by Anna Reader
“That’s the spirit,” Lord Alverstock said approvingly, moving back to the decanters which were housed within an antique globe in the corner of the room. “Now, do sit down. Gin?”
“Splendid,” Inspector Dashwood replied, settling into an arm-chair across from Purdie. “I once found a stolen diamond necklace stuffed into one of those,” he said conversationally, gesturing towards the globe. “Tucked underneath a soda fountain. Rather a bold decision on the thief’s part, I always thought.”
“How extraordinary,” Lord Alverstock replied, silently thanking the gods for whatever stroke of inspiration had made him remove the Shakespearean bust from the globe earlier that afternoon, and stuff it in his sock drawer. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you seem to be terribly young to be an Inspector.”
“Oh, I’m not as young as all that. This is my sixth year with Scotland Yard. I was up at Cambridge before that.”
“Were you, now?” Lord Alverstock said, handing a crystal tumbler to his guest. “Emmeline is reading English Literature there at the moment, you know. Terribly bright young woman. Much sharper than her old Pa.”
“Really?” Inspector Dashwood replied, fixing those deep green eyes on Purdie once again. “Are you just visiting London for a few days, then, Lady Emmeline? I don’t believe we are out of full term quite yet…”
“Rusticated,” Lord Alverstock interjected with glee, before his daughter had a chance to open her mouth. “Pinched by the Dean for impersonating an Etonian.”
If her perfect feet had been hidden by a convenient table, Purdie would have kicked her beloved father in the shin. As it was, she had no choice but to smile sweetly, shrug a shoulder, and flick a cigarette between her lips.
“Aha,” Inspector Dashwood said. It was evident from the twinkle in his eye that he was thoroughly enjoying himself, and that he would certainly have pressed for more details if, at that precise moment, a very handsome woman hadn’t entered the room.
“There you are,” the woman said brightly, walking towards the small gathering. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but Cook wants to know if you will be in for dinner, Em.”
“No, I….”
“Of course she is,” Lord Alverstock declared, by now on his feet and standing next to his wife. “And naturally, you must stay too, Inspector,” he added, not waiting for a response before continuing. “May I introduce my wife – Lady Alverstock. Darling, this is Inspector Dashwood of Scotland Yard. He’s lost a cufflink.”
Under any other circumstances the Inspector would have declined this invitation. Nominally at least, he was there to investigate Lady Emmeline’s possible involvement in the disappearance of a key piece of evidence – and sharing a meal with a young lady who may or may not be perverting the course of justice was not generally considered to be model police work.
That being said, it was not often that Peter Dashwood encountered such a vision at a crime scene – and the fact that she’d just been sent down from Cambridge made her all the more captivating. He would never admit it to his superiors, of course, but Inspector Dashwood had also found himself in the soup when he was at Emmanuel. Only a handful of his closest cronies knew what had led to this blip on an otherwise unremarkable college rap sheet – suffice to say that it had involved large quantities of rum, a parrot, and a cannon. His instincts subsequently told him that Purdie may be something of a kindred spirit. “I should be delighted – thank you, My Lord. Although I fear I may be underdressed.”
“Not at all, dear boy, not at all,” Lord Alverstock replied graciously.
Purdie’s eyes fairly boggled at that; and most irritatingly of all she found herself wishing she hadn’t just sent her most flattering evening gown to be hemmed. Why she should give a fig she couldn’t imagine – but it would have to be the green Lanvin.
“If you would excuse me then, gentlemen,” she said, rising to her feet and silently wondering if her mother would lend her the Purdew emerald drop earrings, “I shall go and dress.”
“Cocktails in the drawing room at six thirty, darling,” Purdie’s mother announced cheerfully, for there was nothing she liked better than entertaining. Apart from bracing Cornish swims and barbequed sardines.
Sitting in front of her dressing table and applying a judicious amount of scarlet lipstick, Purdie wondered what game her father was playing. Deciding to turn to a life of crime was one thing, she mused, as she sucked in her cheeks and considered adding the smallest dab of blusher, but choosing the night after one’s first caper to invite an Inspector from Scotland Yard to dinner was Lunacy. Particularly, her mind ran on, when the Inspector in question resembled a Greek God in a charcoal suit. Deciding against the blusher, Purdie wafted a hint of perfume behind each ear and wandered across to her wardrobe, her thoughts now turning back to the niggling idea which had begun to take shape during the conversation with her father.
