Away from it all (part 5)
To super-sweeties Mindy and Erin. And to Misti the Muse. Misti, you have disappeared. Hope you are doing okay.
By Amy de Kanter
Daphne had worn his sweater. Niles knew it even as he picked it up from the top of the pile, before he pulled it on. The sweater carried the scent of her hair, of her. Niles took long strides down the path towards the lake, wrapped in a cloud of Daphne.
Niles' nose dissected smells the way his tongue analysed wine: Taking in the whole and allowing it to unravel, thread by pure and individual thread.
Of all scents in the world, women carried the most complex and fascinating mixtures. It may well have been his first day of school when he first noticed that girls smelled different than boys, him and his brother Frasier excepted. Girls smelled cleaner. Prettier. As both he and his schoolmates matured, his nose kept tabs on girls as they turned to from family soap to scented ones, along with a mélange of powders, perfumes and lotions.
Blindfolded in a crowded room, Niles could have found Maris under that shroud of expensive sheep placenta creams and the hypoallergenic eau de toilette concocted especially for her by the people at Chanel. The scent hung off his ex-wife, as heavy as her moods, and Dad used to say it was the only thing preventing her from attaining zero gravity.
Mel was way at the other extreme. She smelled. well, mostly she smelled of nothing. Only the faintest hint of tea-tree soap gel she used to neutralize the aroma of hospital. To his darling, tidy little Mel scent was clutter and better left stripped to its minimal, most hygenic form. Her only compromise was at social events, when she limbo-ed into a thin mist of Elizabeth Arden, catching a few molecules which for the duration of the evening would smell exactly the way they did right out of the bottle. Niles bowed his face close to the sweater. Daphne. Daphne's was the scent one drew in by the lungful, as varied and layered as a large family kitchen or flower garden if such kitchen or garden existed in heaven. She formed no permanent attachment to soaps, shampoos or fragrances and was carefree and joyous about trying new things, yet the result was always unmistakably Daphne; as if her skin and hair were the magic elements that turned the delightful into the angelic.
Niles slipped a little on the path but not enough to lose his balance so he continued walking. The wedding band was on his finger. It had come on the second he left the cottage even as his mind was full of the way Daphne had looked in the kitchen, pouring coffee; the way she had looked in the breakfast room, smiling slightly with each bite. The way she looked in the living room, glancing up from the puzzle. His mind was always full of Daphne. It used to be merely pathetic, now it was unforgivable.
The wedding band was on his finger. He knew where he was going and the ring had to come with him. It would not be coming back.
Washing breakfast dishes he had congratulated himself on getting through the first part of the morning without a single uncomfortable incident. He had calmed himself last night by mathematically dividing the time ahead of them into manageable chunks and breakfast had concluded the ninth-sixteenth of the time they had left before setting back to Seattle.
The puzzle had taken care of the first half of the time. During the night Niles had put together 456 pieces of the 800-piece puzzle. That was 57% of the puzzle completed, nearly three fifths. He had done all the edges which some people would claim were the easy part, but those people might fail to consider that the more pieces were put into place; the less loose pieces were left to contend with and the easier it was to find a match. By a series of mathematical equations Niles had figured that if it had taken him 7 hours, 18 minutes to complete that (he had slept a little, but looked at his watch during waking time and was confident he had it right nearly to the second), it would take another 2.4 hours to reach the 75% mark but then only slightly under an hour to finish it off. That would only leave 3 sixteenths of which at least two could be filled with lunch and packing. If worse came to worse he would simply make an excuse for them to leave a little earlier. All would be fine.
His work and logic had been so robotic last night that he had forgotten to factor in things that would affect the consistency of his progress. Like sleepiness. Like morning. Like Daphne. By virtue of cause and effect his careful timing equations now amounted to - as Dad would say - diddly-squat since one whiff of his sweater had resulted in Niles suggesting they stay an additional day.
Wearing the ring, wearing the sweater, Niles was torn apart buy guilt. Mel. He took another deep breath. Daphne.
