Lady Emmeline and the Swansong Caper

by Anna Reader

  “You brought her back then,” Algie said, grinning at Peter as he walked through the door. “Shame.”

  “Are Ma and Pa still about?” Purdie asked, ignoring this opening sally.

  “Did you imagine they could rest easy whilst their daughter roamed the wilds of Cornwall?” Algie inquired, obviously not prepared to call a halt to the teasing just yet. “With a Man?”

  “Isn’t that your father doing the crossword?” Peter observed, looking across the hall and into the drawing room. “He doesn’t look terribly perturbed. Although I must say I had a go this morning, and thirteen down is fiendishly difficult.”

  “Peter!” Lady Alverstock cried, bursting out of the room with a small glass of port in her hand. “I’m so pleased you’ve popped in – it was terribly naughty of Emmeline to whisk you off before we had a chance to say hallo.”

  As her mother bore Peter towards the comforts of the drawing room fire, Purdie hung back and took her brother by the arm. “Peter knows about the painting,” she whispered quickly. “He intends to report it when he gets back to town tomorrow. We mustn’t let him leave in his car.”

  Algie gave a brisk nod of understanding, needing no further instruction. “Peter, old boy,” he cried cheerfully as he re-entered the room. “I’ve invented a new cocktail, and I should be most grateful for your thoughts on its merits. I call it the Tongue-Loosener.”

  “Honestly, Algernon,” Lady Alverstock said with a merry laugh, “I’m sure he’d far rather have a glass of your father’s port.”

  “Not at all,” Peter said politely. “What’s in it?”

  “That’s part of the fun,” Algie said, seizing the cocktail-shaker and eyeing the row of potent liquors with intent. “You have to guess.”

  Peter accepted the offer of a chair opposite Lord Alverstock. “Have you had a crack at thirteen down yet?” he asked, somewhat warily.

  Lord Alverstock looked up from his cryptic crossword, and grinned. “It took me two hours and the sacrifice of three shuttlecocks.”

  Peter was not entirely sure he understood the badminton reference – until he spotted three bald cones on the coffee table, and a mound of feathers in the fireplace. Evidently Lord Alverstock plucked badminton paraphernalia as a tonic for stress. “Two and a half – and I set fire to the obituaries,” Peter confessed with a sympathetic grimace.

  “There we are, then,” Algie said, handing Peter a glass. Purdie wouldn’t have been at all surprised if the cocktail had belched out a cloud of smoke – she’d seen exactly what her brother had added to the mix, and her cast-iron stomach had spasmed in guilt.

  “Thank you, Algie,” Peter said, eyeing the concoction with some hesitation. “Chin, chin.” The fact that he didn’t gasp when the potion hit the back of his throat was astonishing – and if he hadn’t been on the cusp of arresting her father, would certainly have been another notch in his favour as far as Purdie was concerned. His eyes may have waters very slightly, but other than that, his face remained wholly impassive. And let it be known for the record that he had, in fact, drained his tumbler.

  “Tongue-Scorcher may be more appropriate,” he observed, gingerly placing the empty glass down next to him and fishing about in his pockets for a cigarette. “I think it probably has the power to blind.”

  The twins were undeniably impressed; not only at Peter’s ability to cope with the no-doubt-noxious taste, but also the fact that he didn’t seem even remotely pie-eyed. For Purdie, who had seen exactly how much Peter had had to drink over the course of the evening, this was remarkable. As he then struck up a perfectly sane conversation with their father about the merits of the gold standard, Algie and Purdie’s eyes boggled in unison.

  Without a word Purdie moved to the bar and filled two tumblers with Laphroaig, cradling one in her hand and resting the other by Peter’s elbow. Apparently absent-mindedly, Peter picked it up and began to drink as he and Lord Alverstock continued their conversation – which had by now moved on to Peter’s view that beavers should be reintroduced into the English countryside as a natural flood-management system.

  “Extraordinary,” Algernon whispered in his sister’s ear. “The chap actually appears to become increasingly intellectually impressive the more he drinks.”

  Purdie was in complete agreement – setting aside the spectre of imminent arrest, she couldn’t deny that this was one of the most enjoyable evenings she had ever spent with a young man.

