The Kit Aston Mysteries (All Five Books)

by Jack Murray

  ‘I hadn’t realised it was quite so big,’ said Mary looking at the enormous statue.

  Agatha, whose tolerance of all things French was matched only by her love of spiders, replied, ‘A little vulgar if you ask me.’

  Kit glanced down at his aunt and said, ‘I think it marvellous. It is a wonder of the modern world, especially in what it stands for. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. I think this is one of the most profound statements of what a nation can stand for. Long may it continue. ’

  Agatha looked at Kit archly, ‘I wonder what Americans with darker skin would say to that?’

  ‘I hardly think we’re in a position to preach to them, Aunt, do you?’ said Kit, although not unkindly.

  ‘No, we are not,’ acknowledged Agatha, ‘But if a nation puts such a potent symbol of its values so prominently on display for the world to see, is it not then incumbent upon that nation to live those values for all its citizens?’

  ‘It is, Aunt Agatha, but if you don’t mind me saying, I have an idea what this country stands for, even if it does fall short sometimes. After Amritsar, I wonder what we stand for now.’

  The port was as crowded as the deck of the Aquitania. People had come out in their thousands to see the arrival of the liner, its first commercial voyage since the start of the Great War. The liner glided serenely into the dock. The cheers of the crowds drowned out the brass band playing below.

  They stood and looked down at the crowds lining the dock. Mary felt a surge of excitement and even fear. She was caught between staying on the deck and the desire to rush down and take the first steps by a Cavendish in the New World. Kit saw the gleam in her eyes and smiled.

  ‘Shall we?’

  ‘Yes please,’ nodded Mary. Kit took her arm and Aunt Agatha’s also. They walked towards the ramp leading down onto American soil, well, slate grey and rather wet concrete. Mary stopped a couple of times on the ramp to wave at dozens of children looking on excitedly from the quay. It seemed New York had turned out en masse to greet the enormous arrival from England.

  A surge of electricity seemed to surge through Mary as she set foot on the dock. The band was playing ‘Yankee Doodle’ which resulted in a “Well, really” comment from Agatha.

  ‘I’m sure they mean nothing, Aunt Agatha,’ reassured Kit.

  ‘I’m sure they know exactly what they’re doing, young man.’

  Kit rolled his eyes at Mary, but he was also smiling, excited to be back in the United States. Up ahead newspapermen and photographers were roaming around speaking to the passengers as they disembarked. One of them addressed Agatha.

  ‘Who are you, lady?’

  ‘If I was interested, I might ask you the same question, you impertinent young man,’ replied Agatha haughtily. Then a thought struck her, and she stopped. ‘How did you know that I’m a lady?’

  The newspaperman looked at Agatha unsure of how to answer this. To his eyes, the elderly woman in front of him was definitely female, albeit long of tooth and, clearly, sharp of claw.

  ‘Whaddya mean, lady? You’re a lady, ain’t ya?’

  ‘Well, yes, I’m Lady Agatha Frost as it happens,’ said Agatha drawing herself up to her full five-foot height. This mattered little to the newsman who seemed closer to seven feet than six but was now becoming increasingly cowed as well as confused by the old woman’s belligerent tone. He tried flattery.

  ‘You’re royal?’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Agatha realising that the man was probably an idiot and moving on regally. This left the newsman shrugging to his colleague in bewilderment.

  Mary had also attracted a number of reporters, for altogether different reasons. Their excitement became almost feverish when she mentioned her name.

  ‘Yes, that’s Lady Mary Cavendish.’

  This revelation prompted several men with cameras to abandon some of the less attractive passengers and attempt to capture the potentially royal and unquestionably beautiful female passenger.

  Kit looked on in amusement until he felt his arm grabbed by his aunt.

  ‘Mary looks to be enjoying the attention a little too much. I think it’s time we moved on.’

  In fact, Mary’s revelations were causing a near riot to develop as the press and photographers tried to gain her attention. Aware that matters were beginning to spin out of control, Mary turned to Kit with an expression which suggested it was time for him to mount his steed and, if not rescue, then extricate this particular damsel.

