How to Find a Husband while Solving a Murder. Chapter 1.

How to get a Husband whilst Solving a Murder.  

If Harriet Twine ever looked back on what happened to her, she would have to say that the chain of events which set it all rolling started off in the most mundane of fashions. For Harriet was simply going in to her father’s study to borrow his newspaper to find out if anything exciting had been happening in the world outside Beaver Stream.

As Harriet’s hand rested on the knob, she heard the shrill sound of the one person in the world whose name could send shivers down Harriet’s back – Gracious Stoker.  Harriet Twine bent down and peeped through the keyhole because she was sure that she was mistaken.

Her father’s study looked and sounded the same as it always did.  A small fire burnt in the hearth and the large oval faced clock ticked away loudly. There were no flowers or plants or even items of display as it was a place purely for business whilst at home.  The desk and bookcases were of highly polished wood and the chairs were of soft leather, after all, what was the point of owning a tannery if you could not have the finest leather which money could buy.

Her father however, looked distinctly different as he reminded her of a puppet, all elbows and knees, as he frantically removed his trousers and then his shirt to reveal his long john underpants. Harriet gasped and then drew away as Jane Snow, her paid companion, pulled on her arm.

“What can you see, Harry?” Jane Snow sniffed as she tried to get a view through the keyhole. Harriet pinched her arm sharply so that Jane moved and Harriet bent down once more. Harriet bit on the inside of her lip as Gracious Stoker came into view. Her huge bustle blocked Harriet’s view of her father and then Gracious turned around and Harriet was fixed on the wart on Gracious’s second chin which wobbled like jelly as she spoke.

“Seeing as we are going to be related, I’ll let you touch, this once.” Gracious Stoker straightened her huge hat which had a grocer’s shop display as decoration on it whilst William Twine held out his long bony fingers and stroked the vast Stoker bosom. Harriet pressed her eye closer into the keyhole and scratched the inside of her palm, after all he had said to her about sin and pleasures of the flesh.

“We’ll have to get down to the finer detail later, I’ll have my solicitor draw the papers up but I think that we can safely say that it is an agreement for the time being.” Gracious Stoker left her hat alone and flicked her wrist to bring her fan to hand. She tartly smacked William Stoker’s knuckles off her bosom with it, smiled and then waved it across her face so that her piggy little eyes were peering over the top of it.

Harriet shuddered and as the shock of her father grasping at bosoms in his long john underpants faded slightly, she started to wonder what Gracious was referring to.

“Solicitor’s draw things out, I am anxious for a male heir.” William Twine put his shirt on, his eyebrows were almost crossed as he seemed to have lost the glazed look which he had earlier.

“I have to look after my Arthur’s interests now that he’s inherited his late uncle’s alum factory. He needs an heir as much as you do but we have to draw up binding documents, protect both parties so to speak.” Gracious Stoker rubbed the wart on her chin with her fan. It was the moment when William Twine put his trousers on and mumbled that Harriet was not getting any younger, that she knew she was doomed.

Harriet Twine stepped onto the railway platform but the foggy steam, the banging of heavy, metal doors and piercing whistles shooed all her thoughts away; but she told herself that she had to get on the train, think only of that.  If Father thought that he could marry her off to ‘The ill Rabbit’ Arthur Stoker’, she would dig her heels in as hard as her corset dug into her and rush to get Elizabeth, her married sister on her side.