by AG Barnett
A Death at Dinner
A Mary Blake Mystery
A. G. Barnett
Copyright © 2019 by A.G. Barnett
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
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Chapter One
Mary, Dot, and Pea were slumped on the wooden bench in the echoing corridor as they stared off into space with unseeing eyes. Mary’s throat felt dry. If she could have spoken a word, she would have asked in a firm voice for a gin and tonic. Instead, she unfolded the small sheet of paper the auctioneer’s assistant had handed her and stared at the number. There were a lot of zeros.
They had been ushered into a corridor at the back of the auction room, away from the baying press who had been stalking them since the discovery that had led them here.
“Did that just really happen?” Pea said from her right.
“It did,” Dot replied from her left.
“Bloody hell,” Pea added.
“That about sums it up.” Mary nodded, finally finding her voice.
There was another period of silence until Mary stood up and rammed the piece of paper into the inside pocket of her tan leather jacket. “Right, I think it’s high time we all went to the nearest pub to drink gin and tonics until all of this makes some sense.”
There were dazed murmurs of agreement as the others rose from their seats and the three of them moved along the corridor towards the discreet rear entrance that an employee of the auction house had assured them would provide an escape from the press pack.
“Mary! Mary Blake!”
She turned to see a round, tubby man waddling down the corridor towards them.
“Mary, how do you feel about the record sale of the Fabergé egg you recently discovered?”
Mary frowned at him, wondering how the reporter had evaded security to find his way back here.
“Do you know?” she said, folding her arms. “I have absolutely no idea, but I’m sure I’ll work it out in time.”
The man stopped, frowning in confusion, as a security guard appeared behind him at a run and steered him back towards the public area with a firm clasp of his arm. Mary turned away and pushed open the doors before stepping into the bright sunlight.
“They will not leave you alone after this, you know,” Pea said, sighing as he followed her out and they headed down the road.
“Oh, they’ll get bored, eventually. Now I’m not on TV, I’m nowhere near as much of a pull for them. This will do,” she said, pointing down the street to a ramshackle pub.
Inside, the light was appropriately gloomy for a central London pub that had probably been serving pints to the city’s citizens for hundreds of years. Mary and Dot took up residence at a well-worn and sticky table in the corner while Pea gathered them all gin and tonics at the bar.
“Well at least this means you’ve got the money to keep me employed,” Dot said as she pulled a tissue and wiped the portion of the table in front of her.
“Quite the opposite,” Mary said with a glint in her eye. “I need not work at all anymore. A personal assistant seems rather pointless, don’t you think?”
“I think we both know that you don’t pay me to help you professionally, you need me to make sure you can get through any twenty-four-hour period without descending into chaos.”
“Point well made, if a little harshly,” Mary answered as Pea arrived and placed their drinks before them. He sat heavily onto a battered wooden chair and sighed. His cheeks were flushed as red as his hair from the excitement and adrenaline of the auction, and he looked tired.
The three of them seemed to have been at the centre of a whirlwind since they had discovered a Fabergé egg thought to have been lost for over a hundred years. Mary and Pea’s grandfather had been entrusted the egg by a Russian man whose identity was unknown, and their parents had later hidden it in the wall of a village graveyard. Now, brought back into the world from its hiding place by Mary, her brother Pea and her friend Dot, it had been identified as the Alexander III commemorative Fabergé egg, thought lost in the tumultuous fall of the Romanovs as Russia’s ruling family. It had sold for twenty-one million dollars, and now they had to decide what they would do with it, and the rest of their lives.
“So what about you, big brother?” Mary said, turning to him. “You don’t have to worry about keeping the estate above water at least, but what next for it?”
“I don’t want to run it at all anymore.”
Mary blinked in surprise. “The estate?”
Pea looked up at her. “Of course, the estate! I’m finally free of it!”
“But I thought you enjoyed it?!”
“Oh, really Mary,” Dot said with a tut and shake of her head. “For someone who professes to be such a people person, you do miss what’s right under your nose sometimes.”
Mary’s gaze switched between her friend and her brother in confusion, causing Dot to roll her eyes.
“Mary,” Pea said, leaning forward, “I never wanted to run the estate. It was always Dad’s thing, not mine.”
“Then why on earth did you do it?!”
Pea laughed. “Oh come on! You know it would have broken Dad if I hadn’t taken it on. It was all he ever wanted. He wanted the family to stay at Blancham forever, and that would only happen if we could somehow make the estate self-sustaining.”
“And now you have the money…” Mary said, thinking the implications of this through.