  ‘Pardon me, Aunt Agatha,’ said Kit. Reading Mary’s look, he removed her hand from his elbow, ‘Duty calls. Back in a moment. Stay here.’

  Agatha’s initial disgruntlement gave way to a smile of satisfaction as she became aware of the scrum encircling Mary. She nodded her head and called after Kit, ‘Serves her right.’

  Kit smiled when he heard the comment but continued striding towards Mary. A few yards from Mary, his attention was drawn to a scene twenty yards further ahead. Mary looked up at Kit as he arrived on the scene, ‘Perhaps you can...’

  But Kit kept on walking past Mary, his eyes looking at a distant point behind her.

  ‘Oh,’ said Mary bemused. She ignored the shouts of the journalists and looked in the direction Kit was heading. Just at that moment she saw what Kit had seen. Kit suddenly made an about turn and came back towards her.

  ‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ said Kit to the press and took Mary’s elbow, ‘Come and see this.’

  ‘I’ve just seen it,’ replied Mary jogging alongside Kit. Up ahead they saw a number of uniformed policemen. They were forcing one of the passengers into a police wagon. It was the small man they suspected of having broken into their room.

  ‘Should we tell the police our suspicions?’

  ‘No, I don’t think we can,’ said Kit watching the car drive away. ‘We have no proof and besides which, nothing was taken.’

  The car receded into the distance. They turned back to locate Agatha. Mary looked up at Kit, ‘I wonder why they’ve taken him away?’

  ‘Indeed, I wonder also. But that’s not the main thing that attracted my attention. Did you see who one of the arresting officers was?’

  ‘No, I just saw that horrible little man,’ replied Mary.

  ‘It was your admirer, Le Comte.’

  ‘Jean-Valois?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Kit brought Mary over to Agatha and Natalie and guided them towards the terminal. Then he disappeared for a few moments. Mary noticed him handing a note to a porter. When he returned, she asked him, ‘What was that you gave to the man?’

  ‘A couple of telegrams,’ replied Kit. ‘Letting Uncle Alastair know we’ve reached New York.’

  ‘What do you think Jean-Valois was doing?’ asked Mary, after she’d explained to Agatha what they’d just witnessed.

  ‘Unless I miss my guess, I think he’s with the police.’

  12

  Penn Street Station, New York

  ‘They’re very...,’ said Mary, looking at the train, searching for the right word.

  ‘Yes, very,’ said Kit.

  The silver train seemed to stretch into the distant horizon. The platform was crowded but they were now all old hands at the travelling game. Kit saw the three women onto the train. They agreed to meet in the restaurant car.

  ‘Home stretch,’ said Agatha cheerfully as she was helped up onto the train.

  ‘Still time for a murder,’ suggested Kit hopefully, but which his companions quite correctly interpreted as sarcasm. He was ignored, pointedly, by the two ladies who immediately turned their backs leaving him standing on the platform alone.

  Kit turned to Natalie and said, ‘I’ll check on our trunks. Can you manage the hand luggage from here, Natalie?’

  Natalie nodded yes and Kit left the train to move down the lengthy platform. Ahead he saw an enormous trolley containing the bags being pulled by a black porter. The man looked like he wouldn’t see seventy again. Kit walked alongside him.
/>   ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said the porter with a smile which Kit interpreted as a yes.

  ‘Looks rather heavy,’ commented Kit glancing at the bags.

  ‘Oh, you get used to it, sir. Can I help you, sir?’

  ‘No, uhm,’ said Kit raising his eyebrows.

  ‘Hank, sir.’

  ‘No, Hank, I just wanted to make sure the bags are safely on the train. We had an incident in London,’ said Kit by way of explanation.

  The walk down the platform took a few minutes and the two men chatted about Hank’s job. He’d started working on trains just after the end of the Civil War.

  ‘Do you remember much of that period?’

  ‘Trying to forget, sir. A terrible war. A terrible, terrible time.’

  Kit nodded sympathetically. Hank glanced down at Kit’s limp. Kit smiled ruefully and said, ‘A lesson we never seem to learn, sadly.’

