by T E Kinsey
We obediently handed the constable the three guns and said no more until three more bobbies arrived and led us all out onto the pavement. Even Mr Craine, whom I had expected to huff and bluster, remained silent. An ambulance was summoned to take the injured Brookfield to the nearby Bristol Royal Infirmary, and before long Mr Craine, Lady Hardcastle and I were being questioned at the city police station.
We had spent quite a while at the police station where various officers of increasingly more impressive rank had questioned us – separately, of course – at length. We both told the same story, each of us omitting any mention of Autumn Wind or Section W, and eventually – on the word of one of Inspector Sunderland’s close colleagues – we had been released. No one would tell us what had become of Craine and Brookfield, but we were confident that enough evidence would be found at least to charge them, if not to convict them.
Lady Hardcastle drove us back to Clifton and parked the motorcar with her customary careless exuberance, at a slight angle and a ha’penny tram ride from the kerb. She helped me from the passenger seat and I hobbled behind her up the steps to the large front door.
We were greeted by Simpkins, the butler, who ushered us inside. After he had taken our hats I expected him to take us through to the drawing room, but instead he gave us both a disapproving look and said, ‘There is a gentleman here to see you both. I asked him to wait in the library.’
He led us to the library and opened the door. Stepping through, he announced, ‘Lady Hardcastle and Miss Armstrong,’ and then ushered us inside. He gave us both another look that made it very plain how much he disapproved of our receiving visitors in his master’s house before gliding out and closing the door behind him.
Our visitor stood.
‘Good afternoon to you both,’ said Mr Purcell.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Purcell,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘We were planning to get in touch with you shortly, but it seems that Section W is one step ahead of us as always.’
He inclined his head in acknowledgement.
‘The senior Autumn Wind man here in Bristol has been calling himself Brookfield,’ she went on. ‘He’s in custody at the city police station now, together with Craine, the coffee importer. You should look closely at certain investors and board members in the omnibus company. There are one or two councillors who might fit the bill, too, most especially a stocky little chap from the accounts committee who Armstrong saw talking to Günther Ehrlichmann, who, by the way, is on the run and has a .22 bullet wound to the hand. It’s even possible that Stansbridge and Hinkley are members, as well; they were offered to us with Craine as part of a double-bluff by Brookfield. And–’
‘Yes,’ interrupted Purcell. ‘We know.’
‘You know?’
‘We know.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Ah,’ he said, taking off his spectacles and polishing them on his handkerchief. ‘Well now. There’s the thing, d’you see.’
Realization dawned on us both and Lady Hardcastle’s face flushed with anger.
‘You’ve had someone else investigating while we created a diversion?’ she said.
He looked genuinely apologetic. ‘In a nutshell, yes. You’re rather well known these days, what with all your work with the local coppers and your frequent appearances in the newspapers. We knew they’d twig what you were up to the moment you started poking about, and with all eyes on you, we were able to do a bit of rootling around of our own.’
‘I see. And what are you doing about it?’ she asked.
‘At the moment, nothing. Brookfield and Craine have been released.’
‘Released?’ she said. ‘They tried to kill us!’
‘Indeed, and we really are most terribly sorry about that. But it suits our purposes to let them think they’ve fooled us for the moment. We’d rather you kept quiet, too, if you don’t mind.’
She eyed him frostily. ‘Well it’s always a pleasure doing business with our old chums in Section W,’ she said. ‘If ever you want us to act as decoys for you again, do think twice, won’t you.’
‘Wheels within wheels,’ he said. ‘Bigger picture and all that. You know how it is. I do hope you’ll forgive us.’
‘I’m sure Armstrong will forgive you just as soon as her leg is healed,’ she said. ‘But don’t count on it. Is there anything else?’
‘No, I think that’s all,’ he said. ‘I’ll see myself out.’
