Free An Unthymely Death by Susan Wittig Albert Page B

scent of lavender filled the soft evening air, with the spicy undertone of clove pinks. Bees were gorging themselves with happy abandon among the blue catmint flower spikes.
    “For information leading to the identification of the thief or the return of the book,” Ruby explained. “No questions asked.”
    “But the book is worth a lot more than five hundred dollars,” Pansy objected. “If somebody intends to sell it, that’s not much of an incentive.”
    “That’s true,” I replied, pushing the swing with my toe. “However, the thief has probably found out how hard it is to sell. He—or she—may be happy to get five hundred out of it. It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?”
    Pansy shook her head. “But the book may have been sold already. You said that Cora just bought some expensive furniture. If she’s the thief—”
    I threw up my hands. Why was Pansy being so stubborn? Didn’t she want Myra’s book to be found? “We have to try something, Pansy,” I persisted. “We’ve interviewed every one of the suspects and we still don’t have a clue.”
    A fragrance garden, planted near a window or beside a porch, is a long-lasting source of sweet pleasure. Here are a few especially fragrant herbs you’ll want to include :
     
    Catmint
Chamomile
Clove pink
Lavender
Lemon balm
Lemon verbena
Mignonette
Pennyroyal
Rosemary
Roses
Scented basil
Scented geraniums
Thyme
Violets
    “The problem,” Pansy said quietly, “is that we can’t have any publicity, for the same reason that we couldn’t involve the police in the first place. Since we don’t want anybody but the Library Committee to know that the book has been stolen, I don’t see how we can offer a reward without letting on that there’s been a theft.”
    “Rats,” Ruby said, and I echoed her. Both of us had forgotten about that. I sat for a moment, swinging back and forth, feeling frustrated.
    “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that book,” I said after a while. “What kind of recipes are in it?”
    Pansy got up from her chair. “I’ll show you,” she replied. She was back in a few minutes, with a manila folder. “This is a photocopy of the book.” She laid a few pages on the table so we could see them. “I copied it so I could study Myra’s revisions and see if the Herb Guild might publish a second edition.”
    “That’s a good idea,” Ruby said approvingly. She turned a few pages. “These are interesting recipes, China. Here’s one for lavender butter—I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that before.”
    “For her day, Myra was an amazingly inventive cook,” Pansy said. “She particularly loved rosemary. She grew lots of it—in fact, a few of her original plants still survive, in the herb garden behind the Guild House. She had all sorts of novel ideas for using it in foods.”
     
    Myra Merryweather’s unusual lavender butter is easy to make. Just mix 1 tablespoon of lavender flowers (fresh, unsprayed) with a cup of softened butter or margarine. Cover tightly and refrigerate for a day before using. Serve on crackers with smoked turkey or cold chicken, or use in your favorite butter-cookie recipe.
    I picked up a few pages, thinking with relief that we could scratch Pansy off our suspect list. I doubted that she would have bothered to photocopy a book that she intended to steal. I began to study Myra’s handwritten notes in the margins of the pages. Many were changes in existing recipes—an ingredient added here, another subtracted there. Others were entirely new recipes, written in a tiny but legible script. A couple of unusual ones caught my eye, and I blinked. If the stolen book hadn’t been valuable because of Myra’s handwritten notes, it should be valuable because of these new recipes. Some were quite unique. I looked up. “Do you know if anybody else copied Myra’s notes?”
    “I don’t think so,” Pansy said. “The book has been in the vault since her death, so no one has had access to it.