Thin sheets of ice grew in from the edges of the lake and cold wind barely ruffled the water. This truly was a beautiful place. Niles had only been down to this pier once before, which was once more than Maris who had an understandable phobia of slatted walkways. He remembered how overwhelmed he had been when he first came here, taking in yet another splendid item that had become his with a simple exchange of vows.
At the time it had seemed more than worth it. Niles had loved Maris, the first woman he ever felt sorry for. The only woman who ever needed him. It was only, as he once said to Frasier, a delightful bonus that Maris happened to come richly accessorised with money, connections, mansions, antiques and a wine cellar the size of a small gymnasium. It would have taken a lifetime to earn a fraction of it, yet there he had it; the life of a lord by his mid-twenties.
Now fifteen years - his youth - were gone leaving him with ego scars and a settlement worth millions. Was it still worth it? Fifteen years in exchange for Shady Glen, his luxury apartment at the Montana and a mind- boggling figure in his bank account. If Maris had turned down the heat on the hell she put him through during their divorce proceedings, even a little bit, he may have felt guilty about taking so much. He wondered whether Mel would like Shady Glen. She might love it. She might be the only Crane besides his father to venture into the boathouse. She did not seem the sea-faring type, but then again she might be. There were a lot of things Niles did not know about her. What was he thinking, tying the knot so early in the relationship?
Don't play innocent with me, Frasier would say if he were here. Niles knew damn well what he was thinking and he may as well admit it: Mel was a rope - and yes, he was aware of the physical appropriateness of the metaphor - cast to a man drowning in the vast sea that was a life without Daphne. Niles took off the golden wedding band. No use putting it off any longer, he knew what he had to do. It was only right. Mel was not Daphne but that did not mean she deserved to be anyone's second best.
He envisioned himself flinging the ring far, the glint of reflected sunlight as it soared through the air, the small, dull splash just only disturbing the surface, creating a few ripples, and then it would be over. It was exactly what he had done with his last wedding band, casting it irretrievably away, symbolically ending another chapter in his farcical life.
He held the ring out. As it glittered, he caught a single word in the inscription. Love.
Love.
"Let's get married," he had told Mel, just 48 hours ago. She had reacted to the semi-proposal as she reacted to every decision or suggestion she had ever agreed to; with the smile of a proud mentor, whose star pupil had performed as expected.
"Darling, what a wonderful idea," she had said, pulling him into bed - a star pupil's reward. Also the place where he found out why she had been so unsurprised.
"We are of one brilliant mind, Niles," she had said, explaining that she had not only already spoken to Donny, but had read over the first draft of their prenuptial agreement. They resumed their lovemaking before Niles had time to react, so it was only much, much later that he could really think about, and appreciate, how lucky he was to have someone so clever and decisive in his life. He would need someone like that. Without Daphne he would be lost.
Why had Daphne worn his sweater? And when? Yesterday afternoon when they first arrived? Maybe last night or this morning. Was her room cold? He should have shown her where he kept the extra blankets but could not chide himself too harshly for his lack of consideration. Daphne was in his sweater, her scent mingling promiscuously with his in the fibres of this fine Scottish wool.
His muscles, such as they were, tensed. Niles drew back his hand, aiming at the far end of the lake. He knew he was no thrower, and that the ring would hardly go ten feet if he was lucky. That would be enough. It would be gone and there would be no turning back.
He thought of Daphne. He thought of Mel. He thought of the optimism and hope he had placed into the ring, as if it could give him the power to make happen what was impossible. He thought of Mel. He thought of Daphne. He thought of Mel. And slowly he lowered his arm. He could not do it. The dream of a happy marriage may be just an illusion but he had known that when he first touched the ring, when it first slipped onto his finger. And he had worn it anyway. The ring glistened. The sweater smelled of Daphne.
Niles pulled off the sweater. Wind off the lake shot through his shirt in a volley of icy needles, as if it had been waiting for the chance to attack. He held out his hand. How about if he just opened his fist and let the ring drop into the water below? But his hand held tight and refused to open. Daphne was waiting for him at the cottage and he could not force himself to give a damn about anything else.