  Lady Alverstock was also obviously rather taken by him, and occasionally glanced up from her magazine to observe her husband and Purdie’s escort deep in conversation with a satisfied smile.

  “And now, if you’ll excuse me,” Peter said, placing the empty tumbler back on the coffee table, “I fear I must be on my way. Thank you very much indeed for your hospitality.”

  “Let me run you back to the village in our car,” Algie replied, leaping to his feet. “I wouldn’t feel at all comfortable watching you drive away so soon after demolishing a Tongue-Loosener.”

  “Terribly kind of you, old boy,” Peter said, an appreciative flash in his eyes, “but I’m quite sober enough to take my car.”

  “Oh no,” Purdie said, rising to her feet, “you can talk about pine-martins as cogently as you like, but I’m certainly not letting you drive.”

  “Beavers,” Peter corrected her. “But, if you insist – that’s very kind, Algie, and I’d be delighted to accept, though there really is no need.”

  “Splendid,” Algie replied. “I’ll go fire up the engine.” And with that he zipped out of the room with his customary vim.

  “Good to see you again,” Lord Alverstock said, rising from his chair and smiling benevolently. “I’m sure we’ll see you in town anon.”

  “I have no doubt,” Peter replied, trying not to catch Purdie’s eye. “Good evening, Lady Alverstock.”

  “Good night,” Purdie’s mother said, beaming at the young man as he kissed her lightly on both cheeks. “Such a pleasure to have you here.”

  Purdie followed Peter out into the hall as Algie waited outside in the car, and once again they were alone. They were both quiet for a moment, feeling rather regretful and even slightly shy as their evening at last drew to a close. Purdie stared down at the worn matting beneath her feet and searched desperately for something to say, aware that she had to maintain the subterfuge that she didn’t know what Peter could have meant by his warning. Truthfully, she even forgot that she was angry for a moment as he looked down at her.

  “I had…”

  “It was…” They both started speaking simultaneously, before laughing and abandoning their tentative sentences.

  “I’ve had a topping evening, Peter,” Purdie said at last, momentarily forgetting that this had long ago ceased being what one might call a typical tryst. “Thank you.”

  “So have I,” Peter said, looking down at her windswept curls and flushed cheeks, and wishing they were still alone on the beach. “Truly.”

  For one, breathless moment Purdie thought he was going to kiss her after all, and she waited in frozen anticipation. At the slightest dip of his head, however, Algie leant on the horn, imperiously summoning his passenger.

  “My cue, I think,” Peter said.

  Purdie thought – hoped – she could detect regret in his eyes as he moved through the door and out towards the waiting car. And then in a flash he and Algie were gone, and she was left alone on the doorstep.

  “Right, buck up, Purdew,” she said aloud after a moment, before bolting to the kitchen and seizing a sharp fruit knife. As quickly and quietly as possible she padded back out of the front door and towards the Crossley. With a few efficient jabs she had torn holes in each of Peter’s four wheels – not without guilt, certainly, but it was for the Greater Good.

  “We’re going to need to make rather an early start back to London, I’m afraid,” she announced to her parents, once she had buried the knife under the forget-me-nots and returned to the drawing room. “I’d completely forgotten that I’m promi
sed to Pongo for lunch, and you know how livid she gets if one interferes with her table plans.”

  “Darling,” Lady Alverstock said reproachfully, “you might have given us a little more warning. I haven’t even begun packing.”

  Algie wandered into the room some time later to find his family still discussing this sudden change of plans. “Your beau is safely home,” he said, flinging himself across an armchair.

  “I was just saying to Ma,” Purdie replied, ignoring this reference to her romantic predicament, “that we’ll need to get a shuffle on jolly early tomorrow. I’m lunching with Pongo.”

  “I’ve promised to play a round or two of golf with Bear Thorndyke, so that suits me fine.”

  “I do wish you’d seen fit to mention these jam-packed diaries rather earlier in the day, my sweets,” Lady Alverstock said, gently reprimanding her thoughtless children. “However, so be it. I’d suggest you all go upstairs and pack your trunks.”

  “We’re frightfully sorry, Ma,” Algie said, catching Lady Alverstock just before she passed through the door and planting an apologetic kiss on her cheek. This appeared to mollify her, and she smiled indulgently at them before taking her leave.

