“And what did William use to make your sleeping draughts after that?” said Byron.
“I didn’t make them anymore,” said William.
“And I didn’t ask about them,” said Mr. Hardy.
“I kept thinking he would, but he didn’t, and I was just grateful, because I never wanted to think about it ever again,” said William.
“How many people know about Mr. Hardy’s sleeping draughts?” said Jane.
“Well, I don’t know,” said William. “Perhaps a lot. I’ve gone through the tavern before, bellowing for people to get out of my way for I had Mr. Hardy’s sleeping draught here and I had to leave it for him outside his door.”
“Well, then,” said Jane quietly.
“Oh,” said Byron, “I see what you’re saying. Yes, you’re right. We’ve been investigating the wrong murder all along.”
“The target was never Miss Seward,” said Jane. She turned to Mr. Hardy. “The target was you. Whoever poisoned that sleeping draught wanted to kill Mr. Hardy.”
AFTER ASKING MR. Hardy all about who might have wanted to kill him, and Mr. Hardy being less than helpful and giving them no real answers other than casting suspicion on Mr. Eves, they left the tavern and began to walk the streets.
It was growing later, and Jane suggested they go back to her house for luncheon, but Byron waved this away and said that he didn’t need to eat any luncheon, that he could stand to lose a bit of weight anyway, and Jane said he was worse than a woman, and Byron laughed and said that was likely true.
“Well,” said Jane, “anyway,Iam hungry. And we must discuss all of this, I think. Walk with me back home?”
“I have to say,” said Byron, “the amount of walking you do is sheer torture. I don’t know how it is that you even manage it.”
She chuckled. “It does make me work up an appetite, I suppose.”
“And all the more reason for walking less,” said Byron. “It makes you eat more and thereby makes you even more rotund.”
“Come now, truly,” said Jane, “you know you are not rotund. And you also enjoy eating. I remember how many biscuits you ate the first time you were at our house.”
“Everyone enjoys eating,” said Byron. “But if one eats too much, one gets large, and if one is large and fat, one is treated differently.”
Jane considered. “That may be true, I suppose, but most people are not very thin, especially not as they age. Anyway, I don’t think it matters nearly as much for men.”
“Are you joking? It’s so much worse for men. Women have the excuse of having borne children, after all, but men who are fat, well, it is entirely down to their lack of self-control.”
“You are, of course, a paragon of self-control,” said Jane said dryly.
“Well, precisely,” said Byron.
“Precisely? You are?” She was laughing.
“No, I am not,” said Byron. “I am not a paragon of self-control, so I have little chance of escaping the scourge of fatness.”
“You’re not even a little fat, my lord.”
He harrumphed. “Let’s talk about the murder.”
“Oh, all right,” said Jane. “It’s an entirely different proposition now, though. Everything we found out is totally useless.”
“Not totally,” said Byron. “Maybe Mr. Seward did it.”
“We’re back to him? He wasn’t even here that night either.”
“He could have been, though,” said Byron. “Anyway, Mr. Hardy knew his secret and was blackmailing him. Getting rid of Mr. Hardy might have been just the thing to ease his mind.”
“I suppose,” said Jane. “And I suppose next you’ll say that Mr. Eves did it to end the tavern in some way, but I don’t see how killing Mr. Hardy ends the tavern.”
