“Mina, what are you doing?” Morrie’s eyes bugged out of his head.
“Can’t you smell that?” I held the bag open and sniffed again.No, I’m definitely not imagining it.The faintest whiff of garlic, the same smell I’d caught on Mrs. Scarlett’s breath before she died. I held the bag out to him, but he wrinkled his nose and backed away.
“I’ve taken some interesting drugs in my time, but no way is my nose getting anywhere near that bag.”
I sighed. “Fine. I’ll tell you that it smells like garlic. I think this mouse has eaten arsenic.”
“That’s the poison that killed the old bint,” Heathcliff glared at me.
“Exactly. I think our little friend Terror here has had a nibble of the same supply. Which means I know who killed Mrs. Scarlett.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Can I help you?” Greta looked up as I entered the bakery.
“Hi, Greta. I just wanted to tell you that we got the mouse,” I said. “The Terror of Argleton won’t be troubling you again.”
“Danke.That rotten creature chewed a hole in one of my flour bags. It made a mess everywhere!” Greta beamed over the display. “I was afraid the health authorities would have stern words for me. Please, could I offer you a treat? It will be free for you.”
“Oh, no, that’s okay. I have somewhere I need to get to.”
“Please. I insist.”
“Oh, well…” My tastebuds watered as I took in the cakes and slices in the display cabinet.No, Mina, be strong.“Sure. One cream doughnut, please.”
Greta picked up the tongs and expertly slid one of the creamy treats into a paper bag. “Anything else?”
“Yes, actually. I was wondering, do you have any of those special gluten-free doughnuts you gave Mrs. Scarlett? I’m visiting a friend who’s a health food nut and I know she’d appreciate it.”
Greta shook her head. “Nein.I have stopped making them. They were so expensive, all those special flours! Now that Mrs. Scarlett has passed away, no one wants them any longer.”
“Fair enough. You sure treat your customers well, going above and beyond to make food everyone can enjoy. Every morning Mrs. Ellis and Mrs. Scarlett came in and bought their doughnuts. Mrs. Ellis said you even put their treats aside for them to make sure they didn’t sell out before they got there.”
“It is what you should do for loyal customers.”
“Really?” I leaned forward and glared at her. “You should poison them with arsenic?”
Greta’s smile drooped a little. “What did you say?”
I held up the doughnut. “Every morning you dusted Mrs. Scarlett’s doughnut with arsenic. It would have looked exactly like icing sugar. A little bit every day, not enough to raise suspicion. And eventually, she’d drop dead.”
“I did not do this thing,” Greta scowled. “Howdareyou accuse me without proof.”
“I have all the proof I need,” I held up the bag containing the dead mouse. “The Terror of Argleton was brought down by the same poison that killed Mrs. Scarlett. You told me the other day that you put out poison to trap the mouse. Your mistake was using thesamepoison.”
“Nonsense. I would not know the first thing about arsenic.”
“That’s a lie, too. Your brother Helmut extracts and smelts his own ore in his forge behind King’s Copse. I know that the ore around that area contains a high quantity of arsenic deposits. The arsenic would dry in the chimney of Helmut’s forge, where you could easily scrape off the powder.”
Greta’s mouth wavered. I drew the bag containing the Terror of Argleton from my purse and waved the mouse in her face.
“This mouse smells of garlic,exactlyas Mrs. Scarlett smelled in the days leading up to her death. I’m taking it to the lab now, where a simple test will confirm if arsenic was the poison that killed him, and the source of that arsenic. The only thing I can’t figure out iswhy. Apart from as a customer, you hardly knew Mrs. Scarlett.”
“She is rotten woman!” Greta yelled. “She holds up the development because of her petty vendettas. My brother and I, we have been waiting to build our new home for four years! She wants to make us miserable because she hates the Germans. Well, I showed her. I did!”
Of course. It’s about the money Greta and Helmut would get for their tiny cottage from the developers.
“You did show her. You poisoned her.” I held up the mouse’s body. “And I’ve all the evidence I need to convict you right here.”
