15Molly was up and drinking coffee, slumped on the sofa with Bobo at her side, feeling morose at the failure of her dinner. The guests had gobbled up all the food—that hadn’t been the problem. It was that the assembled personalities hadn’t gelled into good spirits, but instead endless complaining and expressions of disappointment. They told Molly her table setting wasn’t very elegant, that the pompe aux pommes was too dry, that they expected some inside information about the baroness and the murder. By the end of the evening, Molly’s face had hurt from fake-smiling and she had never been more glad to fall into bed, leaving the kitchen a disaster.
When she heard a knock at the door the next morning, she had a stab of anxiety that one of last night’s guest had shown up looking for a refund.