Dear god, if he knew the truth, why was he so afraid of it?
Because truth could mean a life alone.
So how about another truth? The truth that he wanted to be married. During his entire marriage to Maris, even after he had met Daphne, even after his separation, Niles had loved having a wedding band on his finger. He belonged to someone. He had been chosen. That gold band was a badge to an exclusive club, one he had once felt was unlikely to admit him as a national sports team.
But he had been admitted. Not one, but two women had agreed to marry him. You would think he would be more grateful.
Niles finally opened his hand, palm upwards and stared at the ring. Then, Bilbo Baggins-like, slipped it back into his pocket. He would spend one more day with Daphne, then the rest of his life with Mel.
One more day with Daphne. His skin was brittle with cold. Niles put the sweater back on, taking his time pulling it over his head so the scent of a dream could linger against his face, through his hair.
He may well pretend that he had almost gone through with it, but now he wondered if he had ever come close. He glanced back at the still beauty of the unbroken lake, thinking about what he had almost done. He started back towards the cottage. The ring was coming back with him after all.
"Mel," he said softly, wishing so much he could remember what she looked like. "Oh, Mel. I'm so sorry."
The cottage was warm. Not just in the obvious sense for someone lame- brained enough to have taken off his sweater to the bitter air, but as in warm and welcoming. The smell of coffee with the undertones of breakfast lingered. While colours outside were crisp and stark, inside they had a soft-edged glow. Then, of course, there was Daphne who, as far as Niles was concerned, had always been the heartbeat that made Frasier's middling apartment a home, even for Niles. And here she was doing his cottage the same favour. The outdoors had tolerated him, but the indoors embraced him.
"My god, you're blue!" Daphne grabbed him by the arm. "Come warm up by the fire while I get you a hot drink."
Niles gratefully allowed himself to be led and seated. Daphne took up a wool blanket that had not been there before he left and wrapped it around his shoulders.
"I lit it when you left without your jacket," Daphne said of the fire. "Silly sod, drink this while I get us some tea." Niles only became aware that his teeth were chattering when they clinked against the glass. Apricot brandy - loathsome stuff - poured down his throat warmed him immediately.
"Thank you, Daphne," he finally said when she thrust a steaming mug into his hands. "I don't know what I was thinking."
"Nor do I," she grumbled, taking the tone she often took with his father. Niles almost grinned; if he did not know better he would say she was enjoying this. Well, let her have her fun. Daphne loved taking care of people - even the silly sods in the Crane clan - and he was not about to complain.
The tea was cinnamon, the steam spicy and revitalizing, and the heat of the cup spread down his hands and up his arms. Daphne hovered over him until his shaking stopped. Yet another perfect moment. He was happy. He was in love. He gazed blissfully up at Daphne who was still frowning her disapproval.
"Er. what have you been up to?" he asked, conversationally.
"Oh!" Daphne's face lit up suddenly in a burst of delight. No one forgave more quickly than Daphne. "You'll never guess. I think I've solved it."
"What?"
"The mystery, just now before you opened the door. I think I've figured it out."
"You know who did it?" She couldn't have. He had been gone less than an hour. "Who?"
"Old Mrs. Ellerby," Daphne said triumphantly.
"Surely not! Mrs. Ellerby is in her late sixties. The family only keeps her on because she's been with them for ages."
"No, listen." He had finished his tea and, not seeming to think about it, Daphne took his empty mug and gave him hers, still nearly full. Obediently, Niles took a sip. Her cup. My god, was he ever in love. "It was supposed to look like a suicide, right? His sleeping pills have all been punched out and the packaging was left by the chair."
"With you so far."
"What we are supposed to think in the beginning is that that's how someone killed him, by popping him with his own pills. But look: here's one pill that stayed in the package. Blue and yellow, right?"
"Right."
"Come." Her excitement was contagious. "Now look closely at the pebbles in the flower pot."
Niles did, with the blanket still around his shoulders. The puzzle, while still fragmented, had progressed splendidly in his absence.
"The pills!" He had put that pot together last night but had not noticed at the time.
