"I feel like we should all be dressed in fancy period clothes and talking with high class English accents," commented Harley as they sat in the drawing room.
"Would Miss care for some tea?" asked Pennyworth, offering her a tray.
"Yeah, like that," said Harley, nodding as she took a cup. "We should roleplay that tonight, puddin'. Lord Joker and Lady Quinn should meet at a royal ball and do some witty flirting…"
"Ok, if you don't want any sex, that's up to you!" chuckled Joker. "The English upper classes are notoriously repressed, Harley. Frankly, I'm surprised Tetchy's parents here had two kids – that means they had to have done it at least twice!"
"You don't want to speculate about my parents' sex lives," retorted Tetch. "That's them over the fireplace," he said, nodding at two portraits. One was of a tall, stern-looking blonde man with trimmed facial hair posed with a gun and a dead tiger, and the other was of a small, slim, blonde woman dressed in furs, with cold eyes and thin lips holding her own gun over a dead elephant.
Joker made a face. "No, I do not," he muttered. "It would be like speculating about sex between Cruella de Vil and Crocodile Dundee…"
"The late Lord and Lady Tetch were very…serious-minded people," said Pennyworth, slowly. "Not inclined toward frivolities of any sort."
"Except hunting," commented Ivy.
"No, Miss, they took that past-time very seriously," replied Pennyworth. "You must allow me to give you a tour of the game room, and the gun room…"
"Gun room?" repeated Joker, his eyes lighting up. "Now you're talking! And game room – I take it back, they seem like my kinda people!"
"Game as in hunted animals," corrected Tetch. "They had a lot of their conquests stuffed and put on display in this huge room. I used to hate going in there – you can almost hear the poor beasts crying out in agony."
"I can see why you and your parents didn't really get along," commented Crane, nodding.
"Yes, I would never hurt an animal," muttered Tetch. "Which was a great disappointment to them. Even my lab mice I always tried to treat with the utmost dignity…"
"Except when you make 'em have tea parties in silly hats!" chuckled Joker. "Did your parents ever know about your little hobby?"
"I never spoke to my parents after I left for Gotham," retorted Tetch. "I wrote to Pennyworth to let him know I arrived safely, but that was it."
"And what is it you do now, Lord Tetch?" asked Pennyworth. "Are you still a research scientist?"
"Yes…of a kind," stammered Tetch. "But sometimes research funding is…very difficult and so we have to resort to…other means…"
"Yes, Master Simeon was complaining about the difficulty of getting funding for his own financial ventures," said Pennyworth, nodding. "The last time he was down, in fact. I suppose those worries are over for him now, though. Lord and Lady Tetch left him a substantial sum in their will."
"Yes…yes, I heard," murmured Tetch, sipping his tea thoughtfully. "Simeon will be down from tomorrow, by the way, Pennyworth. He's staying for the weekend."
"It's been a long time since we had so many guests here," said Pennyworth. "But it will be good to see the Masters at home and together again."
"Is Simeon's room anywhere near my room?" asked Ivy, casually.
"It's at the end of the wing, Miss," said Pennyworth. "Why?"
"Just wondering," she said, shrugging.
Two-Face glared at her, sipping his tea angrily. "Can I get some sugar in this?" he muttered, holding out the cup to Pennyworth.
"Of course, sir," said Pennyworth, reaching for the bowl. "One lump or two?"
"Two," retorted Two-Face.
"Two-Face will always have two of everything," explained Tetch. "It's a compulsion of his. Oh, and for dinner, Poison Ivy is very fond of plants and consequently doesn't like eating them. So no greens of any kind, please."
"And no fish," spoke up Harley. "I know fish and chips is a thing here, though that's a really weird combination. You usually have potato chips with sandwiches..."
"Chips means french fries here," interrupted Tetch.
"Why do you English freaks have to take perfectly good words and make 'em mean something else?" demanded Joker. "You just confuse the rest of the world, and we invented the language, y'know!"
