A Deadly Draught by Lesley A. Diehl

across at the brandy bottle sitting on the sideboard, shrugged his shoulders, and got up. This time he poured the liquor halfway up the glass.
    “Did you steal the recipe?”
    “Well, yes, but the brew I was making for my boss wasn’t that recipe. I kept the competitor’s recipe in reserve. I was brewing another one I had lifted years before. I may have been a thief, but I wasn’t altogether without intelligence.”
    I looked at the handsome and sophisticated man sitting across from me and found it difficult to believe he was anything but the gentleman he appeared to be. A thief? No. Then there was his present occupation and the money it required for him to purchase this brewery.
    “But what about this brewery?”
    “As I was dodging the authorities in Germany, the gods smiled upon me for no good reason. Gods can be whimsical, it appears. The lady I had had a friendship with years before in England? Her husband had died and left her quite a fortune. Then she died soon after and left it to me. I guess I made a lasting impression on her.” He raised his glass and saluted the woman or the gods. “I decided to look at it as a sign of some kind and go straight. Changed my name, lost my criminal past, and looked around for a brewery. This one came up for sale, and here I am, a respectable English gentleman.”
    Throughout his speech, Rafe continued to sip from the snifter and smile as if he found his past life amusing. Maybe he did.
    “Why are you telling me this?”
    “To let you know I understand people, especially people who have brewing beer in their blood. People like you. When you want something enough, you may take short cuts.” He set the snifter on the desk and leaned toward me. “Not only has my brew master been harmed, but I’m missing some yeast, Hera, some very special yeast.”
    The confession about his past was over. I suddenly realized he was accusing me of theft. “Me? You think I would copy your ales and steal your yeast? I thought you liked me. How can you possibly think I would harm Henry and then steal something of yours? Those aren’t short cuts, as you called them.” I gripped the arms of the chair to prevent myself from flying out of it. I wanted to run from the room. No, I wanted to slap Rafe. How dare he suggest I might do harm to him or to Henry?
    “No, they aren’t. That’s attempted murder.” Jake stood in the doorway to the study. Neither Rafe nor I had heard him enter the house. “You said nothing about a theft to me, Mr. Oxley.”
    “How much did you hear?” Rafe asked. “The conversation was supposed to be private.”
    “Enough to know your criminal past could be related to what’s going on around here, and that’s my business, not some private matter between you and Hera.”
    “Hera and I share a passion for brewing beer. You might find our particular zeal odd. As I told her, passion can sometimes encourage people to do unusual things, especially when they don’t have the means to carry out their plans. Nothing against you, my dear,” Rafe continued, turning to me, “but we’re too alike for me not to give you a chance to come clean about the yeast.”
    “I’d never take a thing from you. Maybe I can understand how you could suspect me of theft, given my financial situation, but trying to do harm to Henry?” After what Rafe told me, I wondered how well I knew this man and how much I liked him or could trust him.
    “I had hoped the two events were unrelated, if you were the one helping yourself to the yeast,” Rafe said. “I can’t think the deputy sheriff here would think you capable of murder.”
    “To cover a crime? People do all kinds of things when they feel threatened,” said Jake.
    There he goes again, thinking the worst of me. “I’m not just people here. I’m Henry’s friend and his colleague. I don’t go around shoving people into rooms where there’s no oxygen.”
    “Well, you do have the perfect alibi, at least for some of the morning.