  Purdie waited until she was sure her mother was out of ear-shot before updating her father on the recent developments.

  “I don’t know how the dickens Peter knows where the painting is,” she concluded, “but it would appear as though we’ve been rumbled.”

  “Then we shall have to take swift and decisive action,” Lord Alverstock said, taking this news with remarkable restraint.

  “At the moment, we have the advantage,” Purdie replied. “I’ve somewhat… decommissioned Peter’s car, and I get the feeling that he’ll want to handle this personally, rather than phoning it in. So, I say we drive like the clappers at the crack of dawn, and remove the painting from the stables tout suite.”

  “Agreed,” Lord Alverstock replied. “I won’t ask what you’ve done to the poor chap’s car, my love, but we have no choice but to capitalise on his sudden lack of transportation. And so, to bed, children,” he said rising from his chair. He looked a touch weary, and Purdie didn’t quite like the colour of his complexion; but there it was, time for another adventure.

  SIXTEEN

  Purdie and Algie reconvened for breakfast shortly before six. It was by far the earliest either of them had been awake for many years, if one discounted the occasions on which they had eschewed sleep entirely.

  “What ho, sis,” Algie said, incorrigibly cheerful, even at dawn. “I didn’t know you could function before nine.”

  “Don’t speak to me,” she replied, shielding her eyes from the glare of the morning sun. “Coffee, I beg of you.”

  Her brother laughed and handed her a full cup, which she raised gratefully to her lips. “Good God, Algernon,” she gasped, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “It tastes of cinders. What did you do?”

  “Well, I was up and about before Woods,” he replied, a shade defensively, “so I thought I’d make it myself. It’s perfectly drinkable.”

  “I don’t think a wanderer lost in the Gobi would drink this bilge, Algie.”

  Luckily Woods agreed, and had made a fresh pot by the time Lord and Lady Alverstock appeared.

  There was barely time for a smoked kipper apiece before the family were bombing down the road back to town.

  “Frederick, dear,” Lady Alverstock said, a look of alarm in her green eyes, “must we drive quite so quickly? It’s making me feel rather sick.”

  “I’m awfully sorry, my darling,” her husband replied, “but time’s winged chariot, and all that. I’m terribly keen to get the sprogs back so that they can honour their commitments.”

  “Which is admirable, indeed,” she replied, bracing herself with an arm against the door. “However, I’m sure Pongo would rather Emmie reached her in one piece.” She covered her eyes with her free hand as Lord Alverstock rounded a hair-pin bend on what felt like two wheels, and yelped in horror as he then swerved to avoid a pheasant. “Frederick, I must insist that you slow down.”

  Suitably chastened, her husband reduced his speed by a knot or two. Purdie, meanwhile, was smoking anxiously in the back seat. Peter was a resourceful sort of a chap, and she didn’t imagine that a few flat tyres would delay him for long. Neither was she sure that he wouldn’t just pick up the telephone, which would be the sensible thing to do. Somehow, though, she felt that course of action wouldn’t really suit Mr Dashwood; he wasn’t a “call for the cavalry” type of a man, as far as she could tell. Indeed, she was rather hopeful that he had let the information slip on purpose, to give her father a chance to put his affairs in order before the rozzers arrived in force. Not that she thought he would ever be party to perverting the course of justice. Just….offering one a friendly leg up.

  “I say, can we hurry it along there, Pa? Pongo will be absolutely raging if we’re late.”

  Lord Alverstock tried valiantly to balance the competing demands of a nervous wife and impatient daughter, and it wasn’t too many hours before they were on the outskirts of London.

  “I’ll drop you off, darling,” he said, “and then run Algie and Emmie to their respective appointments.”

  “Thank you,” Lady Alverstock replied, by now rather green and offering up a silent prayer for making it through the morning alive. “I think I might have a lie-down.”

  “A pre-prandial sherry will put you right,” Algie advised.

  “Don’t speak to me of alcohol,” Lady Alverstock replied, holding her handkerchief to her mouth. “Or lunch, for pity’s sake. Horrid child.”

  Algie grinned, and patted his mother affectionately on the shoulder. “You’ll soon be alright, old girl.”

