Four pets — two cats, a dog, and a parrot — play important roles in Dead as a Scone, The Final Crumpet, and subsequent novels in The Royal Tunbridge Wells Mysteries. Lapsang, Souchong, Cha-Cha, and Earl originally belonged to Dame Elspeth Hawker, a benefactor of The Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum. Upon Dame Elspeth's death, the four pets became "wards" of the museum — a new, unexpected responsibility for Nigel Owen and Flick Adams. Ron and Janet Benrey assembed a rather unusual collection of animals for the museum: two British Shorthair cats, a Shiba Inu, and an African Grey Parrot. Although Lapsang, Souchong, Cha-Cha, and Earl are fictional, they have real "cousins" throughout the world.

Lapsang & Souchong — two British Shorthairs

When Nigel Owen first peered into an animal carrier delivered to the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum, he saw a pair orange eyes staring back at him. He later noticed a furry blue face pressed against the carrier's front screen. Nigel soon learned that the British Shorthair is docile, friendly, and rarely destructive — cheering news, considering that the museum had been given two British Shorthairs. And because they are large cats, British Shorthairs are reputed to prefer not to be picked up. Lapsang and Souchong, the two cats featured in Dead as a Scone, were named after a smoke-flavored tea.

Cha-Cha — the Shiba Inu

"A Shiba Inu," a solicitor told Nigel Owen, "is an ancient Japanese breed known for its intelligence, inquisitiveness, love of human interaction, infrequent barking, robust independent streak, and a compelling instinct to chase and kill small animals. Because of the latter, I recommends that you never take the dog outdoors without its lead." The solicitor added, "His name is Cha-Cha." (Cha is the word for tea in much of the world.) In Dead as a Scone, Cha-Cha is decribed as "a small dog, perhaps fifteen inches tall, compactly built, with a thick reddish coat and patches of white on its neck, legs, and puffy cheeks. It had small pointed ears, triangular eyes, a rather impudent arched tail held high, and a smile on its face."

Earl — the African Grey Parrot

African Grey Parrots are reputed to be the best talkers of all birds that talk. As the solicitor explained to Nigel Owen in Dead as a Scone, "African Greys are reputed to be the smartest of all birds and can be compared in intelligence to a five-year-old human child, although they usually display the emotional development of a typical two-year old." He added, "By the way, Earl is only ten years old, a mere pup by parrot standards. The museum can expect to care for him for-oh-sixty more years."