The Snuffbox Affair A Peregrine Appleby & Hedges Mystery

Peregrine Appleby is a young man of mild surprise and permanent bewilderment, a freelance poet whose career has the unfortunate habit of driving literary journals into receivership. He lives a life of quiet comfort in Mayfair, largely because his valet, Hedges, possesses a "prospective competence" that borders on the supernatural. Hedges doesn't just pack trunks; he anticipates crises, manages aunts, and ensures Peregrine never accidentally attends a Royal garden party in a burgundy dressing gown.

When a formidable summons arrives from Aunt Drusilla (a woman whose disapproval can wilt potted plants at forty feet), Peregrine is whisked away to the village of Lower Swatting-on-the-Wold for the annual fete. The stakes are deceptively low?until they aren't.

What begins as a simple weekend of reading Keats to elderly residents and dodging "beastly" rural duties quickly spirals into a high-stakes horticultural heist involving:

A Ruby-Encrusted Snuffbox: Accidentally surrendered as a tea-room tip.

The Grand Marrow Competition: Where forty-pound vegetables are treated with the reverence of holy relics.

A Runaway Daughter: Working undercover as a waitress named Mabel.

Tippy Tollimache: A best friend currently obsessed with the scientific development of a waterproof monocle.

When the missing snuffbox is secreted inside the village's prize-winning marrow, Peregrine must rely on Hedges's cryptographic past and Tippy's surprising skill with a lockpick to prevent a social catastrophe. To make matters more complicated, the arrival of the sharp-witted Cressida Vane?who reads Virgil in the original Latin while driving a supercharged sports car?forces Peregrine to confront something even more terrifying than his Aunt: his own feelings.

In a world of beeswax seals, midnight garden raids, and moral croquet, can Hedges orchestrate a reconciliation between a rigid magistrate and his daughter while ensuring the snuffbox returns to the right pocket?