number 11, please?
So I decided to do double duty with these number requests: the actual prompt ask will be used for the series update, and then these numbers will double as a request for a WIP update. So lucky number 11 was an update to my Sherlock/Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries fusion rewrite of “Cocaine Blues.” This story was originally claimed by @whclocked and @elliedilly so I hope you both enjoy the update!
Cocaine Blues (Reimagined) - After years away from Australia, Molly Hooper returns to make sure the man who kidnapped and killed her sister never sees the light of day again. But on her first day back in Melbourne, she gets wrapped up in the death of a friend’s husband, which is not quite as simple as it initially appears.
READ CHAPTER 1 | READ CHAPTER 2 | HELP ME SURVIVE? | COMMISSION ME? | BUY ME A KOFI?
Chapter 2: A (Suspicious) Death In The Family
It didn’t take long until she made her way to Irene’s home, but upon arrival, there seemed to be a disturbance in the household. There was an ambulance there, and a body was being carted out with a crying maid behind it. The woman was small, with the platinum blonde hair of someone who wanted to be a blonde bombshell but it was not her natural colour. She was dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief as the body was loaded into the ambulance, and once it pulled away Margaret went up to the maid. “I’m here to call on Mrs. Irene Adler. She’s expecting me?”
The maid sniffed slightly and then shook her head. “I’m sorry, miss. There are no visitors to the household today. Mr. Adler has suddenly passed away.”
Well, that was certainly unusual. “Well, I’m an old friend. Perhaps I can pay my respects and then leave to let her carry on with what needs to be done.”
“Margaret?” She heard Irene’s familiar voice from behind the maid. The woman turned and then Irene waved her inside, and she curtsied before heading inside. “Oh, my dear, I’m so glad you came.” She came outside and down the steps before grasping Margaret’s hands in hers. “It’s been a dreadful morning. Andrew was fine during breakfast and then...” She gripped Margaret’s hands in her. “He just collapsed! Right on the bathroom rug.”
Margaret abandoned polite pretense and drew her friend into a comforting embrace. Irene looked as though she needed that, and more, as her face was pale and wan and she almost seemed to be shaking. “Is there anything I can do?” she asked Irene when she pulled back.
“No. Your aunt has graciously decided to stay and help with things, and the police are inside talking to my staff and I just...tea,” she said suddenly. “You can have some tea so I have something to do to steady myself.”
“Of course,” Margaret said with a nod, helping Irene back into the house. She hadn’t seen her friend look as frail as she did in quite some time, not since the Great War. They had met in the ambulance unit and bonded over the fact they were both Australians abroad, and while their correspondence had been spotty since the disbandment in France, she hadn’t thought Irene was ill. Perhaps it was just grief; Irene had not seemed to be madly in love with her husband but perhaps there was fondness there she hadn’t implied in their correspondence.
Irene led her to where her aunt was sitting. Elizabeth Smallwood was a small woman with a fierce face, though she had never looked as though she had had a hard comfort life unlike her own mother, Elizabeth’s sister. Perhaps that was why her Aunt Elizabeth always had a slightly pinched look about her face when they had occasions to be around each other; her aunt cared much for propriety and her own mother had flung it away and wasted it on her drunken wastrel of a father, whose only redeeming quality was to have the good luck to avoid the war and inherit a title and fortune. “Margaret,” she said, nodding her head.
“Aunt Elizabeth,” Margaret said, sitting next to her and arranging the skirt of her frock so nothing untoward was showing.
“You seem to not have changed much, at least in regards to the length of your skirt,” Elizabeth said with a slightly dismissive sniff.
“And you are still my dear old aunt,” Margaret said, pulling the hem of her skirt lower. She had changed into a pink and slightly frilly frock with a skirt that had a daring but still respectable hem, but even that did not seem to pass her aunt’s muster. “You are the type to know everything. What happened?”
“Well, I may know much but I am not the type to gossip,” she said before leaning in towards Margaret in a conspiratorial manner. Margaret did likewise in her aunt’s direction. “According to the household staff, Irene and her husband enjoyed a light breakfast of toast with kumquat jam and then he went to the bathroom and was found face down on the rug, purple in the face.” She had a slightly smug look on her face. “It appears to be his heart went out.”
“Could it be poisoning?” Margaret asked, tilting her head slightly. “Irene looks ill as well.”
Her aunt started to say more but Irene came out with the tea service, and both women turned their attention to her. “Irene, dear, would you like to sit down? Your maid can serve the tea,” Elizabeth said.
Irene waved her hand. “It’s alright. I need to keep busy,” she replied as the maid Margaret had met before came into the room and curtsied. “Yes, Mary?”
“The Detective needs to speak with you again,” Mary said. “He needs all the guests to leave the household so he can finish questioning the staff as well.”
“I’m so sorry,” Irene said to her guests. “Perhaps another time?”
“Of course, dear,” Elizabeth said. “Do you need transportation to your lodgings, Margaret?”
“I can call a cab,” Margaret said. “If that’s alright with you, Irene?”
“Of course,” she said. “Mary can show you where the telephone is. If you’ll both excuse me.” And with that, Irene left the room again, going the same way she had come in after setting the tea service on the table. Margaret stood as Mary gestured to follow her. This all got very interesting indeed...
