“Give me that mouse!” Greta lunged across the counter, grabbing a knife from the rack. I backed toward the door, but she was faster. She flung her body between me and the door and raised the knife, her eyes glinting with malicious purpose.
“You know the truth. You will go to the police. I must kill you.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“Greta, no.” I held up my hands. “It’s over. You’re only going to make things worse for yourself.”
“Give me the mouse, Mina.” Greta stepped toward me.
“No.”
I stumbled backward as Greta lunged with the knife. My thigh crashed into the edge of a table. I tossed a chair into the room, trying to put obstacles between me and Greta.This is my life now, avoiding stabbings.
A dark figure came out of the kitchen. “Sister, what are you doing?”
Greta froze, knife held aloft. “Helmut?”
Helmut set down a dish on the counter and rushed around to the front. “You are threatening this woman with knife?”
“She sure is,” I piped up, inching toward the door.
“She’s going to go to the police,” Greta spat. “She will take me away from you.”
“I heard everything, your whole conversation. She says you are a murderer, but this is not true. This cannot be true.” Helmut stepped toward his sister, holding out his hand. “Give me the knife, Greta.”
“That nasty woman was ruining us! She did it deliberately because we are German. And she had the nerve to come in here and demand doughnuts made for her stupid diet!”
“I know.” Helmut shuffled closer, his eyes fixed on her. His hand didn’t waver as he reached for the knife handle. Greta’s wrist jerked, but she didn’t lower the weapon, only continued to stare at her brother with those flint eyes.
“I scraped the arsenic from the chimney in your forge,” she whispered. “I thought, a little bit on her doughnuts every day, it will make her sick, and maybe she will see reason.”
“Oh, Greta.” Helmut wrapped his arms around his sister. I backed through the door, coming to stand beside Morrie, who had his phone pressed against his ear, talking to the police.
“At this rate, we’re going to need to keep Inspector Hayes on speed dial,” I mused.
“Not if I can help it,” Morrie sighed, ringing off the call and sliding his phone back into his pocket. “I’d prefer if in the future you could keep the police as far away from my affairs as possible.”
I grinned up at him. “Are these pesky murders putting the kibosh on your criminal plans?”
“It’s disgraceful,” Morrie agreed, pulling me into his chest and crushing me in his embrace. “It’s no time to be the Napoleon of Crime. I shall have to settle for being Mina Wilde’s most handsome and clever boyfriend instead.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Are you saying that with this dictionary, you were able to figure out the mouse had a particular fondness for Havarti cheese, and by using that particular cheese with the poison, you finally ended his reign of terror?” The reporter’s eyebrow rose so far up her face it practically slid off her forehead.
“I said it the first time,” Heathcliff growled, slammingMouse Language for Humansdown on the desk. “Can we take the photograph now?”
“Just one more question. What are you going to do with the reward money?”
“It’s going into a fund to help with baby Bottom’s care and adoption,” Mum said, tossing her hair over her shoulder like a movie star. “That was my idea, of course. I’m very community-minded. Can you take the picture from this side? Sylvia Blume tells me this is my best side.”
“Of course.” The photographer made a final adjustment to his setup and clicked the shutter. Mum beamed from over Heathcliff’s shoulder as the photographer snapped the picture. On the desk in front of them stood stacks of pet language dictionaries, with a handwritten sign proudly displaying the price (which I noted Mum had raised by two quid because of her new ‘social proof’).
“This is going in tomorrow’s paper, under a big headline, ‘The Terror of Argleton Is No More,’” the journalist said, snapping her notebook shut. “Thank you so much for your time.”
“Do you have any of those books for dogs?” the photographer asked, pawing through the stack. “I’d love to know what my little Binky is barking about.”
“Of course.” Mum handed him the dictionary, elbowing Heathcliff out of the way in her haste to get to the register. “Now, will that be cash or credit card?”