"Nine of them!" Daphne said. "Plus the one in the package, that's ten. Two are missing."
"They could be somewhere else. Or it could be an old packet."
"Look closely at the governor's fingernails."
"It's a bit of paper stuck..."
"Yes, stuck. Look again at the box of sleeping pills."
"It matches the broken safety seal." Niles said. "So the governor took his usual two pills."
"And was either asleep or groggy when Mrs. Ellerby came at him from behind and.
"Hit him over the head with the flower vase?"
"Strangled him."
"What? She couldn't have. I'm not saying she's not the murderer, but you need quite a bit of strength to strangle a person." Niles had not always been able to tune out Dad's words of police wisdom.
"No, listen..." as if he needed any prompting. "First of all, she may be sixty, but if you remember from the booklet, her so-called motive is that the governor makes all the servants work hard to earn their keep. Mrs. Ellerby trudges up and down stairs all day, mopping all the floors before six in the morning, changing the sheets every day and flipping his mattress twice a week."
"He likes a neat house," Niles said defensively.
"The point is, sixty or not, you need some muscle to lift a king-sized mattress. Ask me."
"King-sized?" Niles asked before he remembered reading that activities on said mattress provided motive for his wife, son and daughter-in-law.
"Second, take it from a health-care provider, anyone sitting in that kind of a chair would have a right difficult time getting out of it in a hurry."
"Okay, so she's capable. But surely her motive is not that he made her do a spot of spring cleaning here and there?" Niles thought nervously of Frasier who also liked his mattress aired twice a week.
"Well, that would be plenty of motive but don't worry, your brother is safe for a while longer," Daphne grinned, reading his mind. "I'll get to motive in a second, but I'll tell you now; it was not your brother who gave me the idea, it was your father."
"Dad?"
"Look." Daphne pointed at the governor's neck. "Strangulation."
"I see it." There were red lines going around the governor's neck, partially hidden by his collar. "But."
"No, look closer. See? You can just make out a faint imprint on the governor's neck, right under the strangulation marks. See the shape? It looks like a bone."
"A bone?"
"The murder weapon was Jessie's collar!"
"And no one gets near Jessie except..."
"Old Mrs. Ellerby!" they shouted together.
"She loved that dog," Daphne reminded him.
"And the Governor wanted to put Jessie to sleep." Daphne was right, if anything would drive Dad to murder would be if someone laid a finger on Eddie. "Daphne, you've solved it!"
"I have, haven't I?" Daphne glowed.
"Brilliant work, Holmes."
He was sitting next to her on the couch, their shoulders touching. How -- and when --had that happened? It must have been sometime during her explanation. Caught up in the moment, he supposed. Daphne looked as if she too had taken that moment to entertain a sudden, awkward thought but then tossed it aside with a quick shake of her head.
"Well," she smiled at him, almost naturally. "That time spent pouring over old police photos and watching cop shows with your father has certainly paid off."
"Where were you thirty years ago?" he asked. "My brother and I could have used your collaboration on these stories we used to write together."
"The Crane Boy Mysteries?"
"Yes. Frasier told you about them?"
"No, your father did."
"Dad? But he never read them. He used to say crime solving is for cops, not for nosy little boys."
"Well, your mother always loved them so he read them to her when she was in hospital. He got hooked, apparently. I know you think they're lost but he's always kept them. I've read a few. They're quite good."
Niles did not know what to say. In one breath he had received the highest praise from the two people whose approval he craved more than anyone's. Where to bask first?
Daphne was doing a bit of revelling on her own, gazing proudly at the still incomplete puzzle. She happy, better than she looked than she had looked all weekend and certainly better than she had looked yesterday at Frasier's apartment. Better, in fact, than he had seen her in months. Maybe bringing her up here had not been such a bad idea after all.
"Daphne?"
"Yes?"
"Do you think we should stay the week?"
"You mean, here?"
"Yes."
"The two of us?"
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Yes?"
"Yes."
They stared at each other, once again ambushed by their own words. Then Daphne smiled at him and he smiled back. And that was that.