“I know it’s in here somewhere…” she mumbled aloud, rifling through various silks which wrapped themselves around her bare arms like luxurious tentacles. “Aha!” Reaching into the depths of the cavernous wardrobe, Purdie’s fingers curled around a series of nylon strips, and with a flourish she yanked a climber’s harness into the open.
She laid it out on the bed, and resolved to work through her incipient scheme with her father after supper. For now, Purdie braced herself to face Inspector Dashwood.
Having taken a detour via her mother’s room to procure the aforementioned emerald drops, Purdie eventually drifted into the library. Much to her surprise – and, to her chagrin, rather drawing attention away from the entrance she had hoped to make in her second-best frock – she found that Lord Alverstock had his back to a copper umbrella stand and a cricket bat in his hands. (Said stand had been procured by Lord Alverstock in Nagaland several years previously, and had been moulded most expertly into the shape of an elephant’s foot - on the firm understanding that no animals had actually been harmed during its construction. As a collective noun, the Purdews found the real McCoy unutterably ghoulish.)
In any case, the Inspector charged past the Queen Anne chest with his sleeves rolled up, and prepared to launch a tennis-ball at Lord Alverstock. Chagrin or no, Purdie knew better than to interrupt her father during an impromptu session of batting practice, and was delighted to see him execute an elegant cover drive which sent the ball scuttling under the mahogany coffee table at the side of the room.
“Shot, sir,” Inspector Dashwood cried, his face wreathed with boyish delight.
Lord Alverstock was evidently pleased with his handiwork, and performed a couple of celebratory shadow strokes before spotting his daughter and straightening up in front of his stumps.
“Ah, Em! Come and show young Dashwood what a lady can do with the willow.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t wish to embarrass him,” she laughed, smiling at the pair of them - whilst still taking the precaution of tucking the cigarette she was about to light behind her ear. She could never resist a bat.
“I’d be delighted to send a couple of medium-pacers down to you, Lady Emmeline,” Inspector Dashwood said - intrigued, yet again, by the unusual young woman standing in front of him, a vision in green. “No bouncers, I give you my word.”
Needing no further encouragement, Purdie took the bat from her father’s hands and, in her beaded dress and matching T-Bar heels, assumed the position in front of the umbrella stand. Her stance, as Inspector Dashwood noted with some surprise, was first class; knees slightly bent, head level and shoulders open, she looked down at him in readiness and with raised bat. “Whenever you’re ready,” she said with a smile, graciously inviting the young man to do his best.
Now, what Purdie didn’t know was that in his time Peter Dashwood had been opening bowler for Cambridge’s first eleven, and was the custodian of an extremely economical rate.
Likewise, Inspector Dashwood had not the least notion that his charming adversary was currently at the top of the batting order for Cambridge’s ladies’ side, and in fact was not unused to bein
g called upon to make up numbers in Algie’s college team, when she was not otherwise engaged. In short, they were very evenly matched; although with the arrogance of youth, both assumed that the other would prove to be a relative novice.
The opening gambit did little to disavow that view – Inspector Dashwood, nothing if not gallant, sent a very gentle ball trickling towards Purdie, and she in turn poked at it with sham ineptitude and a small laugh. When he came back for his second delivery, however, the desire to show off got the better of him, and Peter sent quite a stinging ball towards the elephant foot. Without flinching, Purdie turned it neatly away to the boundary (marked by a silver ashtray), and Lord Alverstock bellowed in delight.
“Elegant shot!” he cried, as Purdie grinned back at Peter. “That’s my girl!”
“Lady Emmeline,” Peter observed with an answering smile. “You appear to be an extremely fine cricketer.”
In the years to come, Inspector Dashwood would remember this as being the precise moment he fell in love with Lady Emmeline Purdew. Her beauty alone would have put him in danger of losing his heart, but when that was combined with an ability to larrup a cricket ball into the metaphorical long-grass…well, he was a goner. Standing there in her parents’ drawing room, he only hoped he would one day be lucky enough to see her play a cut-shot.
