Gunpowder Green

Theodosia nodded. She’d heard about Booth Crowley. Certainly nothing bad, but his business dealings bordered on legendary. He was a very powerful man in Charleston. Besides heading Cherry Tree Investments, one of Charleston’s premier venture capital firms, Booth Crowley sat on the board of directors of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, the Gibbes Museum of Art, and Charleston Memorial Hospital. He was certainly a force to be reckoned with.

The bell over the door tinkled merrily, and a dozen people suddenly poured into the shop. Haley and Drayton instantly popped up from their seats and swept toward them, intent on getting their visitors seated, settled, and served. Theodosia watched with keen approval as Haley adroitly addressed the group.

“How many? Three of you?” Haley asked. “Why don’t you ladies take this nice table by the window. There’s lots of sunshine today.”

Drayton was just as charming. “Party of five?” he asked. “You’ll like this round table over here. I could even put several teapots on the lazy Susan and do a tea tasting, if you’d like. Now, I’ll be just two shakes, and then I’ll be back with tea and some complimentary biscuits.”

And the rest of the day was off and running at the Indigo Tea Shop.

“I’ll be back on Wednesday, dear.” Miss Dimple put a plump hand on Theodosia’s arm.

“Thank you, Miss Dimple. I’m so glad you’ve been able to help out here at the tea shop. Now that Bethany’s got a job at the museum in Columbia, we’ve been woefully shorthanded.”

“It’s you who deserves the thanks,” said Miss Dimple. “Not everyone would take a chance on a creaky old bookkeeper. Seems like the trend these days is to hire young.”

“Trends don’t concern us here at the tea shop,” said Theodosia warmly. “People do.”

“Bless you, dear,” said Miss Dimple. And she toddled out the door, a barely five-foot-tall, plump little elf of a woman who was still sharp as a tack when it came to tabulating a column of numbers.

Chapter 4

“Theodosia.” Drayton had a teapot filled with jasmine tea in one hand and a teapot of Ceylon silver tips in the other. “As soon as we get our customers taken care of, I need to speak with you.”

Theodosia glanced out over the tables. Their customers had already settled in and were munching benne wafers and casting admiring glances at the shelves that held cozy displays of tea tins, jellies, china teapots, and tea candles.

“What’s up?” she asked.

He cocked his head to one side and gave a conspiratorial roll of his eyes. “The mystery tea,” he told her in a quavering, theatrical voice.

Theodosia grinned. Drayton was certainly in his element planning all his special-event teas. But this mystery tea had really seemed to capture his imagination. It would appear that Drayton, the straitlaced history buff and Heritage Society parliamentarian, had a playful side, after all.

Anyway, Theodosia decided, Drayton certainly had an astute business side. His mystery tea was already shaping up as a success. Counting the two calls they’d received earlier this morning, they now had twelve confirmed reservations for Saturday night. And Drayton had audaciously put a price of forty-five dollars per person on the event.

“Okay, Drayton,” she said, “I’ll be in my office.”

Theodosia disappeared behind the panels of heavy green velvet that separated the tea shop from the back area, where the tiny kitchen and her even tinier office were located.

Sitting at her antique wooden desk, thumbing through a catalog from Woods & Winston, one of her suppliers, Theodosia had a hard time keeping her mind on carafes and French tea presses. Her thoughts kept returning to yesterday afternoon, to Oliver Dixon’s demise and to her subsequent conversation with Burt Tidwell.

She had taunted Tidwell a bit with her crack about rival yacht clubs. She’d been testing him, trying to ascertain what his suspicions had been, for she knew for a fact that, Burt Tidwell being Burt Tidwell, he’d certainly harbor a few thoughts of his own.

But had she really thought that members from one yacht club would plot against another? No, not really. She knew the Charleston Yacht Club and the Compass Key Yacht Club competed against each other all the time. And relations had always been friendly between the clubs. Besides the Isle of Palms race, they also ran the Intercoastal Regatta and some kind of event in fall that was curiously dubbed the Bourbon Cup.

What she was interested in knowing more about was Oliver Dixon and his new start-up company, Grapevine.

Then there was the obviously intoxicated Ford Cantrell, who had staged a somewhat ugly scene in front of Oliver Dixon and Giovanni Loard. What had that been about?

Haley had mentioned something earlier about her looking for a mystery to solve. Perhaps she had found her mystery.

“Knock, knock,” announced Drayton as he pushed his way into her office, tea tray in hand. “Thought you might like to try a cup of this new Japanese Sencha. It’s first flush, you know, and really quite rare,” he said as he set the lacquer tray down on her desk.

Theodosia nodded expectantly. Any time you were able to get the first picking of a tea, you were in for a special treat. The new, young shoots were always so tender and flavorful.

Drayton perched on the overstuffed chair across from her desk, the one they’d dubbed “the tuffet,” and fussed with the tetsubin, or traditional iron teapot. Moments earlier, he’d used a bamboo whisk to whip the powdered green tea, along with a dollop of hot water, into a gentle froth. Then he’d poured more hot water over the mixture, water that had been heated until it was just this side of boiling.

Now Drayton poured a small amount of the bright green tea into two teacups. Like the tea, the teacups were Japanese, tiny ceramic cups with a decorative crackle glaze that held about two ounces.

Savoring the heavenly aroma, Theodosia took a sip and let the tea work its way across her tongue. It was full-bodied and fresh, with a soothing aftertaste. Green tea was usually an acquired taste, although once a tea drinker became captivated by it, green tea soon found a place in his tea-drinking lexicon. It was a tea rich in fluoride and was reputed to boost the immune system. In a pinch, green tea could also be used on a compress to soothe insect bites or bee stings.

“Splendid,” exclaimed Theodosia. “How much of this tea did we order?”

Drayton favored her with a lopsided grin. “Just the one tin. It’s priced sky high, a lot more than most of our customers are used to paying. What say we keep it for our own private little stash?”

“Okay by me,” agreed Theodosia. “Now, what’s up with this mystery tea?” Drayton had worked out the concept on his own, distributed posters up and down Church Street and in many of the bed-and-breakfasts. But, so far, no one at the tea shop had been privy to his exact agenda.

Drayton whipped out his black notebook and balanced his reading glasses on the tip of his nose. “Twelve customers have signed up so far, and we have room for, oh, maybe ten more. We’ll begin with caviar on toast points and serve Indian chai with a twist of lemon in oversized martini glasses. Then, as the program proceeds, we shall . . .” He glanced up to find a look of delight on Theodosia’s face. “Oh,” he said. “You like?”

“I like it very much,” she replied. “What else?”

Drayton snapped his notebook shut. “No, all I really wanted was to gauge your initial reaction. And I’m extremely heartened by what I just saw. Now you’ll have to wait until Saturday night to find out the rest.”

“Drayton!” Theodosia protested with a laugh. “That’s not fair!”

He shrugged. “I guess that’s why they call it a mystery tea.”

“But it sounds so charming,” she argued. “At least the snippet you shared with me is. And you certainly can’t do it...I mean, you shouldn’t do it all by yourself. You’ll need help.”

Drayton shook his head firmly as a Cheshire cat grin creased his face. “Nice try,” he told her. “Now I’ve got to get back out there and give Haley a hand.” He took a final sip of tea and set his teacup back down. “Oh, and Theodosia, can you figure out what to do with the leftovers from yesterday? They’re absolutely jamming the