Free Never Laugh as a Hearse Goes By: A Penny Brannigan Mystery by Elizabeth J. Duncan

eyes were dark with dread.
    Penny reached into the last of the side pockets and pulled out a small notebook. She flipped it open and then looked at Davies. “I can’t read it.”
    Page after page was filled with a cacophony of squiggles, lines of varying thickness, circles, loops, and dashes. She held the book up and turned it around so the people at the table could see it.
    “Oh,” said Bronwyn, “I think I know what that is. It looks like shorthand. Pitman shorthand, I think it’s called. I had an aunt who was a secretary and she knew how to do that. Instead of writing the words, you have all those symbols that represent the way words sound. I could never make any sense of it and thought it was wonderful how some people, mainly young women, learned how to do that. It’s like a code. They used to teach it at the old secretarial schools.” She thought for a moment. “I wonder if secretarial schools still exist. I don’t think many girls these days set out to become secretaries and yet it doesn’t seem so long ago that secretary was one of the few career options open to women. We’ve come a long way.”
    “But you can’t read it?” Davies asked.
    Bronwyn shook her head. “No, sorry.”
    He directed a silent enquiry at Mrs. Blaine, who rose stiffly to her feet.
    “Of course I can’t read it. What do you take me for? And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m finding all this very upsetting. I’d like to go to my room.”
    “Certainly. But before you go, do you happen to know how we could get in touch with Miss Russell’s sister?”
    “No, sorry. I have no idea.” Davies stood as Pamela Blaine left the dining room, her trim figure attractively displayed from the back in a tight black pencil skirt paired with a well-cut white blouse tapered at the waist. She walked quickly, like a woman who was late for a meeting, her black high heels clicking on the parquet floor.
    Davies sat down again and turned to Penny and Bronwyn. “Well, we do have someone we’ve used in the past who knows shorthand, so I’ll ask Bethan to contact her and see if she’s available.”
    “Why do you want to do that?” Bronwyn asked. “Is the notebook important, do you think?”
    “It might be, depending on how the investigation goes. We don’t know what we’re dealing with but we have to consider all possibilities. Hopefully, we’ll know more once the contents of the plate have been analyzed.”
    He checked the time on his phone.
    “Bethan’ll be here soon to pick it up.” He looked from one to the other. “I can’t get past the fact that there was no EpiPen in her bag. People with severe allergies always carry one. Always. They never know when they might need it and they know that their lives could depend on it.”
    He cleared his throat.
    “I’d like the two of you to do something for me. Please keep an eye on the plate while I search Miss Russell’s room for the EpiPen. I need to know if the pen was in her room.”
    Thirty long minutes later a welcome, familiar figure appeared in the dining room entranceway. Catching sight of Penny and Bronwyn at the table, Sgt. Bethan Morgan threaded her way through the tables and joined them. She gave them each a quick greeting and then sat down.
    “Where is he?”
    “He went to search Miss Russell’s room. He wants to know why she didn’t have the EpiPen in her bag, so he’s looking to see if she left it in her room for some reason. In another bag, maybe,” said Bronwyn. “I expect when she’s recovered that’ll be one of the first things he asks her.”
    A look of dismay shading into fear flashed across Bethan’s face.
    “How is she?” Penny asked. “Is she…?”
    “She’s alive,” said Bethan, “but poorly. Her body is shutting down and it doesn’t look good.”
    “She thought the pen was in her bag,” said Penny. “As soon as she realized what had happened she pointed at her handbag. She kept trying to tell us to get the EpiPen from her handbag.”
    At that