While in the midst of a mystery, you'd find fewer more animated or verbose than Artemisia Beltrami. The detective's thoughts were never calm at the best of times, but when stuck on a particularly difficult puzzle, they were practically a whirlwind. Her body would jerk around like a marionette as it struggled to keep up with her line of thinking, and words would pour from her mouth in a stream of consciousness as she exposited on whatever poor souls (usually Margerie) happened to be around at the time. Of course, in classic detective fashion, she saved her best theatrics for the denouement: the moment when she would explain how the crime had been done, who had done it and why.
Unfortunately, for Artie, in this moment, she was not in the midst or the end of a mystery, but a social encounter where she desperately trying to make a good impression on the immediate family of her most cherished (and longest enduring) employee.
Needless to say, she was very much not in her element. She'd been unusually quiet during a lot of the conversation, her usually sharp focus dulled as she did her best to listen to the story told by Margerie's father, but instead found her mind wandering in several directions simultaneously. Her eyes kept darting around the room, surveying the other customers around the Blue Rat inn, constantly wondering to herself "What's your story?" and her right hand started tapping more and more rapidly on the table as minutes went past.
Margerie must have noticed this because she gave Artemisia a hard but discreet kick under the table as Bartholomew was drawing to the end of his story, and the sluagh's focus quickly snapped back to her present company, just in time for the ordering of drinks and to hear the older boggart's question.
"Oh err, yes... you wouldn't happen to have warm drinks here, like, say a mug of tea?" she asked Elizabeth. "If not, err, just water is fine for me too."
"I'll have something a little stronger," Margerie said, which earned her a raised eyebrow from Artie. "What? I'm on holiday."
Artie gave a small sigh before turning her attention back to Bartholomew. "Anyhow, err, cases in Viletia. Yes," she said, and then paused for a moment as she had sort through her tangle of thoughts. While she normally remembered these things quite clearly, the unfamiliar surroundings seem to be muddying her mind.
Evidently, she must have taken to long, before Margerie chimed in again. "Tell them about the one with the missing opera singer," she said. "That's always a good one."
"Oh, yes, that one," Artie said, the fog in her mind dissipating somewhat thanks to her assistant's prompt. She began regaling the story of how she, on one of their less busy weeks, decided to surprise Margerie and a friend of hers (who Artemisia kept misnaming much Margerie's chagrin) with tickets to a famous opera, where the main star mysteriously vanished mid-performance.
Literally. As in, she was meant to disappear in a puff of smoke at just before the interval, and she did. Then the rest of the troupe couldn't seem locate her afterwards, meaning the rest of the performance was promptly cancelled as everyone scrambled to find out what in the House had just happened.
"It was genuinely one of my most interesting cases," Artemisia continued. "And one where I frequently found myself stumped. It was actually your daughter's keen attention to detail that helped me more than once during that time."
"Oh stop," said Margerie with false bashfulness, giving her boss a light, playful slap on the shoulder.
Well, it was meant to be light and playful. Since Margerie was a good deal stronger than her twig of an employer, everyone could see Artie visibily wince as she made contact, though she tried her best to play it off, even as she rubbing her arm thinking 'There's going to be a bruise there tomorrow, I just know it.'
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