A Visit to the Pump Room

Inspector Garrow had the manner of a man who believed tea was evidence and evidence was mostly tea. Adelaide liked him immediately and trusted him not at all.

Every clock in the shop had stopped at fourteen minutes past nine.

Adelaide wrote the suspects’ names on cards and arranged them on the counter like a hand of patience. One card kept sliding to the edge.

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The key to the long-case clock was missing. So was, it transpired, the long-case clock.

The ledger listed a repair for a Mrs. Hartwell, dated the morning of the death, and marked paid in full in a hand that was not her uncle’s.

In the Pump Room, the waters tasted of iron and gossip. Adelaide took both in small sips.