  -

  Mary and Agatha were sitting in the restaurant car drinking coffee when Kit re-joined them twenty minutes later. They watched the train slowly depart from Penn Street and emerge into the city. Both ladies looked on in fascination as New York went swiftly past their eyes. The redbrick and silver buildings soon became a blur. The further out from the centre they went, the more forsaken the houses became. The tall buildings slowly changed into wooden shacks in varying levels of disrepair. It was a far cry from the marvel of Manhattan.

  ‘My word, it has changed since I was here last,’ said Agatha. She answered the unasked question, ‘I think it was 1907, with Useless. We made this trip to see Alastair and Christina.’ She was quiet for a moment as she remembered her husband with sadness and affection. Mary took her hand and Agatha smiled gratefully. ‘A lifetime ago, it seems. Still, here we are. No point in dwelling on the past. Do you think it’s too early for a...?’

  ‘Yes, Aunt Agatha. It’s barely gone ten o’clock in the morning,’ pointed out Kit.

  Agatha rolled her eyes and looked at Mary.

  ‘Stiff neck.’ She wasn’t complaining about the discomfort she was feeling, either. With just the merest hint of a sulk, she took a book out of her handbag along with a pair of spectacles, ‘Well, if you won’t let me have a little snifter, I shall have to entertain myself in other ways.’

  Kit and Mary both stared down at the book: ‘The Clue of the Blood-Red Dagger’ by Guinevere Grufnutz.

  ‘Let me know when you’ve finished it,’ said Kit innocently. Mary covered her mouth to stifle a giggle.

  Agatha fixed him a beady glare, ‘When you get to my age, Christopher, you’ll welcome anything that keeps your mind active. I’m afraid your brand of prep school repartee isn’t quite up to the mark.’

  Mary nodded in a that’s-told-you manner. She looked at the lurid cover and said, ‘Interesting name, I wonder if it’s a nom de plume?’

  This drew an arch look from Kit, who decided to take the comment at face value. ‘If it isn’t, I suspect she’ll be wanting to be married sharpish,’ said Kit.

  -

  Two days later:

  ‘It’s possible to tire of flat landscapes,’ said Kit looking out the window of the train. Hour after hour of the Mid-West was beginning to tell on the good humour of the travelling party, although deadly violence had been kept to a minimum.

  ‘No murders,’ said Mary glumly.

  ‘No murders,’ agreed Agatha.

  Mary glanced down at the finished book on the table: ‘The Widow Murders’ by Max Bloode.

  ‘Nom de plume?’ asked Mary.

  ‘I hope so, I can’t imagine anyone would admit to writing such rubbish,’ said Kit. ‘It’s a nice touch adding an “e” to the end of his name.’

  ‘Adds a little bit of class, I agree,’ said Mary.

  ‘Did you deduce who the killer was?’ asked Kit.

  Agatha glared at Kit in a manner that confirmed the redundancy of such a query. Silence returned for another few minutes and then Mary observed, ‘I can still hardly credit Jean-Valois was a policeman. He seemed so...’

  ‘Fat-headed?’ offered Agatha.

  ‘No, but he was so French and charming. It’s difficult to imagine him chasing after criminals through the back streets of Paris or the docks of Marseilles,’ responded Mary.

  ‘It’s difficult to imagine a teenage daughter of a lord nursing on the front line of the worst war in history, but this is also possible,’ retorted Kit wryly.

  Mary looked at Kit evenly in the eye, then grinned, ‘Touché.’

  ‘Congratulations, Christopher,’ observed Agatha drily, ‘You finally landed one. Took you long enough. You’re losing it. Of course, I knew there was something about him from the off.’

  ‘Who?’ inquired Kit, credulously.

  ‘Le Comte, or whatever he is,’ said Agatha.

  ‘How did you find him out,’ asked Kit eyeing his aunt closely.

  Agatha took on a certain it-was-obvious-really mien. She looked at her nephew and said, ‘Well, it was in the eyes, actually. He always seemed to be looking around.’

  ‘At Mary,’ pointed out Kit. Mary grinned as innocently as a final year schoolgirl.

  Agatha’s eyes narrowed. ‘One can hardly blame him on that score. I had my eye on him very early.’

  ‘I wonder if we’ll see him again?’ asked Mary.