"I shall of course accommodate any requests from Lord Tetch's guests," said Pennyworth, nodding. "Perhaps Miss Ivy would be interested in seeing the gardens, or the conservatory during her stay?"
"I'm sure Simeon can give me a tour when he arrives," said Ivy, nodding.
"Very good, Miss," said Pennyworth. "I shall adjourn to the kitchen to prepare dinner, if that will be all."
"Thank you, Pennyworth, yes," said Tetch. The butler left, and Joker stood up.
"Well, c'mon, let's not sit here wasting time drinking tea! Let's see the gun room, Hatty!" he chuckled.
"Oh…very well," sighed Tetch, putting down his cup. "I'll give the tour."
They left the drawing room and entered another huge room which could have been a room in a museum – it was certainly big enough. And full of the stuffed carcasses of every kind of animal – big game, small game, mammal, reptile, bird and even insect.
"Well, this ain't the kinda place that's gonna give a kid nightmares," commented Joker.
"Yes, my parents would lock me in here whenever they thought I deserved a punishment," said Tetch. "It's not one of those things one ever entirely gets over."
Harley snapped a picture and then shuddered. "You're right, Jervis – this place gives me the creeps! Let's get outta here!"
They emerged into a cozy study area, except that instead of shelves of books, it was filled with cabinets which displayed shotguns and rifles of all sorts, and even a few revolvers. Joker whistled.
"Nice," he said, running his hand up one of the shotguns. "Very nice. Your folks had good taste in firearms, I'll say that for 'em. Some of these are beautiful antiques, in really good condition."
"Well, they had to have some pride and joy," said Tetch with a wry smile. "And it certainly wasn't their sons."
He noticed that a few shotguns had been thrown in a pile on the floor by the French windows leading out to the grounds, still grimy and unclean and spattered with traces of blood, and his heart sank as he realized that these must have been the guns his family had taken out on their last day alive.
"Pennyworth…must not have got around to cleaning them yet," he murmured, bending down to examine the one on top, whose shattered barrel and chamber indicated that it was the gun that had backfired. He cocked open the chamber, gazing down the barrel, and his eyes narrowed.
"There's something stuck in here," he muttered, looking around for something to dislodge the object. He grabbed a brush used to clean the guns and shoved it down the barrel, pushing hard against it. Something popped out and dropped to the floor.
"It's a pebble," said Tetch. "Why would there be a pebble in my father's gun?"
"Well, that would have caused it to backfire," said Joker, nodding. "Pressure like that would need to be released, and if the end the bullet's supposed to come out of is blocked, it's gonna pop out the other end. Just basic science."
"Surely it was an accident?" suggested Crane. "If one goes outdoors a lot, and puts guns on the ground, surely pebbles do find their way into the equipment and sneak in unnoticed…"
"My father would have checked," murmured Tetch. "He was always very meticulous about cleaning his guns. He would have made sure it was clean before he went out."
"So you think it wasn't an accident?" asked Two-Face, quietly. "You think somebody stuck a pebble in his gun on purpose so it would backfire?"
"Well…it was wedged in very firmly," said Tetch slowly. He shook his head. "But you're probably right, Jonathan – it was probably an accident. Just found its way in there, on its own, as dirt and grit are wont to do with outdoor equipment. I'm being paranoid for no reason."
"Oh, Lord Tetch, you must forgive me!" exclaimed Pennyworth as he entered the room. "I should have cleaned those and put them away ages ago, but I just didn't have the heart…your father wouldn't have tolerated such shoddiness toward his equipment. He was always very careful about cleaning them and putting them away before and after use."
"Yes…yes, he was," agreed Tetch, feeling his heart sinking again.
"Dinner is served, sir, if you'd all like to follow me to the dining room," continued Pennyworth.
"What are you thinking, Jervis?" asked Crane gently as they followed Pennyworth out of the room.
"I'm just thinking…if my parents' death wasn't an accident," murmured Tetch. "If they were killed for a reason…and if the person who killed them is coming down tomorrow and staying for the weekend…what if he wants to do the same to me?"