Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79603 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79603 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
“I heard she didn’t inherit it though—I heard she got it by discrediting Mistress Hownow’s original will,” Imani said, casting an oblique look at J’are, who was standing quietly to her right with an impassive look on his face.
“Oh my, yes! That was such a scandal, the old lady trying to leave all her property to a male.” Mistress Yank’doodle shook her head and made a tsking sound with her tongue. “She might have made it work if she could have found the right Mistress, willing to take her ‘son’ along with this lot, but none were. He was too big and wild and fierce, you see.” She shivered. “Mistress Bittlebum tried to take him in hand, but of course she couldn’t manage him. So then she sold him to Lady Zangelo—her closest friend and greatest rival, don’t you know? And then he was implicated in her death!”
“Oh, but I don’t think he killed her—I heard he was acquitted,” Imani said quickly.
“Well, if that’s so, then I guess Mistress Bittlebum’s plan went awry,” Mistress Yank’doodle remarked.
“What?” Imani could hardly believe her ears. “You think Mistress Bittlebum meant for the bodyslave she sold to Lady Zangelo to kill her?”
“Well, how else was she going to get out of her debts? She’d borrowed more from Lady Z than anyone else put together,” Mistress Yank’doodle took a sip of her smoking blue drink and grimaced appreciatively. “I mean, she would have had to sell this whole place just to pay the interest on the loan she took with Lady Z! And she certainly didn’t want to do that—she’d finally made it to the tippy-top of society when she came into old Mistress Hownow’s property. She wasn’t about to lose her place after all that scrambling to get there!”
“You certainly seem to know a lot about it,” Imani remarked.
“Oh, well we have the same bank manager, Mistress Bittlebum and I. And you wouldn’t believe what a terrible gossip she is—the bank manager, I mean.” Mistress Yank’doodle widened her eyes. “It’s just scandalous what she lets slip out.”
“I’m sure,” Imani murmured, nodding.
“Oh, there’s Mistress Bittlebum now! Will you excuse me, Mistress Williams? I have to go pay my respects,” Lady Yank’doodle said.
“Of course. It was, uh, nice talking to you.” Imani nodded her head.
“Nice chatting with you, too, my dear!” The pink-haired Mistress gave her a bright smile and then hurried over to where Mistress Bittlebum was standing in the middle of a crowd of other Mistresses, all talking at once.
There were more than just Mistresses around her, however, Imani saw. There were also seven or eight of the huge pink morphids in a ring around their Mistress.
As she watched, Imani saw something strange going on. Though Mistress Bittlebum was mostly talking to her friends, she often addressed a comment to a particular morphid as well—or maybe it was an order. Because when she spoke to them and pointed, they went bounding off, presumably to do her bidding.
“Look at her—holding court where my mother used to drink her evening tea.” J’are’s deep voice was bitter but he kept it low, for Imani’s ears alone.
“I’m sorry, J’are.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it comfortingly.
“Mother Hownow would never have allowed those filthy morphids in her house,” he growled, still looking at Mistress Bittlebum. “Look at the way she has them going all over the place!”
“She certainly does.” Imani frowned as she watched Mistress Bittlebum’s interaction with her alien servants more closely. How was she controlling them? She and J’are had both said they had a hive mind and only obeyed their queen—or the person they acknowledged as their queen, anyway. Was that how they saw Mistress Bittlebum?
“Look,” she murmured to J’are. “Every time she gives one of them an order, she touches them. Look—she did it again.”
As they watched, Mistress Bittlebum ran a hand over her lemon-yellow hair. Then, as she leaned forward to give an order to one of the morphids, she passed her hand over its antae as she spoke. It was a barely-there touch, but to Imani, it seemed to have some significance. Was she using the touch to direct them somehow? She knew that honeybees and ants used scent to give each other directions. Maybe Mistress Bittlebum was doing the same thing somehow.
“She’s definitely acting as their queen,” she murmured to J’are. “Look at the way she orders them around. Did you hear everything that Mistress Yank’doodle was telling me just now?”
“Caught some of it. Why?” He raised his eyebrows at her.
“Because I’d like to see if we can’t do a little digging, now that we’re here. It’s clear from what Mistress Yank’doodle told me, Mistress Bittlebum did have a motive to kill Lady Zangelo.”
J’are’s eyebrows went higher.
“So we’re back to thinking Bittlebum is the one who killed Mistress Zangelo?”
“She has the morphids,” Imani pointed out. “And the motive. She tried to use you as her weapon but when you didn’t cooperate, she had to find another way. Maybe we could find something to prove that.”