[to be continued]
To super-sweeties Mindy and Erin. And to Misti the Muse. Misti, you have disappeared. Hope you are doing okay.
By Amy de Kanter
Daphne had worn his sweater. Niles knew it even as he picked it up from the top of the pile, before he pulled it on. The sweater carried the scent of her hair, of her. Niles took long strides down the path towards the lake, wrapped in a cloud of Daphne.
Niles' nose dissected smells the way his tongue analysed wine: Taking in the whole and allowing it to unravel, thread by pure and individual thread.
Of all scents in the world, women carried the most complex and fascinating mixtures. It may well have been his first day of school when he first noticed that girls smelled different than boys, him and his brother Frasier excepted. Girls smelled cleaner. Prettier. As both he and his schoolmates matured, his nose kept tabs on girls as they turned to from family soap to scented ones, along with a mélange of powders, perfumes and lotions.
Blindfolded in a crowded room, Niles could have found Maris under that shroud of expensive sheep placenta creams and the hypoallergenic eau de toilette concocted especially for her by the people at Chanel. The scent hung off his ex-wife, as heavy as her moods, and Dad used to say it was the only thing preventing her from attaining zero gravity.
Mel was way at the other extreme. She smelled. well, mostly she smelled of nothing. Only the faintest hint of tea-tree soap gel she used to neutralize the aroma of hospital. To his darling, tidy little Mel scent was clutter and better left stripped to its minimal, most hygenic form. Her only compromise was at social events, when she limbo-ed into a thin mist of Elizabeth Arden, catching a few molecules which for the duration of the evening would smell exactly the way they did right out of the bottle. Niles bowed his face close to the sweater. Daphne. Daphne's was the scent one drew in by the lungful, as varied and layered as a large family kitchen or flower garden if such kitchen or garden existed in heaven. She formed no permanent attachment to soaps, shampoos or fragrances and was carefree and joyous about trying new things, yet the result was always unmistakably Daphne; as if her skin and hair were the magic elements that turned the delightful into the angelic.
Niles slipped a little on the path but not enough to lose his balance so he continued walking. The wedding band was on his finger. It had come on the second he left the cottage even as his mind was full of the way Daphne had looked in the kitchen, pouring coffee; the way she had looked in the breakfast room, smiling slightly with each bite. The way she looked in the living room, glancing up from the puzzle. His mind was always full of Daphne. It used to be merely pathetic, now it was unforgivable.
The wedding band was on his finger. He knew where he was going and the ring had to come with him. It would not be coming back.
Washing breakfast dishes he had congratulated himself on getting through the first part of the morning without a single uncomfortable incident. He had calmed himself last night by mathematically dividing the time ahead of them into manageable chunks and breakfast had concluded the ninth-sixteenth of the time they had left before setting back to Seattle.
The puzzle had taken care of the first half of the time. During the night Niles had put together 456 pieces of the 800-piece puzzle. That was 57% of the puzzle completed, nearly three fifths. He had done all the edges which some people would claim were the easy part, but those people might fail to consider that the more pieces were put into place; the less loose pieces were left to contend with and the easier it was to find a match. By a series of mathematical equations Niles had figured that if it had taken him 7 hours, 18 minutes to complete that (he had slept a little, but looked at his watch during waking time and was confident he had it right nearly to the second), it would take another 2.4 hours to reach the 75% mark but then only slightly under an hour to finish it off. That would only leave 3 sixteenths of which at least two could be filled with lunch and packing. If worse came to worse he would simply make an excuse for them to leave a little earlier. All would be fine.
His work and logic had been so robotic last night that he had forgotten to factor in things that would affect the consistency of his progress. Like sleepiness. Like morning. Like Daphne. By virtue of cause and effect his careful timing equations now amounted to - as Dad would say - diddly-squat since one whiff of his sweater had resulted in Niles suggesting they stay an additional day.
Wearing the ring, wearing the sweater, Niles was torn apart buy guilt. Mel. He took another deep breath. Daphne.
