Dahlia Lively in Diamonds for Dahlia

By Lettice Davenport, 1958

Posy was swept up on both sides by eager fans, Kit grinning as the crowd barrelled towards the front of Aldermere House.

‘Nice try escaping,’ he said, cramming the deerstalker a little more firmly on his head. ‘Was that on your card too, or were you just improvising?’

‘Uh, improvising,’ Posy replied. ‘For all the good it did me.’

The driveway was crammed with vintage buses strung with ribbons and bunting, presumably preparing to return those of the day delegates who weren’t booked in for the evening events to the station. But nobody was getting on them.

Instead, the entire convention was gathered by the steps where Marcus held court, arms spread wide as he addressed them, his dinner jacket open and flapping in the light summer breeze. Hugh Davenport stood beside him, hands in his pockets, smiling amiably, as if not really sure why he was there. Posy vaguely remembered something about him presenting the prize to the winner.

‘Your endeavours have brought us here,’ Marcus intoned grandly as he spotted them. ‘Without your assistance, your investigations – your genius – a murderer might have gone free today!’

‘How did you know it was me?’ Posy asked, as Kit took her arm and held it tight against his side, sending a warmth through her that their staged kisses hadn’t managed.

Kit waved his free hand towards the gathered throng. ‘Finest investigative minds in the fictional business here this weekend, remember? Of course they figured it out.’

Beside her, Caro clucked her tongue disapprovingly. ‘Have you been a naughty girl?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Kit told her cheerfully. ‘We’re performing a citizen’s arrest.’

Caro clapped her hands together with glee. ‘How perfect! Let’s go, then.’

Marcus was still performing for his audience as Kit hauled Posy up onto the steps, Caro beside them, every inch the Dahlia Lively she wasn’t, any longer. Rosalind followed behind them.

This isn’t how this was meant to go, Posy thought, looking at the crowd. She was supposed to be the only Dahlia at this convention. The one who would win over the fans with her deductive skill, or her ability to look good in a 1930s evening dress, or something.

Instead, here she was, being mock-arrested for a crime that Dahlia would never have considered committing.

Not that the audience seemed to mind. They cheered, as Kit pinned both her arms behind her back – loosely, but making it look good all the same, she suspected.

‘As so many of you intrepid detectives deduced, by process of elimination, our murderer today was indeed …’ Marcus left a rather unnecessary dramatic pause, since she’d already been exposed and arrested. ‘Posy Starling!’

A host of boos, worthy of a pantomime villain, filled the air around Aldermere. Marcus waited patiently for them to pass, a pleased smile on his face, before he spoke again.