  Aunt Agatha looked up suddenly and put her finger up to attract the attention of one of the waiters. She finished the discussion with what in England, constitutes the end of any debate, or session in cricket for that matter.

  ‘Could we have a pot of tea, please? And bring some milk, not lemon.’

  13

  Hammett stood over the dead body of Dan Cowan whose white shirt was stained red by the head wound. The back of his head had been mashed by a heavy object. Hammett knelt down and looked at his sometime colleague. He rose almost immediately.

  ‘I figured you’d want to see him before we took him away,’ said Mulroney, smoking a small cigar, which stayed in his mouth as he spoke.

  ‘Thanks, Sean,’ said Hammett lighting a Fatima.

  They were outside Dan Cowan’s house in the east of the city. It was night but still very warm. Hammett looked at Mulroney. The policeman was sweating profusely. He dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief.

  ‘Is his hat anywhere?’ asked Hammett, looking around the area next to the body. ‘I don’t see it around. Did someone lift it?’

  Mulroney shrugged and turned to another uniformed policeman. He asked him if he’d seen a hat. The answer was no.

  ‘Do you think he was brought here?’ asked Mulroney.

  It was Hammett’s turn to shrug now. He walked over to a nearby automobile and looked underneath. Nothing. As he stood up, the medics moved the dead body onto a stretcher.

  ‘Any idea who might have done this?’ asked Mulroney.

  Hammett laughed mirthlessly, ‘Where do you want me to start?’

  ‘I thought as much. What was he working on? Is it anything to do with that girl?’

  Hammett nodded.

  Mulroney said, ‘I guess we’ll start there.’

  Hammett held his hand up, ‘Wait, Sean. We’re tailing her.’

  ‘She didn’t know?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. There was someone else though. A kid.’ Hammett described the kid who had also been hanging around the apartment. Mulroney made some notes.

  ‘Where were you an hour ago?’ asked Mulroney, semi-joking.

  ‘Very funny. Look, I didn’t like him but he’s one of ours. Let me follow up on the girl. You guys speak to Geauque and see what else he’d been working on. In fact if I don’t miss my guess....’

  Phil Geauque hove into view. His big frame moved with the grace of an inebriated rhino. His face and body were bathed in sweat. He looked at the body of Cowan being loaded into the ambulance and then walked over to Hammett and Mulroney.

  ‘What happened?’

  Mulroney’s summary of the known facts was brief for the very good reason
they knew very little. Geauque nodded but said nothing. His face resumed in its usual aspect: a sphinx. His eyes showed compassion, but his manner remained business-like. When Mulroney had finished, he said, ‘D’you mind if we tag along on this?’

  ‘Yeah, it’ll be great to have you hot shot sleuths to point us in the right direction.’

  ‘Funny,’ said Geauque. ‘We’ll tell you what we know, and you share with us too, right?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Mulroney. ‘What can you tell me now?’

  ‘The guy was rat. We know this. It’s why you guys kicked him out. But he knew his job. I know, I hired him. He put away a lot of guys over the last twenty years. There’s many would like to have used whatever clubbed him.’

  ‘What about Dain Collins?’ asked Mulroney. ‘Hammett tells me he was working with him on that.’

  Hammett and Geauque exchanged a look.

  ‘That was good of Dash,’ said Geauque in a tone of voice that did not suggest it was in the least bit good. Hammett felt uncomfortable.

  ‘Quid pro quo,’ said Hammett, defensively. ‘Sean will let me handle the Collins end for the moment.’

  ‘For twenty-four hours,’ said Mulroney, from the side of his mouth not dealing with a cigar.

  ‘Twenty-four hours, then,’ said Hammett. ‘I better get on it.’

  -

  ‘Hello, Mr Aston,’ said a young secretary as Alastair Aston walked into the offices of Aston Advertising. Alastair took off his hat and smiled down at her. Margaret had been one of his last hires. She was one of his best. In her mid-twenties, she was blonde, smart and industrious. His clients loved her. She played them like pro.

  ‘Hello, Margaret. Is my son in?’

  ‘No sir, he went out to lunch an hour ago.’

  ‘With a client?’ asked Alastair innocently, knowing the answer. His heart sank before Margaret responded.

  ‘I believe with Miss Collins, sir.’