“As are you, sir,” Purdie replied, equally impressed. “I rather wish we were playing at Lord’s, rather than in a drawing room in Baron’s Court.”
At that very moment the gong in the hall rang out, giving the trio their cue to make their way into the dining room. Lord Alverstock met his wife at the door and led her across the hallway, complimenting her warmly on her appearance – which was entirely understandable, given that she did indeed look ravishing in a duck-egg blue kimono and flamboyant amber jewellery. This left Peter and Purdie to walk in together: and this they did, happily, still basking in the glow of their mutual sporting understanding.
“Tell me, Inspector Dashwood,” Lady Alverstock began, a touch nervously, as a servant ladled pea-soup into each of their bowls, “what brings you here this evening? I do hope Algie hasn’t done anything untoward…He assured me that the incident with the fireworks last month was a simple misunderstanding.”
“No, Lady Alverstock,” Peter replied, suddenly feeling a trifle embarrassed by his errand, “it has nothing whatsoever to do with your son. In fact, I was hoping that Lady Emmeline might be able to help me with something.”
“You must drop the “Lady Emmeline”, dear boy,” Lord Alverstock interjected. “We don’t stand on formality here.”
Peter’s lips twitched as he caught Purdie’s eye – she had of course been the one to insist on the use of her title earlier that morning, by way of a chastener.
“Right you are, my Lord,” he continued. “As I was saying, I met… Emmeline at the Featherington-Blyths earlier today, shortly after a key piece of evidence had gone missing from my crime-scene.”
“Crime-scene?” Lady Alverstock repeated in surprise. “What on earth has happened?”
Purdie, who was feeling considerably less favourable towards Inspector Dashwood now that he had shown his hand, took a large sip from her wine-glass and turned to her mother. “Arnold Butterby’s ghastly Shakespearean bust has been stolen, Mama,” she explained. “The police found a cuff-link at the crime-scene, and Inspector Dashwood seems to think that I’ve taken it.”
“Balderdash!” Lord Alverstock countered. “I’m sure he thinks no such thing, Em. What possible reason could you have for pinching a cuff-link from the Featherington-Blyths? You don’t even wear a shirt.”
Conversation halted for a moment as the soup was replaced by a capon, and Purdie, who was sitting next to Peter, looked silent daggers at him from the corner of her eye.
“Of course,” Peter said soothingly, “I’m quite sure you’re right, my Lord – nothing more than a misunderstanding. But I must say that it was…peculiar, shall we say, to find that the thing had gone missing at the precise moment Em had been inspecting it with Augustus Featherington-Blyth.”
“You wouldn’t think it was so strange if you had ever seen Gussie play hunt the thimble,” Purdie replied, summoning a blinding smile and turning it full-beam on Inspector Dashwood. “He’s the most forgetful man I’ve ever met.”
“Perhaps,” Peter said slowly. “In any case - cufflink or no – it’s only a matter of time before we find the thief. You must forgive me Lady Alverstock,” he added, “I shouldn’t be talking shop over such a delicious dinner.”
Lady Alverstock was rather confused by the tone of this exchange, but accepted Inspector Dashwood’s compliment with a gracious smile, while making a mental note to congratulate cook. “Emmeline, my love, are you feeling quite the thing? Is there something the matter with your jaw?”
Purdie, who, taking advantage of the Inspector’s attention being elsewhere, had been in the middle of mouthing, “I swallowed it,” across the table to her bemused father, covered her mouth with her napkin and shook her head. “Quite all right, thanks, Ma. Thought I’d caught the wish-bone.”
“Do be careful, darling,” Lady Alverstock urged her favourite – indeed, only – daughter. “I simply couldn’t bear a repeat of what happened to poor Aunt Marigold at Christmas.”
“What happened to Aunt Marigold?” Inspector Dashwood couldn’t help but ask, lips twitching once again.
“Got the sixpence from the Christmas pudding tangled up in her dentures,” Lord Alverstock explained, shuddering at the memory. “We had to coax it out with one of Algie’s magnets, in the end. Poor old girl.”