We stood together in silence for a moment after he had gone. At length, Lady Hardcastle said, ‘Well, that seems to be that, then. But you need to rest that leg – it’s going to have a few backsides to kick in Whitehall when you’re better. And we ought to let Georgie know we’re back; I think she had plans for tea.’
And indeed she did. We had just taken our seats at the table when Simpkins introduced two surprise guests: Inspector Sunderland and his wife.
The inspector was in fine form and Dorothea Sunderland was every bit as charming and wonderful as we had imagined she ought to be to be deserving of the love of the inspector, and it was touching to watch the patient, unfussy way she cared for her wounded husband. Tea was a very convivial affair with Sir Benjamin and Lady Bickle the most gracious and welcoming of hosts, and by the time we were fighting over the last piece of cake we were all, despite our very different backgrounds, well on the way to becoming friends. I nearly spoiled things when Lady Hardcastle’s whispered observation that Oliver and Dorothea Sunderland were “Ollie and Dolly” made me snort tea out of my nose, but I covered it well and I think we got away with it.
No one seemed in any great rush for the afternoon to end, and Sir Benjamin invited us all to retire to the drawing room and offered us brandy.
‘Do you think we’ve heard the last of these – what did you call them? – these Autumn Wind chaps?’ asked Sir Benjamin as he handed Inspector Sunderland a generously-filled brandy balloon.
‘No, I doubt it,’ replied the inspector. ‘Lady Hardcastle knows a good deal more, I dare say, but I don’t think an organization like that ever goes away.’
‘What say you, then, Lady Hardcastle?’ said Sir Benjamin.
‘I think the inspector’s quite right,’ she said. ‘A couple of them have popped their nasty little heads above the parapet, but they’re not stupid and their friends won’t expect them to expose themselves to scrutiny again any time soon. As for the rest of them… nobody knows who they are. I think they’ll bide their time as they have these past few centuries, quietly manipulating things to their own advantage.’
‘And so will we always be in danger?’ said Lady Bickle
‘I don’t think so,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I think that by attacking you both so publicly, Autumn Wind have rather ensured that you’ll be unmolested in the future. Any attacks on your business, Sir Benjamin, or upon your person, Lady Bickle, will bring unwanted attention back upon the society, and the thing they rely upon more than anything, is to be able to go unnoticed as they weave their webs. I think your lives will be Wind-free from now on.’
‘Oh, I do hope so, dear,’ said Lady Bickle with a glance towards her husband. ‘Sprouts are the worst,’ she said in a stage whisper.
Finally, we returned home. Summer was settling in for a long stay, the garden under Old Jed’s careful ministrations was beginning to bloom, the house was entirely back to normal and both Lady Hardcastle and I were soon restored to full health.
Witnesses came forward to refute the allegations of impropriety against everyone connected with the tram company, and a free vote at the council narrowly defeated the proposal to grant the omnibus licence without further consultation.
‘You know,’ said Lady Hardcastle one morning as we sat down to breakfast, ‘we never did get away for that break I keep promising you.’
‘No, my lady,’ I said. ‘To be honest, I rather thought you’d gone cold on the idea.’
‘No, pet,’ she said, ‘I really do think we ought to pack our bags and head off to the seaside now that you’ve got r
id of that nasty old plaster cast.’
‘You’ll get no argument from me,’ I said. ‘As long as I can have those winkles you promised, and perhaps some ice cream, I shall be in heaven.’
There was a ring at the doorbell and I answered it to find the postman standing there holding a large parcel.
‘Oh, I say, thank you,’ I said, taking the package.
‘Pleasure miss,’ he said. ‘Good day to you.’
‘Good day,’ I said, and took the parcel through to the kitchen.
‘Gracious,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Whatever can this be?’
‘I can think of one surefire way to find out,’ I said, offering her a kitchen knife to cut the string.
She eagerly removed the string and brown paper to reveal a sturdy cardboard box. She lifted the lid and there, wrapped in tissue paper, was a leather driving helmet and a pair of expensive-looking goggles. She took out the note which had been lying on top of the strange gift.
