The next morning found Charlotte at the breakfast table, attempting to coordinate the reading of chapter fourteen of Bloody Murder in the Fens with successfully guiding forkfuls of egg and rashers into her mouth.

It wasn't working terribly well.

Food that had been left hovering in the air during particularly gripping passages continually dropped from the fork back onto her plate with a soft splat. The tea in her nearly-full cup had grown cold, as had the four pieces of toast standing at attention in the silver toast rack.

Preston raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as another bite of egg fell unnoticed back onto its fellows, tumbled over the edge of the plate and onto the pristine, starched tablecloth.

"Inspector Bump certainly doesn't waste any time, does he?" Charlotte finally mumbled and clapped the paperback shut.

She observed her plate and the chaos on it for a moment, then said, "He happened onto a milkmaid who had, luckily for him, been traversing the fields just when the carriage in question trotted past on the main road. The maid had no idea who or what she saw, but Inspector Bump did. Recognised her description of the carriage straight away. Now he knows that Wendel was on his way to Fothering Abbey two hours before sunset and can now return to Withington to confront Mr Greene."

"Is that so, ma'am?"

"It is so." Charlotte set down her fork and took up her tea cup, but didn't drink. "It is very much so. Let's see, who could have seen something vital without knowing what she saw?"

"I'm not following, ma'am. Wasn't the milkmaid the unwitting witness?" Preston took up the silver tea pot and approached the dining table, a calculating sparkle in his eye. Charlotte automatically held out her cup.

"Oh, excuse me, ma'am. You aren't finished yet, my mistake." Preston took a step back.

Charlotte stared into her cup as if surprised to see it containing tea. Draining it in three gulps, she held the empty cup out to Preston, who refilled it and returned to his place by the sideboard, a satisfied smile playing on his lips. 

"No. I mean, yes. In the novel, but I am referring to my own investigation."

"Is this the dire mystery you mentioned intending to solve, ma'am?"

"It is, indeed. And I must say, Mr K. Huntley continues to be of boundless service on that front. I've already viewed the scene of the crime, questioned the most recent victim, gained important information on the modus operandi  and — oh, which reminds me, I've just bought a painting. Throw it anywhere when it arrives, will you? — and now I need a milkmaid."

Charlotte tapped a finger against her mouth as she ransacked her memory for London equivalents of clueless witnesses. Preston stood at attention, his eyes wandering the walls of the dining room as if mentally searching for where he could throw a painting.

"Linny Parson-Smythe!" Charlotte exclaimed. "She was there, and if anyone suits the description of unwitting anything, it's good old Linny. She's so utterly gullible you could convince her the moon was made of cheese and nibbled on monthly by precious celestial mice, if only you sounded sincere enough."

"Are you saying it isn't, ma'am?" Preston asked. "What terrible news."

"Sorry to have to break that to you," Charlotte said, giving him an impish grin. "I know the truth must be painful." Preston's humour was subtle, but a completely straight-laced butler wouldn't have lasted a month in her employ. Preston had lasted a little over ten years.

"That's alright, ma'am," he said with a sigh as he moved to clear away the dishes. "My world shall remain intact as long as you don't tell me it's not the pixies who flutter about in the garden, painting the roses with perfume each night."

"I would never say anything of the sort. We would be utterly lost without our pixies, as we both know," Charlotte said, pushing back her chair and wandering out into the hall to ring Linny Parson-Smythe and ask if she were free for drinks that afternoon.

She was, but she knew hardly more than Charlotte had already dug up.

"Who all was there? Oh, goodness, let's see." Linny said, sipping at a gin and tonic. The feather in Linny's sky-blue cloche hat bobbed as she peered off into the distance, the tip of her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth, her face twisting up with the effort of thinking. 

Outside, omnibuses and private motor cars sped past on the road and pedestrians clogged the pavement, but inside the underlit bar, it was quiet and almost empty. They had a window table to themselves in the afternoon lull.

Charlotte saw she would need to limit her question more if they were not to be there until supper time.  

"Or perhaps, was anyone there you didn't know? Or who wasn't enjoying themselves like everyone else?"

Linny's scrunched countenance didn't change a wink. "John somebody," she said, finally.

"John somebody?"

"Yes, I'd never seen him before. Utter stranger to me, but others seemed to know him. I was told he was a painter. Thin and shabby looking enough to actually be one, too. Toddy and Margret Spinkley weren't enjoying themselves, but I've heard they're having ghastly marital difficulties. Might be why they were looking so glum and nattering so horribly at each other. Ummm. . . Sylvia and Arthur left early—"

"The Rickings?"