Thin sheets of ice grew in from the edges of the lake and cold wind barely ruffled the water. This truly was a beautiful place. Niles had only been down to this pier once before, which was once more than Maris who had an understandable phobia of slatted walkways. He remembered how overwhelmed he had been when he first came here, taking in yet another splendid item that had become his with a simple exchange of vows.
At the time it had seemed more than worth it. Niles had loved Maris, the first woman he ever felt sorry for. The only woman who ever needed him. It was only, as he once said to Frasier, a delightful bonus that Maris happened to come richly accessorised with money, connections, mansions, antiques and a wine cellar the size of a small gymnasium. It would have taken a lifetime to earn a fraction of it, yet there he had it; the life of a lord by his mid-twenties.
Now fifteen years - his youth - were gone leaving him with ego scars and a settlement worth millions. Was it still worth it? Fifteen years in exchange for Shady Glen, his luxury apartment at the Montana and a mind- boggling figure in his bank account. If Maris had turned down the heat on the hell she put him through during their divorce proceedings, even a little bit, he may have felt guilty about taking so much. He wondered whether Mel would like Shady Glen. She might love it. She might be the only Crane besides his father to venture into the boathouse. She did not seem the sea-faring type, but then again she might be. There were a lot of things Niles did not know about her. What was he thinking, tying the knot so early in the relationship?
Don't play innocent with me, Frasier would say if he were here. Niles knew damn well what he was thinking and he may as well admit it: Mel was a rope - and yes, he was aware of the physical appropriateness of the metaphor - cast to a man drowning in the vast sea that was a life without Daphne. Niles took off the golden wedding band. No use putting it off any longer, he knew what he had to do. It was only right. Mel was not Daphne but that did not mean she deserved to be anyone's second best.
He envisioned himself flinging the ring far, the glint of reflected sunlight as it soared through the air, the small, dull splash just only disturbing the surface, creating a few ripples, and then it would be over. It was exactly what he had done with his last wedding band, casting it irretrievably away, symbolically ending another chapter in his farcical life.
He held the ring out. As it glittered, he caught a single word in the inscription. Love.
Love.
"Let's get married," he had told Mel, just 48 hours ago. She had reacted to the semi-proposal as she reacted to every decision or suggestion she had ever agreed to; with the smile of a proud mentor, whose star pupil had performed as expected.
"Darling, what a wonderful idea," she had said, pulling him into bed - a star pupil's reward. Also the place where he found out why she had been so unsurprised.
"We are of one brilliant mind, Niles," she had said, explaining that she had not only already spoken to Donny, but had read over the first draft of their prenuptial agreement. They resumed their lovemaking before Niles had time to react, so it was only much, much later that he could really think about, and appreciate, how lucky he was to have someone so clever and decisive in his life. He would need someone like that. Without Daphne he would be lost.
Why had Daphne worn his sweater? And when? Yesterday afternoon when they first arrived? Maybe last night or this morning. Was her room cold? He should have shown her where he kept the extra blankets but could not chide himself too harshly for his lack of consideration. Daphne was in his sweater, her scent mingling promiscuously with his in the fibres of this fine Scottish wool.
His muscles, such as they were, tensed. Niles drew back his hand, aiming at the far end of the lake. He knew he was no thrower, and that the ring would hardly go ten feet if he was lucky. That would be enough. It would be gone and there would be no turning back.
He thought of Daphne. He thought of Mel. He thought of the optimism and hope he had placed into the ring, as if it could give him the power to make happen what was impossible. He thought of Mel. He thought of Daphne. He thought of Mel. And slowly he lowered his arm. He could not do it. The dream of a happy marriage may be just an illusion but he had known that when he first touched the ring, when it first slipped onto his finger. And he had worn it anyway. The ring glistened. The sweater smelled of Daphne.
Niles pulled off the sweater. Wind off the lake shot through his shirt in a volley of icy needles, as if it had been waiting for the chance to attack. He held out his hand. How about if he just opened his fist and let the ring drop into the water below? But his hand held tight and refused to open. Daphne was waiting for him at the cottage and he could not force himself to give a damn about anything else.
