Lady Emmeline and the Swansong Caper

by Anna Reader

  “Great Grandpapa left it to Father in his Will,” Algie explained, plucking the hip-flask from his sister’s hand so that he could take a hearty slug himself. “Vile Cousin Eustace really did steal it all those years ago, so I hardly think he’s going to kick up a stink when he finds it’s gone missing. I’d say he got his just desserts.”

  “Just hang on one bally minute, Algie,” Purdie interjected, “how on earth do you know all this? Cover your ears, Peter, but as far as I was concerned Pa and I were embarking on a life of crime together! Not recovering lost property.”

  Peter was by now rocking with laughter. All the tension of the past couple of weeks, coupled with this sudden confession, thoroughly got the better of him. How anyone was supposed to function rationally around this family he had absolutely no idea. There was nothing for it – he took the hipflask from Algernon, and had a drink. “If you can’t beat ‘em…” he muttered.

  “He confessed the lot when we were on the way here to stash the painting the other day,” Algie admitted. “He’d been having such fun with you that he didn’t want to tell you the truth just yet, you see, Em. Thought the criminal overtones might be a good distraction from…well, you know.” Algie’s voice became rather gruff at that point, as he navigated these more emotional waters.

  “Well,” Peter said at last, with a mixture of relief, amusement, and lingering bewilderment, “if you can corroborate all that, Algie, it looks as though your father has extracted himself from the soup. He’s led me on a merry chase, and there’s a small question of forced entry and wasting police time – but he’s unlikely to face any particularly pernicious charges. I do wish one of you had seen fit to warn me,” he added, remonstrating gently. “I was hot on the heels of an extremely prolific black-market gin operation before I was diverted onto your case, you know.”

  “We can hardly regret drawing your attention from smuggled spirits,” Algie retorted. “If anything, it sounds like we’ve done the country a bally favour. Let them drink gin, and all that.”

  “I’m not sure that’s quite what Marie Antoinette had in mind,” Peter replied dryly. “Besides, these particular crooks are diluting the gin with water before selling it onto London’s finest establishments.”

  “Diluting it?” Algie replied in horrified tones, suddenly extremely pale. “Barbarians! They must be stopped, Peter!”

  “Quite,” Peter said simply, having the generosity not to point out the twins’ role in delaying the capture of said gin-tamperers.

  Taking one last look out over the sun-kissed horizon, and then across at Purdie, Peter fired up the engine. “I don’t relish explaining all of this to my superiors, and your father should really be setting the record straight down at the station rather than taking his horse for a spin. However, those are problems for another day. For the time being,” he concluded with a shake of the head, “I think we could all do with a stiff drink.”

  “That’s the ticket, old boy,” Algie replied approvingly, slapping Peter on the shoulder. “The Pig and Kettle, three miles west.”

  The fields sped past the car once again, and the trio fell into a contemplative silence. It was the most peculiar sensation, Purdie thought – she couldn’t grieve for a man who was at that precise moment cantering across the Surrey countryside, but she also knew in her heart that that was the last time she’d ever see him. And he’d been quite right, of course – their caper had been the perfect way to say goodbye. Completely barking, thrilling, and wonderful fun. Just like him.

  “Good show,” she said aloud, a little tearfully.

  “Quite right,” her brother replied, as always understanding precisely what she meant. “Good show.”

  It wasn’t until the sun was setting on the Pig and Kettle that Peter suddenly sat bolt upright, sending pork scratchings cascading off the table.

  “Jennings!” he cried, realising that his poor junior would still be scouring Silly-Mid-Off’s stables for the so-called evidence – which, in reality would likely mean raking through manure by moonlight for nothing in particular.

  “Never fear, Dashwood,” Algie hiccupped, slapping Peter on the shoulder. “We’ll take the poor lad a costrel of ale.”

  And so they did, finally drawing their tale to a close.

  SEVENTEEN

  “I say, Purdie, will you get a wiggle on? At this rate the ball will be over before we’ve even had a whiff of champagne.”