“… I can hire a full-time estate manager,” Pea continued, “and finally do something I want to do.”
As he spoke, his eyes glazed over, his voice trailing off.
“So what’s that going to be?” Dot asked.
“I have absolutely no idea,” he said in a hollow voice.
“Well, that makes two of us,” Mary said, lifting her glass to clink against his.
“Three actually,” Dot said, raising hers.
“Do you know?” Mary said after a moment of silence. “There’s a saying that I think is appropriate right about now.” They both looked up at her expectantly. “They say that money can’t buy you happiness, but I’d like to test the theory.”
The others laughed, and suddenly the tension of the morning cleared as though a storm had released an oppressive humid
ity.
Mary’s phone buzzed in her jeans’ pocket. She pulled it out and glanced at the number calling—unrecognised.
“Hello?” she said, placing the device to her ear.
“Mary? It’s Spencer, Spencer Harley.”
Her brow wrinkled as she tried to place the name. “Spencer Harley?” she said, looking at Pea carefully to gauge his reaction.
“Spencer from that holiday in France?” Pea said in a whisper. “With Mum and Dad?”
“Yes,” Spencer continued, “I know it’s been a while, but I wondered if I could invite you down to my neck of the woods for the weekend?”
“Oh, right,” Mary said, unsure of what to say.
“There’s a restaurant down here that’s having an anniversary bash and thought you might want to join us?”
“Right, well that sounds nice, but…”
“I’ve seen you in the papers recently and I think it would be of some interest to you…”
Mary paused. She had been in the papers recently. Being credited with catching the murderer of a young actress who was your archrival tended to do that. Especially when soon after you discover a missing treasure of the art world.
“Could you just hold on a moment?” she said before covering the mouthpiece.
“It’s Spencer Harley, he wants me to go to some restaurant bash this weekend, something to do with me being in the paper.”
“Say yes,” Dot said immediately. They both turned to her. “We’ve all just been saying that we need to figure out what we do next,” she said. “Maybe we don’t need to figure it out, maybe we just need to go with the flow and see where it takes us. Ask if we can all come, I could do with a nice meal.”
Mary’s mouth fell open at this unusually carefree attitude of her oldest friend, but she didn’t have time to be suspicious—Spencer was still on the phone.
“Yes Spencer, that would be lovely,” she answered, eyeing Dot carefully. “Would it be OK if my brother and friend came along as well?”
“Of course! The more the merrier! Let me give you the details.”
Chapter Two
“I’m sure you’re just being paranoid,” Pea said, his mouth half full of an egg mayonnaise sandwich freshly procured from the train’s buffet car.
Mary had spent the last ten minutes explaining that, now they were on the train to the small town where the rather mysterious invitation had come from, she had a bad feeling about the whole thing. Her recent exposure had made her feel uncomfortable, but not in the way she had expected. After playing the role of a female detective on television for so long, she had found it strangely thrilling to be part of solving a case in the real world. Yet the feeling of pride and exhilaration had been tempered when she remembered that, no matter what she had thought of the victim, a young life had been lost.
“I mean,” Pea continued, “if he’s something to do with this restaurant and wants some publicity, who better to call than you right now? You’re all over the papers and let’s face it, being involved in solving a murder and then finding a lost artefact is pretty hot stuff where the press is concerned. I bet whoever is publicising this bash couldn’t believe their luck when he said he knew you!”
“He doesn’t know me though, does he?” Mary countered from the seat opposite him. “We met on a family holiday, god knows how many years ago, and that was it!”
“Maybe he wants you to solve a crime,” Dot said with a mocking, malevolent tone.
“Don’t be mean, Dot, it doesn’t suit you.”
The truth was, the thought had occurred to Mary as well. There had been something in Spencer’s tone. His voice had been too light and airy, as though he was intent on making the call seem as though it was nothing out of the ordinary. It was anything but. Calling someone after one meeting all that time ago. It was strange, to say the least. Also, the publicity Mary had recently received could hardly be ignored, and he had mentioned the papers.
After she had played a part in solving the murder of Melanie Shaw, her brother’s housekeeper and cook had then spoken to the papers. Unfortunately, beloved Hetty had a tendency to exaggerate and the resulting articles and headlines had made her sound like a mixture of Sherlock Holmes and Wonder Woman, as Hetty told the press that she had solved the case single-handedly and saved an incompetent police force in the process. This, of all things, had worried Mary the most. As much as she hated to admit it, Inspector Joe Corrigan, who had worked the case, had affected her. It made the back of her neck prickle with heat every time she thought of him reading those newspaper articles and cursing her for taking the limelight and making him look a fool. It bothered her in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“Don’t you think it’s odd that he’s paying for us to stay in a hotel in Parchester?” Mary said, trying to distract herself from her thoughts. “I mean, if he’s been reading the papers he knows we’re not exactly short of a bob or two.”
