A House On The Hill.

Allie's Plan And Everything Else That Wasn't Explained

#1. Allie's Plan.

Allie's plan was, in essence, exactly what happened. She knew Newham would want to remove her from the service after she claimed to have solved the mystery, and she also knew that a) Lewis was the murderer and b) that he would follow her back to the house. She had also planned out two possibilities based on whether Newham would stay with her at the house or go back to the service. If he had stayed, Lewis would have been forced to go up against the lieutenant, who obviously would have tried to protect Allie, with two possible outcomes, a) Lewis won, and Allie would have had to carry out her planned defensive strategy in the house, or b) Lewis lost, and the plan ended there.

The next phase was when Lewis actually arrived. Allie knew either Lewis would try to kill her in the house, or lead her away and kill her elsewhere. If he had chosen to kill her in the house, Allie had thought up a whole string of clever tricks to keep herself safe, most of which involved a frying pan or a teapot. She also guessed that Lewis would try to trick her out of the house, and try to keep up a harmless act until he got her where he wanted her, so she had decided just to keep gently pushing at the fact she wanted to go to Farthing House, and make sure they went there. Lewis couldn't have refused, or he would have thought he was raising her suspicions. Allie had set a rather clever clue in the living room that morning, since she couldn't be sure she'd get the time when she returned with Newham. She had written the words 'Help Me!' on a scrap of paper and slipped it between the pages of the history book on Farthing House, before turning it upside down on the bookshelf and making sure the rest of the books were the right way up. She knew Smart would spot it, and he did.

When Allie got to the house, that was the part of the plan that was least fixed. She had thought of the idea of making Lewis fall off the balcony, but hadn't really planned anything out yet. She had hoped that Newham, Smart and Isabel would have come a bit sooner to help out, but she had to admit it was down to a bit of luck that it was as easy as it had been to lure Lewis over the edge.

#2. How Lewis killed Septimus Waters.

As far as anyone knew, Lewis hadn't entered Waters' s house that day, but the lock-breakimg skills he demonstrated while breaking the lock on Pansy's back door spoke for themselves. He had been supplied the laudanum, and it was easy just to slip it into the dinner that was being prepared in the kitchen.

#3. What happened afterwards.

Allie, Isabel  and Newham didn't spend much longer in Lesser Farthing. They stayed one more day, during which Allie had to explain everything numerous times to numerous different people. Smart was left to pick up the pieces, file his report and generally clear up, and Allie was sure that Newham was happy to see the back of the Detective Inspector. Sadly, Allie herself suspected she hadn't seen the last of Smart, and the more worrying fact was that she was glad about it. Allie and Isabel went back to Praed Street, and Allie 'borrowed' one of Pansy's living room rugs to take with them. It now lies in Allie's room, as a reminder of her childhood friend. Newham went back to his flat in Kensington, and he meets up with Allie almost every day, to Isabel's constant amusement. Allie caught her one Saturday 'browsing' through a wedding shop, and hasn't quite forgiven her yet.

#4. Old Man Stephenson.

Although the reoccurence of the surname that had been so directly connected with the Merryweather Jewel Thefts did put Allie on edge, she didn't speak to anyone about it. She was going with the policy that if  she didn't bother this Old Man Stephenson, he wouldn't bother her. Of course, there was still  the fact that now she refused to  go anywhere near Victoria Grove, or the empty shell where Stephenson's Ends used to be.

Hope you enjoyed Allie's third adventure!! For the next installment, she's going to go back to her roots of plain, simple, utterly mind-blowing detection in her fourth adventure, titled Murder Is At Hand.

Rachel xxxx