  “Hold ye hard, Pongo,” Purdie replied, lounging in an arm-chair in an extremely fetching navy-blue ball-gown. “I’ll just finish this bracer and then I’ll be right with you.”

  “Now look here,” Pongo replied, arms akimbo, “I know you’re not desperately keen on Tuffers, but I rather like Blotto and shall be seriously miffed if I miss the first dance with him because you’re sitting here drinking gin.”

  “No chance of that,” Purdie replied with a grin. “I’ve got the tickets, so they’ll jolly well have to wait for us at the gate.”

  “Oh!” Pongo cried, much relieved. “In that case, I’ll join you.”

  It had taken Purdie a full eighteen months after that fateful day in Surrey before she’d decided she was ready to go back to Cambridge. The apparent loss of her father - even in the most Romantic of circumstances - had been a crushing blow, and it was not until she’d spent a good year travelling the globe that she’d felt ready to pick up the reins of her old life again.

  She’d been far from idle, however. Purdie had left London within days of her father’s disappearance, booking herself on the first steamer out of Portsmouth. She’d managed to find a position training race horses in Spain through a chum, and, after a few peaceful months of sleeping under the stars in the Andalusian mountains, eventually decided to make her way to Egypt.

  It was in Cairo that she first thought she saw Peter. She was walking amongst the pyramids with some new friends – an American actress, a camel jockey, and a perfumier – when she found her attention drifting to a patch of shadow in front of her. The moonlight shimmered on the desert sand, a warm breeze drew the intoxicating scent of spice from the city, and someone who looked remarkably like Peter Dashwood seemed to be watching her in the half-light. By the time Purdie had reached the spot the figure had gone, and she found herself wondering whether her unsettled mind had conjured up the entire vision.

  After that night Purdie’s restlessness returned, and she abandoned her new chums to try her hand at cattle ranching in South America – in the hope that yet another radical change of scene may prove be the tonic she needed.

  Purdie had barely been in Buenos Aires a month when she received her first offer of marriage from a captivated Don she’d met dancing the tango under the light of the Argentine moon. The offer had been flatly refused – handsome though the young man was – prompting said Don to threaten, rather rashly, to throw himself into the Atlantic. His impassioned threats of self-immolation had done nothing to further his cause, alas. Quite the contrary: a disgusted Purdie had read him a stern lecture on the importance of aquatic safety, and booked herself on the next steamer to America.

  Not, however, before she had convinced herself that she’d once again spotted Peter – this time during a hike to the Valley of the Moon. The blistering sun was beating down on that peculiar lunar landscape, heat hazes were flickering across the Argentinian badlands, and Purdie realised with some alarm that her canister was almost dry of Malbec. Just as she was turning to her companion – an AWOL German nun called Sister Mechtilde – to say that they ought perhaps to start heading back to civilisation, something on the horizon caught her eye. It looked remarkably like a man in cricket whites lounging by a jagged outcrop of rock, and Purdie found her heart suddenly racing like the clappers.

  “Peter?” she shouted aloud, much to Sister Mechtilde’s confusion.

  “Wer ist Peter, mein Liebling?” the nun asked, taking the opportunity to tuck some loose blond hairs under her starched wimple. “Niemand ist da.”

  “It’s nothing, Sister,” Purdie repl
ied, trying to laugh it off as she realized she must have been hallucinating. “Just a touch of heat-stroke, I think.”

  Hold it together, Purdew, she instructed herself silently. This is no time to dissolve into a noodle-brained ninny. Sister Mechtilde is counting on you to get her back in time for vespers.

  After one last rare steak with the errant nun, and with the spectre of Dashwood still looming large in her mind’s eye, Purdie decided she was ready to plough on north. If Argentina couldn’t sooth her aching heart, perhaps New York would prove to be the salve.

  And so, to Manhattan, where Pongo joined Purdie for a final fling of nightclubs, jazz and illegal martinis. It was a glorious few weeks – Purdie had never danced so much or slept so little, and in the end, it seemed as though the balm she’d needed all along wasn’t foreign adventure, but her best chum, bootleg gin, and a bit of time. There had been one final Dashwood hallucination to disturb Purdie’s peace – the girls had been deep in the belly of a subterranean jazz joint in the small hours of the morning, when Purdie had glanced up at the band and spotted Peter strumming the strings of the double-bass. Even after a year and a half abroad, and the restorative influence of ‘Prohibition Pongo’, Purdie couldn’t quite exorcise the handsome Inspector from her thoughts.