  “Algernon Purdew,” Lady Alverstock said in as stern a voice as she could muster, “If you call me “old girl” one more time…you’re not too big to go over my knee.”

  “Praise be, here we are!” Purdie cried, as Lord Alverstock pulled into their street. “Algie, help mother inside – and then get back here, pronto.”

  “Aren’t you going to change before lunch, darling?” Lady Alverstock asked, twisting around to survey her daughter, who was currently dressed in a rolled-up pair of her brother’s trousers, gym shoes, and a moth-eaten pull-over.

  “Oh, Pongo won’t mind,” Purdie assured her, tucking a stray curl into her head-scarf. “She’s seen me looking far worse than this.”

  Lady Alverstock sighed mournfully – recalling the rigour with which she had had to attend to her own appearance when she was a girl, and rueing the sad decline in standards which appeared to govern her own daughter’s social life. “Well, if you’re sure,” she replied, rather doubtfully. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to retreat to a darkened room.” And with that she and Algie were gone, leaving Lord Alverstock and Purdie alone in the car.

  “So…what’s the plan?” she asked, pulling a cigarette from her pocket as she clambered into the front seat vacated by her mother. “Where shall we take Sir Reginald?”

  “Oh, I thought we might play it by ear,” Lord Alverstock replied, exuding his usual unassailable confidence. “See what the lay of the land is, as it were, before making our move.”

  “What if the police are there already?” Purdie said, deciding that she didn’t like the colour of her father’s complexion in the slightest.

  “We’ll think of something,” he replied, muffling a cough in his handkerchief. “I’d lay odds on the Blériot-Whippet beating any of the bobby’s chariots in a dash for the Channel.”

  “Perhaps you should stay here,” Purdie suggested gently. “Algie and I can handle this. Someone ought to keep an eye on mother.”

  “None of that, Emmie,” he replied, resting his hand on his daughter’s, and smiling fondly across at her. “I’ll be as right as rain in a mo.”

  “Right!” Algie cried, leaping into the backseat. “Mother’s safely tucked up in bed, so let’s get ourselves out of this pickle!”

  “O
nwards then, sprogs,” Lord Alverstock said, putting the car into gear and zipping around the corner and off towards the stables.

  Purdie’s heart suddenly felt rather heavy. She didn’t know why it should strike her now, precisely, but she got the distinct impression that her father knew exactly what he was doing, and that he wasn’t letting his children in on the plan for a reason. There was nothing that she could do other than react to circumstances as they arose, but she certainly didn’t feel easy as she watched the streets fly by.

  “Fancy Dashwood giving you a head’s up like that,” Algie piped up from the back. “Good show, I say. What an excellent fellow.”

  “He had had a lot to drink,” Purdie reminded him, trying not to get her hopes up in that regard. “I wouldn’t set much store by it, Algie.”

  The snort from the backseat suggested that Algernon did not share his sister’s scepticism; to anyone with an ounce of good sense, Peter Dashwood’s romantic intentions were as clear as day.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked, turning to look at her father’s profile.

  Lord Alverstock grinned but kept his eyes on the road. “Excessively happy,” he replied. “My children by my side, and an adventure afoot – what more could a fellow ask for?”

  The Blériot-Whippet sped away from the city and into Surrey’s verdant countryside, where the stables were situated. Grey made way for green, and buildings turned into gambolling, Spring-drunk livestock.

  “Hallo,” Algie said, peering out of the window as they made their way up the drive-way towards Silly-Mid-Off’s lodgings. “No sign of the fuzz yet.”

  “They could very well be taking cover,” Purdie replied, peering into the hedgerows with pronounced suspicion. “Planning a surprise offensive.”

  “This is Surrey, Em,” Algernon reminded her. “Not Verdun.”

  “Oh, do use a little imagination, Algie,” Purdie replied, evidently disappointed by her twin’s failure to help build the dramatic tension.

  Lord Alverstock killed the engine and sat in the car for a moment, signalling for his squabbling children to be quiet. But for the occasional whinny or sweep of a tail against a stable door, no sound travelled across the still afternoon. Eventually he nodded, and the trio abandoned the car and made for the family race-horse.