Marian Babson was the pseudonym of Ruth Marian Stenstreem, an American mystery writer who lived for much of her life in London. She wrote numerous crime novels, often with a light comic touch.
Marian Babson
The Twelve Deaths of Christmas
William Collins, 1979.
I have always loved Queen Mary's Rose Garden. Even at this time of year and after the sleet and snow of the other day, there are still brave blossoms clinging to the stems and proudly showing colour against the dull grey of earth and sky.
On closer inspection the dull grey of the earth turns out to be 'an overlay of pulp and detritus - paper handkerchiefs, plastic coffee cartons' etc., including a metal ring-pull which the narrator slips on to her finger and sharpens with a nail file. It proves fatal to the drunken 'yobbo' who disturbs the peaceful scene with a blaring transistor: 'blood makes an excellent fertilizer for roses'. This is not the first of the twelve deaths: 'those small bodies lifted out of Regent's Park Lake had marked the beginning of the current bizarre series'.