Dear god, if he knew the truth, why was he so afraid of it?
Because truth could mean a life alone.
So how about another truth? The truth that he wanted to be married. During his entire marriage to Maris, even after he had met Daphne, even after his separation, Niles had loved having a wedding band on his finger. He belonged to someone. He had been chosen. That gold band was a badge to an exclusive club, one he had once felt was unlikely to admit him as a national sports team.
But he had been admitted. Not one, but two women had agreed to marry him. You would think he would be more grateful.
Niles finally opened his hand, palm upwards and stared at the ring. Then, Bilbo Baggins-like, slipped it back into his pocket. He would spend one more day with Daphne, then the rest of his life with Mel.
One more day with Daphne. His skin was brittle with cold. Niles put the sweater back on, taking his time pulling it over his head so the scent of a dream could linger against his face, through his hair.
He may well pretend that he had almost gone through with it, but now he wondered if he had ever come close. He glanced back at the still beauty of the unbroken lake, thinking about what he had almost done. He started back towards the cottage. The ring was coming back with him after all.
"Mel," he said softly, wishing so much he could remember what she looked like. "Oh, Mel. I'm so sorry."
The cottage was warm. Not just in the obvious sense for someone lame- brained enough to have taken off his sweater to the bitter air, but as in warm and welcoming. The smell of coffee with the undertones of breakfast lingered. While colours outside were crisp and stark, inside they had a soft-edged glow. Then, of course, there was Daphne who, as far as Niles was concerned, had always been the heartbeat that made Frasier's middling apartment a home, even for Niles. And here she was doing his cottage the same favour. The outdoors had tolerated him, but the indoors embraced him.
"My god, you're blue!" Daphne grabbed him by the arm. "Come warm up by the fire while I get you a hot drink."
Niles gratefully allowed himself to be led and seated. Daphne took up a wool blanket that had not been there before he left and wrapped it around his shoulders.
"I lit it when you left without your jacket," Daphne said of the fire. "Silly sod, drink this while I get us some tea." Niles only became aware that his teeth were chattering when they clinked against the glass. Apricot brandy - loathsome stuff - poured down his throat warmed him immediately.
"Thank you, Daphne," he finally said when she thrust a steaming mug into his hands. "I don't know what I was thinking."
"Nor do I," she grumbled, taking the tone she often took with his father. Niles almost grinned; if he did not know better he would say she was enjoying this. Well, let her have her fun. Daphne loved taking care of people - even the silly sods in the Crane clan - and he was not about to complain.
The tea was cinnamon, the steam spicy and revitalizing, and the heat of the cup spread down his hands and up his arms. Daphne hovered over him until his shaking stopped. Yet another perfect moment. He was happy. He was in love. He gazed blissfully up at Daphne who was still frowning her disapproval.
"Er. what have you been up to?" he asked, conversationally.
"Oh!" Daphne's face lit up suddenly in a burst of delight. No one forgave more quickly than Daphne. "You'll never guess. I think I've solved it."
"What?"
"The mystery, just now before you opened the door. I think I've figured it out."
"You know who did it?" She couldn't have. He had been gone less than an hour. "Who?"
"Old Mrs. Ellerby," Daphne said triumphantly.
"Surely not! Mrs. Ellerby is in her late sixties. The family only keeps her on because she's been with them for ages."
"No, listen." He had finished his tea and, not seeming to think about it, Daphne took his empty mug and gave him hers, still nearly full. Obediently, Niles took a sip. Her cup. My god, was he ever in love. "It was supposed to look like a suicide, right? His sleeping pills have all been punched out and the packaging was left by the chair."
"With you so far."
"What we are supposed to think in the beginning is that that's how someone killed him, by popping him with his own pills. But look: here's one pill that stayed in the package. Blue and yellow, right?"
"Right."
"Come." Her excitement was contagious. "Now look closely at the pebbles in the flower pot."
Niles did, with the blanket still around his shoulders. The puzzle, while still fragmented, had progressed splendidly in his absence.
"The pills!" He had put that pot together last night but had not noticed at the time.
