light. The glass of the display cases positively glowed, as did the big espresso machines.

And strangest of all, a printed card saying RESERVED occupied the table in the comfortable window alcove where Jayne and I usually had our daily partners’ meeting. Breakfast and lunch tables were never reserved. Despite its name, Mrs. Hudson’s was mainly a coffee shop, serving breakfast pastries, soup-and-sandwich lunches, and fresh baking for eat-in or takeout. A full, proper afternoon tea was served from one to four every afternoon in tourist season, on weekends otherwise, and reservations could be made for that.

When I first opened the door, causing the chimes above to tinkle to announce my arrival, Jocelyn and Fiona had leapt to attention, their eyes bright and expressions full of expectation. Seeing it was only me, one-quarter owner of the establishment, they either ignored me (Jocelyn) or gave me a bored nod (Fiona) as their big smiles faded.

Something was definitely afoot. As one-quarter owner of Mrs. Hudson’s and a generally curious person, I didn’t care to be left in the dark.

Instead of joining the back of the line, I headed down the hallway to the kitchen, calling, “I’ll have the usual,” to Fiona.

The kitchen, at least, was its normal busy, chaotic, and disorganized self. To me it always looked chaotic and disorganized, but Jayne knew exactly where everything was at every moment, what was happening now, and what needed to happen next.

She was folding a thick rectangle of scone dough in preparation for afternoon tea when I came in. “Morning,” she said, reaching for her cutter without looking up.

“Something obviously momentous is about to happen in here today, and I can only think the King of England is scheduled to pop in for tea and scones. Either that or some incredibly famous actor I’ve never heard of.”

Jayne continued cutting out scones. “What makes you think that?”

“Jocelyn and Fiona have gone to an excessive amount of trouble over their appearance today; everything has been dusted and polished and arranged to perfection. Not that you don’t normally keep the place looking perfect, Jayne, but today it’s extra perfect.”

“I wondered if you’d notice.”

“Anyone would notice.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Flowers on the tables and the counter, roses no less, and roses are expensive. Why have you gone to so much trouble?”

Miranda came in with an empty tray. Miranda was a college student from a moderately wealthy Boston family working here for the summer while staying with an aunt. Even she’d paid extra attention to her appearance this morning, although not to quite the extremes Fiona and Jocelyn had.

“Anything?” Jayne asked her.

“Not yet.”

Jayne glanced at the clock on the stove. “It’s quarter after nine, and she was expected at nine.”

Miranda shrugged.

“I’m holding back the blueberry muffins and some breakfast sandwiches,” Jayne said.

I glanced at the far counter. Six plump muffins, bursting with fruit, were arranged on a china cake stand. A second stand held open-faced ham-and-cheese sandwiches on a bed of arugula, each waiting to be topped with a freshly fried egg and a second slice of Jayne-made bread.

“The bran muffins should be cool enough now so you can take them out.”

Miranda did so.

My name is Gemma Doyle and I am, as I might have mentioned, one-quarter owner of Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room, located at 220 Baker Street, West London, Massachusetts. My great-uncle Arthur Doyle owns another quarter, and Jayne one-half. Together, Arthur and I own the adjacent Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium at 222 Baker Street. Uncle Arthur is strictly (thank heavens) a silent partner, leaving me to be general manager, chief financial officer, stock buyer, salesclerk, cleaning lady, cat wrangler, and performer of any other duties as may be required.

I made an executive decision that as partner in this endeavor, I had a right to know what was going on. “If you’re expecting a she, it is obviously not King Charles. Perhaps American royalty. Lady Gaga?”

“Not quite, but almost as good. Brianna Lombard.”

“As we say in England: Who’s she when she’s at home?”

Jayne opened her mouth to reply, and at that moment Miranda burst through the swinging doors into the kitchen.

“Heads-up. Car’s pulling up outside. Looks like her.”

“Oh my gosh,” Jayne cried. “It’s really happening. Now remember what we planned. You seat her and her party, take their orders. Act totally professionally at all times. Once they’ve been served, let me know and I’ll come out and greet them. Allow them to take video or any pictures they want, although not of the other customers without their permission, and certainly not of anyone eating. Let’s do this.” She lifted her right hand, and Miranda gave it a good slap before running back out front in a flurry of apron and excitement.

“Tell her the blueberry muffins are today’s special!” Jayne called after Miranda.

“Why do I not know what’s going on?” I said.

“Sorry, Gemma.” Jayne pulled off her hairnet and opened the door to the storage closet. She studied her face in the mirror hanging at the back of the door, pinching her cheeks and refastening her long blond ponytail. Jayne is a beautiful woman with shining hair, gorgeous blue eyes, and perfect bone structure. She’s short, at five foot three, and slim, not because she diets but because she is so high energy. In contrast, I am not petite and I am not short at five foot eight. My hair is not blond and sleek but more a muddy-brown mess of curls that refuse to ever be tamed.

“Hair up or down?” Jayne asked me as she gave her hair a twist.

“I might have advice to offer if I knew what’s going on.”

She turned to face me. “I suppose I should have told you, but it all happened so fast, and I didn’t want to disturb you when you were on your break. Did you have a good time?”

“I had a wonderful time, but let’s talk about that later, shall we?” Very much against my better judgment, I’d agreed to take a few vacation days in the company of my boyfriend, Ryan Ashburton. The Emporium, like every other tourist business on Cape Cod, was so busy in July and August that, since moving to America to run the shop Uncle Arthur had bought on a total impulse, I’d scarcely had as much as a full day off over the summer months.