  As soon as the lure of Manhattan had started to fade, however, and once the pair had started to miss English rain, ale, and Algie, they’d slowly begun to make their way home across the ocean. With Pongo by her side, Purdie felt as though she was finally ready to step back into her old life again – having learnt by now how to carry her grief delicately, as though she were cradling a bird with a broken wing, rather than letting it overwhelm her with sadness.

  Nothing more had been heard from Lord Alverstock. In one of the many letters he had written to his twin over the course of their separation, Algie had informed Purdie that Lady Alverstock had gone on an Unexpected Trip a few days after her husband’s disappearance. Query, Algernon had written, having plunged into Purdie’s stash of E.M. Delafield in her absence, were Ma and Pa in cahoots this entire time? Have they decided to spend Pater’s final days à deux? Answer almost certainly yes. Upon her return two months later, Lady Alverstock had flatly refused to tell her son where she’d been, or with whom. If pressed about her husband, all she would say was that she would not be in the least surprised if Lord Alverstock and Silly-Mid-Off made an appearance at the Grand National the following spring. He had, after all, always enjoyed a surprise.

  Algie had graduated from Cambridge the previous summer, and had chosen to stay on to study for a doctorate in Zoology. These incipient academic ambitions had in no small part been prompted by the fact he rather fancied having another year or so at university with his sister; if she needed a bit of time before resuming her education, then he was quite prepared to wait for her. He was, as he kicked his heels in that beautiful city, inadvertently becoming one of the Faculty’s leading experts on the nesting patterns of Bornean swiftlets – which came as something of a surprise, given that he’d never travelled further east than Aldeburgh. Still, after a hard-fought six-month campaign he’d finally managed to raise funds for a field-trip to Malaya: only to postpone his first field expedition with delighted alacrity as soon as Purdie re-emerged in England.

  It had been an extremely fond reunion. Algie had found his sister’s absence almost as hard to bear as his grief, though of course he would never admit it. Instead, on the day she’d presented herself in his college digs with a rueful grin, a smart new hair-cut, and a bottle of rather fine Argentinian red, he had marched her straight down to the Eagle and delightedly plied her with ale. It was the most fun he’d had in months, and the pair had parted ways early the following morning in perfect accord.

  Purdie had slipped back into Cambridge life with relative ease. She and Algie met for dinner several times a week; Pongo spent almost as much time in Purdie’s rooms as she did at her own house in London; and inevitably, Purdie had soon attracted a string of admirers. Her travels had given her habitual cool demeanour a newly enigmatic quality, and packs of Cambridge’s aspiring young poets and artists were determined to immortalise her. To them, she was untouchable, perfect: Madonna; Estella; Helen of Troy, the muse each of them thought had been sent into their orbit to unleash their own shimmering potential. Utter rot, of course. She was far less interested in trembling odes than a well-executed martini, if only the Byronic poseurs could see it. In any case, her delight in parties didn’t appear to be doing her studies any harm – she had just achieved a startlingly convincing first in her Part One examinations, and was determined to celebrate at the May Ball. Even if, as Pongo so astutely observed, Tuffers wasn’t really her cup of chai.

  The two friends finished their cocktails, applied one last coat of red lipstick, and glided down to the quad to find their escorts. It was by now almost eight o’clock, and the ball was in full swing.

  “Golly,” Tuffers wheezed, instantly forgiving the girls’ lateness as he ogled Purdie through a newly-acquired monocle, “don’t you look The Thing.”

  “Thank you, Tuffers,” Purdie replied graciously, taking the proffered arm. “It’s just a little something I picked up in New York.”

  “What ho, Moo,” Blotto said with a raffish grin, seizing Pongo by the arm and propelling her towards the Master’s Garden. “You look jolly pretty.”