"That's right. He's got such lovely manners, does Arthur, don't you think? I wish more husbands had such manners. Sylvia's lucky to have caught that one on her line is all I can say. Tandy Barlow and her new beau, I forget his name, also left early. Or at least I didn't see them at breakfast.  And there was beastly Cyril Cunningham, of course, guzzling the punch bowl dry and pinching bottoms. You know Cyril."

"Unfortunately. They don't call him Bloomers Cunningham for no reason."

Linny giggled. "Has he been after you, as well?'

"Been after and been sent packing. He's not half as successful with women as he lets on, the inflated bullfrog. Those are all you remember?"

A nod and more giggles was the answer. Charlotte changed tactic slightly.

"Linny, do the names Virginia and Beauregard set any bells ringing in your pumpkin? They've got friends in Parliament and other high roosts. It's on the tip of my tongue, but I just can't seem to come up with a family name."

"That would be the Barning-Thorntons like as like. He's got pretensions to politics, but I doubt he'll make it as far as all that."

"Oh, that's right. Barning-Thornton! Why? What's holding him back, do you imagine?"

"Well, Virginia for one thing. Alright, she is the daughter of a baronet, but she's twenty-five, if not thirty, years younger than he is and quite the hoyden, if you want to know what the word is. I'll not go as far as to say she's a clergyman's daughter, but she's not up to the moral standard for an MP's wife. Not by yardarms."

Charlotte remembered now. An older man with more money than sense and a very young and very pretty bride. No wonder Virginia was terrified of public scandal if her husband had his eye on a seat in the government. Obviously not terrified enough to stop her throwing a rollicking bash, but those were often two pairs of trousers. Old Beauregard had probably hooked it out of London for a few days and only her own younger set had been invited to booze it up at the house.

"Speaking of not up to standard," Linny went on,"Have you heard the latest about Celia Paggett? She's been seen around town with a strange young man on her arm."

The name Paggett derailed Charlotte's train of thought from her investigation and sent it hurtling onto a completely different track. "A strange young man? How strange?"

Linny leaned in closer and lowered her voice, "Someone no one has seen before. The word is, he's a country squire come to town to rub elbows with the real aristocracy, but no one is sure of anything."

"Round fellow, sandy blond hair?"

"Don't know, haven't seen him myself. But I've heard he has an automobile and is renting a house in one of the fashionable streets in Mayfair."

"How very interesting. Another?" Charlotte pointed to Linny's glass and harvested an enthusiastic nod. She raised her hand and flagged down a passing waiter to place their order, wondering how Bramwell had ingratiated himself so quickly with Celia. Was that hippo so desperate to show off a beau that she'd drag even the likes of Bramwell Tarkington through everyone's drawing room?

Charlotte called herself to order. She'd not seen Bramwell in ages. One could hardly judge a grown man by his behaviour at a few pre-war summer parties. He'd been perfectly pleasant when she'd spoken to him, if rather distracted.

It was a smidgen past three o'clock when Linny had said her goodbyes. 

Charlotte had not fared as well as Inspector Bump, and she was at a bit of a low ebb when she hailed a cab outside of the restaurant. As buildings, shops and people blurred outside the cab window, she reviewed what she had so far. It wasn't much, but at least she could cross some suspects off the guest list she'd pressed Anne for.

Tandy Barlow and her friend, as well as the Rickings, had left well before the robbery.

The Spinkleys were having the blue devils and concerned only with their own troubles. 

Thomas and Lucretia had spent most of the night talking to her and Linny herself was too gormless too contemplate theft on such a scale.

She could most likely cross all of them off the list with a good conscience. 

That left an artist chap by the name of John Something and Bloomers Cunningham. Although Bloomers had always been like that. He was hardly suspicious, merely tiresome. His uncle had been a close advisor to the Old Queen and he still took advantage of that fact to shoehorn himself into any social event going during the season.

That left John Something as being the oddest fish in the pond. 

As well as the thirty some other guests. 

Not terribly enlightening, but now she did know the complete name of who the tiara had been stolen from, and could therefore swoop over to Camden Town to the office of a Mr Oakham or Oakby, private detective, to uncover even more details. 

As the cab neared her home, Charlotte's thoughts gradually turned to the dinner party at Lord and Lady Panderhurst's that evening. She still had yet to decided which of her ensembles she wanted to wear. The silver and crimson? The black and beige?  However divvy she looked, she admonished herself to remember not to breathe a word about her findings to Carlton, who would be sitting across from her at table all evening. He would think she was off her onion and press her more to go engagement ring buying.  

Charlotte wondered what Inspector Bump would say to that.