"Nine of them!" Daphne said. "Plus the one in the package, that's ten. Two are missing."
"They could be somewhere else. Or it could be an old packet."
"Look closely at the governor's fingernails."
"It's a bit of paper stuck..."
"Yes, stuck. Look again at the box of sleeping pills."
"It matches the broken safety seal." Niles said. "So the governor took his usual two pills."
"And was either asleep or groggy when Mrs. Ellerby came at him from behind and.
"Hit him over the head with the flower vase?"
"Strangled him."
"What? She couldn't have. I'm not saying she's not the murderer, but you need quite a bit of strength to strangle a person." Niles had not always been able to tune out Dad's words of police wisdom.
"No, listen..." as if he needed any prompting. "First of all, she may be sixty, but if you remember from the booklet, her so-called motive is that the governor makes all the servants work hard to earn their keep. Mrs. Ellerby trudges up and down stairs all day, mopping all the floors before six in the morning, changing the sheets every day and flipping his mattress twice a week."
"He likes a neat house," Niles said defensively.
"The point is, sixty or not, you need some muscle to lift a king-sized mattress. Ask me."
"King-sized?" Niles asked before he remembered reading that activities on said mattress provided motive for his wife, son and daughter-in-law.
"Second, take it from a health-care provider, anyone sitting in that kind of a chair would have a right difficult time getting out of it in a hurry."
"Okay, so she's capable. But surely her motive is not that he made her do a spot of spring cleaning here and there?" Niles thought nervously of Frasier who also liked his mattress aired twice a week.
"Well, that would be plenty of motive but don't worry, your brother is safe for a while longer," Daphne grinned, reading his mind. "I'll get to motive in a second, but I'll tell you now; it was not your brother who gave me the idea, it was your father."
"Dad?"
"Look." Daphne pointed at the governor's neck. "Strangulation."
"I see it." There were red lines going around the governor's neck, partially hidden by his collar. "But."
"No, look closer. See? You can just make out a faint imprint on the governor's neck, right under the strangulation marks. See the shape? It looks like a bone."
"A bone?"
"The murder weapon was Jessie's collar!"
"And no one gets near Jessie except..."
"Old Mrs. Ellerby!" they shouted together.
"She loved that dog," Daphne reminded him.
"And the Governor wanted to put Jessie to sleep." Daphne was right, if anything would drive Dad to murder would be if someone laid a finger on Eddie. "Daphne, you've solved it!"
"I have, haven't I?" Daphne glowed.
"Brilliant work, Holmes."
He was sitting next to her on the couch, their shoulders touching. How -- and when --had that happened? It must have been sometime during her explanation. Caught up in the moment, he supposed. Daphne looked as if she too had taken that moment to entertain a sudden, awkward thought but then tossed it aside with a quick shake of her head.
"Well," she smiled at him, almost naturally. "That time spent pouring over old police photos and watching cop shows with your father has certainly paid off."
"Where were you thirty years ago?" he asked. "My brother and I could have used your collaboration on these stories we used to write together."
"The Crane Boy Mysteries?"
"Yes. Frasier told you about them?"
"No, your father did."
"Dad? But he never read them. He used to say crime solving is for cops, not for nosy little boys."
"Well, your mother always loved them so he read them to her when she was in hospital. He got hooked, apparently. I know you think they're lost but he's always kept them. I've read a few. They're quite good."
Niles did not know what to say. In one breath he had received the highest praise from the two people whose approval he craved more than anyone's. Where to bask first?
Daphne was doing a bit of revelling on her own, gazing proudly at the still incomplete puzzle. She happy, better than she looked than she had looked all weekend and certainly better than she had looked yesterday at Frasier's apartment. Better, in fact, than he had seen her in months. Maybe bringing her up here had not been such a bad idea after all.
"Daphne?"
"Yes?"
"Do you think we should stay the week?"
"You mean, here?"
"Yes."
"The two of us?"
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Yes?"
"Yes."
They stared at each other, once again ambushed by their own words. Then Daphne smiled at him and he smiled back. And that was that.
[to be continued]