  “I do wish you’d just call me Pongo, like everyone else,” Pongo sighed, with only the mildest rebuke. One could never really be frustrated with Blotto – he was far too good-natured for that.

  “Nonsense, Moo,” he cried. “Muriel is a splendid name. Besides, I like having a sobriquet that’s just for me.”

  It was hard to argue with such a frank and charming response. Pongo could only grin, and saunter after her escort as he marched towards the glasses of champagne twinkling like glow worms in the darkness.

  Purdie and Tuffers followed suit, and the quartet were soon enjoying the first of many glasses of bubbly, wandering around the grotto in delight. The theme for the ball was “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and the committee had certainly gone all out for this year’s festivities. Tea-lights and lanterns hung from every bough, petals had been strewn liberally over the grass, and the strains of a violin wafted whimsically through the night air. Rumour had it there was even a donkey doing the rounds, although Purdie wasn’t wholly sure she believed that.

  “Topping,” Tuffers cried, beaming across at his partner and swaying rather woodenly to the music. Romance may not have been on the cards, but Purdie was certainly extremely fond of the enthusiastic young man; really, it would be impossible to remain unmoved by his puppyish enthusiasm.

  “Good god,” Pongo said, spluttering on her champagne. “Don’t look now, Purdie, but Lettuce and Gussie are over by the punts. And Lettuce looks very much as though she might be With Child!”

  Purdie twisted around as her chum tried to regain her composure. She’d heard through the Argentine grapevine that the pair had been married at Westminster the previous autumn; but she had not, in fact, seen Gussie face to face since the Blue Tulip. Technically speaking, she mused, they were still engaged - a fact which apparently hadn’t slipped Gussie’s mind either, since, when his eyes alighted on Purdie, he turned an astonishing shade of purple and let out what could only be described as a strangulated yelp.

  “Oh lord,” Purdie said, looking about her for a swift exit. “I don’t want to induce Lettuce’s labour at the Newnham May Ball.”

  “That fellow appears to be trying to conceal himself behind an ornamental fern,” Blotto observed with interest. “Without much success, I might aid. How deliciously odd.”

  “Take this,” Purdie said, thrusting an empty champagne glass into Pongo’s hand. “Time for me to disappear. Meet you by the bar in fifteen minutes?”

  Pongo was still too tickled to offer a sensible response, so Purdie sped off without waiting for confirmation. Tuffers looked temporarily crestfallen, until an extremely pretty first year leaned towards
him and asked for a light.

  “Rather,” he replied, trying not to stare. “Mi matches su matches, and all that.”

  Purdie stalked off into the undergrowth, taking a wrong turn at a neo-classical urn and finding herself temporarily separated from the rest of the party. She was staring up at the night sky in an attempt to orientate herself by the stars – a trick Sister Mechtilde had taught her on one of their many nocturnal hikes - when a familiar voice asked, “Have you lost something?”

  As flirtatious opening gambits go this was hardly a masterpiece, yet it still managed to send a small shudder down Purdie’s spine.

  “Hallo, Dashwood,” she replied, turning around to find Peter standing before her. This, Purdie said to herself, was no apparition. The Inspector was here, and he certainly looked the part: white bow-tie; immaculately cut suit; shoes so polished they gleamed, and a pair of gloves and top hat in his hands. He was rather taller than she remembered, and, much to her dismay, even dishier. “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you, actually,” he replied, as cool as you like. “Algie told me where I might find you.”

  “Did he,” she said, narrowing her eyes slightly and tucking a stray curl behind her ear. “I didn’t know you were still in touch.”

  “Oh yes,” Peter replied casually, pulling a cigarette case from his pocket and offering one to Purdie. “I bumped into him at Lord’s last summer, and we’ve been playing the odd round of golf ever since.”

  “No thank you,” she said. “I gave up a few months ago.”

  He snapped the case shut and slipped it back inside his jacket with one of his crooked smiles. “You look marvellous, Emmeline,” he said. “I suppose you still drink?”

  “I beg your pardon?” she replied, wrong-footed for a moment.