The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree

As it turned out, Mrs. Brewster never even knew they were there. As they came around the corner of Plum Street, they saw the lady walking purposefully in the direction of the courthouse square. She was carrying an empty basket. Going to Hancock’s for groceries, maybe? Whatever her mission, it was important enough to make her move swiftly. And it gave Verna and Lizzy their chance.

They went up the stairs to the front door. Verna rapped, very softly—just so they could say that they had knocked. When there was no answer, she pushed gently on the door. It opened, as she thought it would. Nobody locked their front doors in Darling—and Mrs. Brewster’s girls would have to be able to enter and leave.

So they entered. The main hall was dark and quiet, since most of the residents were still at work. Verna put her hand on Lizzy’s arm and motioned to the steep, narrow staircase. They crept up to the second-floor hallway and down the empty hall to the last door on the right.

Still unlocked, luckily. They went in, quietly, and shut the door behind them.

“Oh, dear,” Lizzy whispered, looking around the tiny room. “Oh, my goodness.”

“Yes, exactly,” Verna said sadly. “Poor kid.”

It didn’t look as if the police had been here. If they had, they hadn’t neatened anything up, for the room was as littered as before. Bunny’s clothes were still scattered across the floor, the bed was still unmade, the air still reeked of My Sin. Verna stood for a moment, then went to the dressing table and pretended to look over the cosmetics. Furtively, she opened her purse, took out the small box containing the pearl earrings, and slid it into the drawer, breathing a secret sigh of relief.

Success! She could stop feeling guilty. Now nobody would ever know that she had taken those valuable pearls. She raised her eyes and glanced in the mirror, to see if Lizzy had noticed.

She needn’t have worried. To Verna’s surprise, Lizzy was pulling open the dresser drawers, one after the other, pushing things aside and looking among Bunny’s clothing as if she were searching for something specific. In the third drawer down, she seemed to have found it. She took out a white envelope, held it in her hand for a moment, then, without turning around, quietly tucked it into the front of her dress.

Verna cleared her throat. “Find something interesting?”

“Oh!” Lizzy jumped, startled. “Oh, gosh. I didn’t think you’d—” She turned, shamefaced, and pulled out the envelope. “It ... It’s a letter, Verna. From Mr. Moseley to Bunny. I should have told you. It’s the reason I wanted to come here this afternoon. To see if I could find it.”

“A letter?” Verna rolled her eyes. “For pete’s sake, Lizzy, the man’s a lawyer. Doesn’t he know any better than that?” Incautious letters sometimes led to blackmail. And blackmail led to murder. At least, that was the plot of a recent mystery she had read.

“I don’t think he was thinking,” Lizzy said. Her face was pale. “I think maybe his brain shut down. He said he had to tell her that he wanted to break it off.”

“What does the letter say?”

“I don’t know,” Lizzy replied in a quavering voice, and handed it over. “You read it, Verna. Read it out loud.”

Verna opened it. The letter was handwritten and dated two weeks before. It was short and to the point. She read in a low voice.

“ ‘Dear Bunny, I’m sorry. I can’t give you what you want, or what you deserve. You need to find someone else. We can’t see each other again.’ It’s signed with his initials,” she added. “B.M.”

She handed it back to Lizzy. “Sounds pretty definite to me. If I got a letter like that, I’d be upset. Maybe frantic, depending on whether I really liked the guy.” But maybe it wasn’t a case of Bunny really liking—or even loving—Bent Moseley. Maybe she’d seen him as a meal ticket, and when he dumped her, she had threatened to tell his wife about their relationship. If she threatened him, how would he react? Would he be scared? Would he be scared enough to kill her? To Lizzy, she said, “What are you going to do with that letter?”

Lizzy straightened her shoulders. “I’m going to give it back to him.” She put the letter into her purse.

Verna frowned. “You’re absolutely, positively certain that he didn’t have anything to do with Bunny’s death?”

“I am positive.” Lizzy’s voice was firm. “I know Mr. Moseley, Verna. He would never do something like that. The trouble is that he doesn’t have an alibi for Saturday night. His wife was in Birmingham with the girls and he was home alone.”

So that explained her unexpected remark about Mr. Lima’s alibi, Verna thought. She opened her mouth to tell Lizzy to put the letter back. If she took it, she’d be obstructing justice or something awful like that.

But she didn’t. After all, she herself had taken those earrings—who was she to tell Lizzy what to do?

Instead, she turned back to the drawer. “Here are the earrings I told you about,” she said. She took the box out of the drawer, and opened it.

“Oh!” Lizzy exclaimed, in an awed tone. “Oh, my goodness. They’re beautiful!”

“Do you think Mr. Moseley gave them to her?”