Death at the Theatre: Miss Hart and Miss Hunter Investigate: Book 2 by Celina Grace Page A

of tea with you. Down here. If that’s not too much trouble?”
    “Of course not,” I said, a little too quickly. I covered over my confusion by busying myself with the kettle and the teapot.
    The kettle seemed to take an absolute age to boil. I was being as busy as possible, putting cups out (I managed to find a few good ones at the back of the dresser) and warming the pot and hunting out some biscuits from the batch Mrs Watling had baked yesterday. Still, the silence between us stretched out uncomfortably, and in the end I broke it by asking a question he’d already answered. “So, the meal was to your liking, sir?”
    He smiled. “It was wonderful, Joan. Perhaps I was a bit hasty when I told you you were wasted in your job.”
    I remembered him saying that, on the staircase at the theatre. All of a sudden, my nervousness fell away. He wanted to talk to me, and if I had read things rightly, he wanted to talk to me about the case at the theatre. I poured him a cup of tea, my hands quite steady now, profferred the milk and sugar and then sat down opposite him at the kitchen table. After a moment, I poured myself a cup, if only to have something for my hands to do.
    “Well, Miss Hart.” The inspector took a neat sip from his cup. “Here we are again.”
    I took a deep breath. “You can call me Joan, sir. If you’d like.”
    “Joan. Thank you.” He inclined his head courteously. “Well, Joan, I suppose you’ve been wondering why I accepted Miss Drew’s invitation tonight – well, perhaps not so much why I accepted it, more what we were talking about. Perhaps that’s more what you were thinking?”
    “Well, I was, to be honest,” I said frankly. “I can only assume it had something to do with the Lord Cartwright case.”
    “You thought rightly. Miss Drew wanted to go over, in great detail, exactly where I’d gone wrong.”
    “Oh.” I tried to read his tone but it was neutral.
    Then the inspector smiled ruefully. “I must say, she sugared the pill rather well with that delightful dinner. Normally when I get hauled over the coals it’s standing on the cold linoleum of my superior’s office floor.”
    I smiled, relieved. “Her ladyship would never want a guest to go without a good dinner, no matter why they were here.”
    “I agree. True breeding there.” He looked as though he was going to say something else then but obviously thought better of it.
    There was another silence that threatened awkwardness again. I decided to be bold. “Can I ask you if you’re any further forward with the murder case at the theatre, sir?”
    Inspector Marks leant back in his chair and sighed. “Well, as you’ll no doubt see from the papers tomorrow, the body has finally been identified.” I sat forward in excitement and he shook his head ruefully at me. “However, there’s a strong suspicion that he was actually travelling under a false  name and his real identity hasn’t yet been uncovered.”
    “Was he a spy?” I asked, fascinated.
    “Now, that’s a good question, Joan. I’d like very much to know that.” The inspector was silent for a moment and then added, “There was something so clinical about his death – almost like an execution. A professional murder, if you will.”
    I took a sip of my tea. His words had just made me recall something I’d thought of earlier, when I was thinking about how Verity and I had sat in those theatre seats, our eyes glued to the action on stage.
    “Sir, if I may…” I faltered and then took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking about that, about how he was killed, I mean. And I think it’s something to do with the theatre.”
    Inspector Marks looked at me. “Go on,” he said, after a moment.
    “Well, I don’t necessarily mean to do with anyone at the theatre. Anyone who works there, I mean. But it was the timing of it that made me pause. I mean, it was a very dramatic play and we were all mesmerised by it. I don’t think I would have noticed anything going on