Ryan and I had taken my Miata convertible and driven slowly and leisurely up the coast to Provincetown, letting the wind blow through our hair and the saltwater breeze caress our faces. We spent three days luxuriating in a far-too-expensive boutique hotel. We walked the beaches, swam in the ocean, visited all the tourist sites, shopped in all the tourist shops, drank foamy cappuccino and fancy cocktails, and ate delicious meals.

Best of all, I had no panicked calls from Jayne or from Ashleigh, my head shop clerk, who I’d left in charge while I was away. Not only had Ashleigh been minding the shop, but she had moved temporarily into the house I share with Uncle Arthur to take care of our two dogs. Arthur was currently somewhere off the coast of New England, sailing toward the Saint Lawrence River with the intended destination of Quebec City. When I say sailing, I mean sailing. I sometimes worry that at over eighty, he’s getting too old to crew a thirty-foot sailboat. But the ex–Royal Navy buddies he crews with are not much younger than him, and they all seem to think it’s nothing more than a jolly good jaunt.

It had been a truly brilliant break. Ryan and I arrived home last night to overwhelmingly enthusiastic greetings from my dogs, Violet and Peony, and I’d come in to work this morning feeling invigorated and refreshed. Determined to take more vacation time.

In retrospect, I thought, more vacation time might not be in my future. I still didn’t know what was going on here.

“Brianna Lombard might well be on her way to becoming the biggest influencer in food- and drink-related travel today. She has hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of followers, and they all hang on to her every word. Not to mention they take every suggestion she makes as gospel. She’s in Cape Cod this week, writing and filming about the things she sees and does, with particular emphasis on the food scene. Today she’s having a Casual Breakfast of coffee and pastries here. At my place. Our place.”

“It sounds to me as though you put capital letters on the words casual breakfast. That’s not at all casual.”

“Everything Brianna does is capitalized, Gemma.”

“Are you one of these millions of followers?”

“I am. Only because I want to see what’s happening in the food world, and she’s fast becoming the go-to source.” Jayne held up one finger. “Shush. Hear anything?”

I shushed. I heard a door open. I heard more than one set of footsteps cross the threshold. I heard Jocelyn say, in a suspiciously squeaky voice, “Welcome to Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room. May I show you to your table?”

I stopped shushing. “You knew she was coming. It sounds as though you have a full welcoming committee. She’ll know you knew she was coming. I thought restaurant reviewers traveled incognito so they don’t get special treatment.” I nodded to the waiting muffins. “Such as you are obviously providing.”

“She doesn’t write reviews, Gemma. She would hardly be a famous influencer if no one knew what she looked like. She goes to places, and she takes videos and plenty of pictures. If she likes it, she tells her followers about it. If she doesn’t like it, she tells her followers that too, but always in a fair and honest manner, so they supposedly can make up their own minds.”

“Sounds sort of iffy to me. You don’t have to lay on the royal treatment for anyone, Jayne. Your place and your baking speak for themselves every single day. But what about other restaurants? Will dusting off furniture and putting extra blueberries into muffins make her give a place a positive mention that it doesn’t deserve?”

“I didn’t put extra blueberries into the muffins,” Jayne said, lying prettily.

“Sure you did. Hard to tell without cutting into them, but I’d estimate at least a half a cup extra for the batch.”

“Oh, all right. I made those ones specially, yes.”

“You’re not paying for any placement, I hope.”

“No, Gemma. I’m not paying. As for the roses, they came out of my general operating budget.”

“If you’re not paying her to come here, how does she make any money out of this?”

“I don’t know the financial aspect. Endorsements, I suppose. Some products pay her to give them a prominent mention. She might have some side deals, like travel books or that sort of thing.”

“Will she be paying for her breakfast?”

Jayne blushed again. “No.”

“Free food, then. Still, all the free food in the world doesn’t provide much of a living.”

“They’ll be back tomorrow for tea. She said when she’s touring, she doesn’t usually go to a specific place more than once, but as our afternoon tea’s a completely different offering than what’s available at other times of the day, she’d like to try it. She’s having dinner at the café tomorrow tonight.” Jayne’s husband, Andy Whitehall, is the owner and head chef at the Blue Water Café, situated on the town pier near the fish market.

Miranda bounced into the kitchen. “She’s so nice and friendly. She’s having a latte, and she asked me how I like working here. Her photographer took video of Fiona making the drinks and some of Jocelyn showing the things we have for sale as well as still shots of the food on display. She ordered the blueberry muffins and three breakfast sandwiches.”

Jayne swung into action. A frying pan was ready and waiting, a carton of free-range eggs from a local farm beside it. She flicked on the stove, and once the pat of butter in the pan began to bubble, she cracked the eggs in. She timed the eggs carefully and then slid them, one at a time, onto the waiting sandwiches. Miranda put the tops on, put them on her tray next to the extra-berry blueberry muffins, and left.

“I sense a note of cynicism coming from you, Gemma,” Jayne said.

“Can’t imagine why.”

“This is the way it’s done in the modern world. As long as she doesn’t try to extort me—say ‘Give me a thousand bucks or I’ll trash your place to my millions of eager followers’—I’ll go along. It’s a big deal that she’s here. Plenty of people will now come to West London in general, and the tearoom in particular, who’ve never heard of us before. This is how word spreads in the world of social media.”

Jocelyn’s head came around the corner. “Brianna would love to meet you, Jayne. She said the muffin is the best she’s ever had.”

Jayne gasped and gave a very un-Jayne-like giggle. She took one more glance at herself in the mirror and followed Jocelyn.

I figured I should see what the fuss was all about; I also had a business to promote. Jayne had left the closet door open, and I may have done a quick check of my own hair. I fluffed the curls, smiled brightly, and followed Jayne into the dining room.