‘Dear Sis,’ she read aloud. ‘How the devil are you, old girl? Sorry I’ve not been down to see you, but how about we put that right? I hear by the clothes-line telegraph that you’ve recently taken up driving and it just so happens that my old chum Fishy Codrington is a bit of a devotee of the automotive arts himself and, guess what, he’s built himself a racing circuit. You’ve heard of Brooklands? Well, it’s nothing quite so grand as that, but it gave him the idea and he’s paved over half the family estate in Rutland to make a course for him and his chums. He’s invited me along for a few days and he said I could bring a guest. Do you fancy it? Obviously you can bring whatshername and we can all have a jolly time together. You might need the enclosed – I told Fishy you were both excellent drivers. Reply soonest. All my love, Harry.’
She held up the helmet and goggles.
‘Well,’ I said, trying not to sound too disappointed. ‘It’s not quite the seaside, but it does sound as though it might be fun.’
‘Just the sort of fun we need,’ she said, the glint of competition in her eye. ‘I’ll write back at once.’
The End
Lady Hardcastle and Florence Armstrong will return in
Death Around the Bend
Author’s Notes
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, there is much about the world of Lady Hardcastle and the indomitable Florence Armstrong which is fanciful, improbable, and often ever-so-slightly anachronistic. It takes a special skill to write accurate historical fiction without it sounding like “and here’s everything I learned at the library this morning” and it’s a skill I never mastered, so instead I’ve tried hard to recreate the atmosphere of Edwardian England without being too dogmatic about it – I wanted character and story to be the main attraction. Think of the setting more as a theatrical backdrop than a carefully constructed movie set.
While I have been careful to avoid breaking the spell by including modern slang, little of the language is authentically Edwardian (I tried it, but it just read like a parody so I decided to keep the speech more readably modern). Please forgive the modernity, it’s just for fun.
I’ve overemphasized the popularity and importance of the motorcar in provincial England in 1909, and I’ve been entirely unable to find out to what extent the Bristol police were motorized by then (if you’re looking for a project, writing a history of the Bristol Police Force would keep you busy for a while – do let me know how you get on). Police forces in England didn’t use patrol cars until the 1920s but there were plenty of motorcars about and it’s handy to have everyone a little more mobile so I’ve made sure that Inspector Sunderland always has easy access to an official motor.
The Rover 6 was a real car, and a very endearing and popular one but, if I’m properly honest, I’m not actually convinced that Flo would have been able to fit into it with her broken leg.
I’ve tried to reflect the geography of Bristol in the early-1900s but I’ve played fast and loose with a few things here and there where it suited my needs, most especially with the death of Nathaniel Morry. I originally had him falling from a bridge, but the building worked better. The trouble with that was that I couldn’t find a likely building on the route from Clifton to the Tramway Centre, so I made one up. Nevertheless, Bristol really was one of the first cities in England with electrified trams, and they did terminate at the “Tramway Centre” which is now simply “The Centre”. It also had a pretty good telephone system.
None of the villages is real, though the layout and history of the market town of Chipping Bevington is loosely inspired by the real market town of Thornbury in South Gloucestershire which at one point really did have six pubs (two of them are now restaurants). Some of the place names that merely crop up in conversation are real, though, and North Nibley gets more than one mention because I have friends there.
Rugby Union was a popular sport in the West Country in the early part of the twentieth century (Bristol City Football Club’s ground hosted an international rugby match between England and Wales in 1908) but there were nowhere near the number of clubs that exist today and the village’s ground, the clubhouse and the level of community involvement are pure invention on my part. I should, perhaps, have chosen cricket or tennis, but rugby players are altogether more boisterous and entertaining.
I’m pretty sure you could carry a Derringer in your hat, but I tend to side with Flo on that one and I really can’t recommend it.
TEK – July 2015