“He isn’t either from what I’ve heard,” Pea said, “he’s got some huge estate just outside Parchester and puts on all kinds of food festivals, classic car shows and things. I was looking at trying to emulate some of his ideas for Blancham, actually.” Mary glanced at him as he chuckled to himself. “I guess that will be someone else’s job now.”
“Have you started advertising for the position of estate manager yet?” Dot chipped in from the back seat.
“No.”
“I can help if you’d like? I might as well be your PA if Mary can’t make any use of me.”
“You just hold your horses, Dot Tanner,” Mary said. “If you’re forcing me to still pay you even though I don’t need your services, I think I should decide if you can work for my brother.”
“Oh come on, Mary,” Pea said, shooting her the glance of a disappointed sibling.
“Oh fine,” Mary said with a sigh. “Don’t worry about me, you two just go ahead and make your arrangements.”
“Will do,” said Dot with a satisfied smile.
Two hours later and the train was shuddering into the quaint station at Parchester. With only two platforms and one small, low-slung building painted bright blue, the scene felt more like a TV set to Mary rather than a real functioning transport hub. For a moment, her mind harked back to her many years playing Susan Law on the hit show Her Law and she gave a slight shudder. Those days were gone, and she still wasn’t used to it.
“Now we’re rich,” Mary said as she heaved her case off the train, “shouldn’t we have people to do this?”
“If you hire people to do everything for you, then you’re not really living,” Dot said, pulling her case down.
Mary paused and looked at her. Sometimes she had the impression that Dot was secretly very philosophical, which to Mary, as a woman who lived more “in the moment” and tended towards action rather than deep reflection, seemed like something strange and curious to be observed. These moments from Dot were fleeting though, and only appeared in between her usual demeanour of rigid practicality, more “just getting on with it.”
They passed through the turnstile which was left open and unmanned, rendering their tickets pointless, and moved through the small building to the doors which led out onto the street. The station seemed to be situated quite centrally in the small town, and the road they found themselves on buzzed with activity. Cars trundled back and forth in front of them along the narrow street, and on the far side people milled about a row of shops that looked as though they had stood there for decades. Small, but pretty Christmas decorations criss-crossed down the street, and although not lit in the day, Mary sensed they would be lovely at night. Mary couldn’t help but feel the warm, festive atmosphere of the town despite the cold.
“So, where do you think we’d find a taxi?” Pea said, looking up and down the road.
“No need,” Mary said, pointing. At the end of the street to their right stood a grand Victorian building with large gold lettering adorning its side, which declared it to be the Rudolph Hotel.
Although th
e bright sunshine and pale blue sky had lured people from their homes and places of work on this Friday afternoon, there was no avoiding the fact that it was bitterly cold. People were wrapped up against the icy gusts that whipped around the small street with scarves pulled up over their mouths and bobble hats pulled down low. Mary was regretting her decision to wear a skirt, even if she did have thick tights on below. They hurried along without speaking until they stepped into the warm and inviting lobby of the hotel with a sigh of relief.
“Mary!” a voice bellowed at them before they’d even come to a stop. A heavily jowled man with a rotund figure bounded towards them, his arms open wide. “Delighted to see you!” he added as he air-kissed Mary’s cheeks.
“Oh, hello Spencer,” Mary managed, somewhat bewildered. “I hadn’t realised you were going to meet us.”
“Well of course! Couldn’t have my guests of honour not greeted, eh? Percy, good to see you,” he said, shaking Pea by the hand.
“And you, Spencer, it’s been too long. This is our friend Dot Tanner.”
“Delighted to meet you!” Spencer bowed. Despite his large frame, he was full of such nervous energy that he seemed to be moving even when he stood still. “Now, I’ve made all the arrangements. All you need to do is grab your room keys and get settled in. I thought we could maybe meet for drinks in, say, an hour? I wondered though, Mary, if I could have a quick word with you alone before you go up?”
“Oh, yes, of course.” She nodded to the others in response to their questioning looks and watched them make their way to the large reception desk. Spencer guided her across the large wood-panelled lobby to a seating area where they both sat in leather-bound wingback chairs.
