Free Dead for a Spell by Raymond Buckland Page B

But it weren’t to be for old Mrs. Proctor.”
    â€œOh?” I was beginning to feel the effort of drawing out all these facts and wanted to get to the final curtain, as it were.
    â€œNo. Had a nephew what ran off with her savings, poor old dear. She had to start taking in sewing work to makes ends meet.”
    â€œCould she not have come back here?” I asked, even though I knew I was prolonging the story.
    â€œWe’d already filled her place, hadn’t we?”
    I wished he wouldn’t keep asking me questions like that. I sighed. “So where is she now?” I asked.
    â€œNewington Butts, or just off it.”
    â€œI don’t understand,” I said.
    â€œThere’s a graveyard alongside Newington Butts, just south of here. Mrs. Proctor is planted there.”
    â€œShe’s dead?”
    He laughed. “I hope so. Otherwise there’ll be hell to pay with the gravediggers!” He laughed at his joke.
    I moved forward and slapped my hand down hard on his desk. He looked startled.
    â€œThis is no laughing matter. When did she die?”
    â€œAll right, all right! No need to get shirty.” He started sorting papers into piles as though he had no more time to spend with me. “Just a few days ago, as it happens. She was hit and run down by a brewer’s dray that came out of George’s Road faster than he should have done. Made no effort to stop, from what I hear.”

Chapter Six
    I t could not have been a nicer day to spend with Jenny and her aunt Alice. Miss Alice Forsyth was from Bermondsey, on the south side of the River Thames, and she informed us that not since the days of her youth had she visited Kew to enjoy the nearly three hundred acres that comprised the Royal Botanic Gardens, generally known simply as Kew Gardens. There we found swathes of immaculate lawns dotted with rare trees. Although it was only the end of March, the sky was clear and the sun shone down. However, it had little warmth so we all sported our topcoats.
    I found Aunt Alice to be a delightful lady; short and plump, with rosy cheeks and gray hair pulled back in a bun-chignon. She obviously adored her young niece, and I saw no reason to argue with that. Aunt Alice did not ask a lot of questions but seemed most content to simply smile and nod and look around her with inquisitive eyes that blinked behind a firmly held tortoiseshell-framed lorgnette.
    We admired the Pagoda, designed by Mr. William Chambers, and spent quite some time touring Mr. Decimus Burton’s Palm House: 363 feet long, 100 feet wide, and 62 feet high. It was spectacularly made of iron and curved sheets of glass. A new Temperate House was in the process of being built.
    We were in awe of the most beautiful tropical plants, astonishingly flourishing here in England—ferns, fruit trees, and cacti—with flowers, shrubs, and trees of every imaginable sort. Such was the tropical temperature maintained in the hothouse that we all were obliged to remove our outer garments, though we hastily donned them again on emerging from the building.
    We proceeded to the refreshment pavilion, close by the Winter Garden. There we were able to procure a table overlooking the arboretum, an area of 178 acres that extends down to the River Thames. It is intersected in every direction by shady walks and avenues. I noted that the famous Kew Gardens’ rhododendrons, at the Hollow Walk, would not be in flower until May and June, according to the brochure we had acquired on entering the Gardens, and vowed to bring back both ladies to view them at that time. I ordered tea for all of us, eschewing the popular ices and instead indulging in scones and strawberry jam with Devonshire clotted cream.
    As Jenny and her aunt caught up on each other’s activities, I perused the people making the most of the unexpectedly glorious March day. A familiar figure suddenly appeared coming from the direction of the Pagoda. It took me but a