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enough.
    Congreve’s new housekeeper, May Purvis, a sturdy, sweet-faced Scotswoman from the Highlands, was bustling about in the adjacent kitchen. After breakfast, she would begin her daily rounds, plumping pillows, dusting and adjusting, keeping Heart’s Ease cottage pristine for her beneficent employer. Curiously enough, Mrs. Purvis was, at the moment, wallpapering his drawers. That is to say, carefully scissoring bits of floral and scenic Chinese toile wallpaper and placing them into the bottoms of all the cupboards and drawers in his new kitchen.
    May had a habit of whistling as she worked, and Ambrose found it quite cheery. She would pick up in the middle of a tune, stick with it for an hour or so, and then move on to some fresh melody in her seemingly inexhaustible repertoire. He watched her bustling about every morning and tried to imagine if this current scene was an accurate representation of married life. Cozy, tranquil, comforting. An idyll, in fact. Even Mrs. Purvis’s bashful smile as she hummed and hoovered was—well, he sometimes wondered if there might not be…someone, out there. His other half.
    He supposed not, or he would surely have found her by this stage of the game. He was, after all, on the wrong side of fifty.
    The happy detective bit into his slice of toast, heaved a sigh of contentment, and dove back into today’s Times. The economic news in Europe was grim. The cornerstones, Germany and France, were both reporting stagnant economies. France, amazingly enough, was pulling out of the EU! And it was rife with turmoil after another political assassination. There were sniffs of panic at EU headquarters in Brussels. Et cetera, et cetera, page after page. He sometimes wondered why he bothered with the damn newspapers. They were uniformly gloomy on a daily basis.
    But, to be sure, all was right with his world. His sunny little corner of it, at any rate. His musty old flat in Bayswater was already receding into the mists. In its place, this sturdy brick pile in the Georgian manner. A gabled slate roof with imposing chimneys standing sentry at either end, and a lovely fanlight over the front door. It was by no means a large house. No, it was small, but handsome. He had a few acres or so of sun-dappled grass and beds of peonies, lilies, and space, when he got around to it, to cultivate his beloved dahlias. Yes, an abundance of them. Polar Beauties, Golden Leaders, and his favorite, the Requiems.
    Everything in his life, it seemed, was brand new. His recently acquired dog, Ranger, a handsome Dutch Decoy Spaniel, lay puddled round his slippered feet, sleeping in the warm yellow sunlight. He had reached down to idly stroke the dog’s head when Ranger looked up suddenly and growled loudly.
    “Good lord, what on earth is that, Mrs. Purvis?” Ambrose sputtered.
    “What is what, Mr. Congreve?”
    There had come down the hall such a pounding and banging at the front door as ever you heard and yet the woman was blissfully unaware, snipping away at the blue Chinese toile paper.
    “That infernal pounding. At the front door, I believe. Is the bell out of commish?”
    “Let me find out, sir. Did the bell ring?”
    “Mrs. Purvis, please.”
    “I’m just going as fast as I can then, aren’t I, sir?”
    Ranger raced down the worn olive-green Axminster carpet of the hallway ahead of her, barking furiously. Congreve, nose buried in the Times, tried to ignore the muffled conversation coming from the front hall and concentrate on an article he was reading. Apparently, the bloody French were holding naval exercises with the Chinese. And it wasn’t the first time. This was the seventh. Something was clearly afoot with England’s irksome neighbors across the Channel. After years of trying to forge a united Europe, they seemed to be striking out on their own. It was a hoary tale, but a true one. Perhaps he’d lean on young Bulling a bit more heavily in future.
    “It’s two gentlemen to see you, sir,” Mrs.