The Inspector tried in vain to suppress a chuckle, and once again Purdie found herself thawing. That fleeting goodwill was soon skewered, however, when she remembered that he suspected her of being a criminal. The fact that she was indeed concealing the cufflink was by the by – it was the principle of the thing which irritated her.
“Do you have any leads on the bust, Inspector Dashwood?” Purdie asked as she toyed with her Eton mess. “Any one-cufflinked criminals roaming the streets of West London? Perhaps that’ll become the thief’s handle – One-cufflink Joe. Crooked Cuff O’Hannigan.”
“I’m afraid I can’t discuss a live investigation in any detail, Lady Emmeline,” came the smooth reply.
“Emmeline, I insist,” she interposed, with the grace to blush slightly.
“Emmeline. However, I can say we are investigating a number of possibilities, and that we are confident we will apprehend the culprit before long.”
“I can’t imagine that it would be terribly easy to fence a diamond-encrusted rendering of Shakespeare’s head,” Lord Alverstock said thoughtfully. “Absolutely appalling item. I remember when Arnold first purchased it – he’d been on a driving tour of the United States, apparently, and somehow managed to find an eccentric Anglophile in Michigan who’d had a number of the things made in homage to our Great Literary Tradition. It was a toss-up for Arnold between Shakespeare and Keats, so the story goes. The bard won out in the end, of course – I suspect because Arnold couldn’t recite a line of Keats’ verse if his bally life depended on it. He’s got the St. Crispin’s day speech by heart, though – as does any chap who’s attended an English public school worth its salt.”
“In fact, Lord Alverstock,” Peter replied, accepting a second glass of the claret, “we typically find that the theft of curios such as this isn’t motivated by money. For the most part, these more - unusual items, shall we say - are stolen on behalf of a collector, or for personal reasons. I should imagine that’s what’s happened here.”
Lord Alverstock snorted. “Collector, indeed. Anyone who would go out of his way to procure something like Arnold’s bust would have to be sadly lacking in both taste and brains. My Aunt Mildred had more sense – and she once went swimming in Lake Wildermere in nothing but a mink coat and the family diamonds.”
“I thought the Windermere story was a joke!” Purdie cried in delight. “How wonderful – I always liked Mi
ldred.”
“Oh no, quite true,” Lord Alverstock confirmed. “Father bet her that she wouldn’t do it, which was always fatal with Auntie Millie – gambler through and through.”
“Shall we go through to the drawing room, Em?” Lady Alverstock said, rising from her chair. “Leave the gentlemen to their port?”
This was the part of the evening which always rankled. The idea that the ladies should leave the room so that the men could get on with the “real” conversation – well, it fairly made Purdie’s blood boil. Her pride, however, would not permit her to object in front of Inspector Dashwood, so she relinquished her napkin and reluctantly got to her feet.
“Quite right, Ma,” she said gaily. “My feeble brain will probably implode if it has to try to keep up with the gentlemen any longer. Father, Inspector Dashwood.” And with that she left, the emeralds in her ears and beads on her dress winking in the lamplight.
As her mother poured them both a cup of coffee, Purdie chewed over the plan which had begun to take shape in her mind. If her father wanted to break Sir Reginald out for a spell, then she was determined to help him – dishy Inspector Dashwood be damned.
“Sugar, darling?”
“No thanks,” Purdie replied absent-mindedly. “Ma, do you know what happened to that tripod Algie used to take to Granny’s for the summer? You remember – the one with the winch attached to it? He used to make us use it to lower him into unusual places when he had that mania for geology.”
This tripod was, in fact, rather an impressive piece of engineering on Algernon’s part. When he was fourteen and first seized by a fascination with the structure of the earth, Algie had built the kit himself using bits of equipment found sculling about on their grandmother’s farm. With the assistance of Purdie, who had had the dubious honour of being in charge of the winch, Algie had thus been able to place the tripod on various ledges in the Derbyshire countryside and lower himself into nooks and crannies in search of interesting rock formations. The tripod had been forgotten when Algie’s interest moved to biology, and his harness had since been dismantled so that the parts could be used in other expeditions - but the tripod itself was, Purdie, believed, still intact.
