EQMM, November 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "But this lady did go to a great deal of trouble to—ah—scrape your acquaintance? How very strange.” Aidan's smile had a whole lot of meanings.

  "Griff's quite popular with ladies of a certain age these days, aren't you, Griff? There was your Deborah Kerr look-alike at the house sale. Flirted with you for a good ten minutes,” I said.

  Aidan raised an eyebrow as he turned to me. “And did your lady resemble Deborah Kerr?"

  "No idea. Never met the lady. I was just quoting Griff."

  "A classic English beauty ... If you will permit me...” He leant back in his chair and ran his fingers along the bookshelves, finally reaching out an encyclopaedia of film. He leafed through and then passed me the volume. “There. Did your lady resemble her?"

  "I think you'll find the caption says Kay Kendall,” I snapped. “And no, she wasn't like her. Much older."

  "Just testing, Lina.” He turned more pages. “Here. And I'm not cheating this time."

  "Not as beautiful as her, but there is a resemblance,” I conceded.

  He pulled a face. “I wonder if it is possible that the two women were one and the same. Did you buy anything exciting at the house sale? Something someone else wanted?"

  I blushed. “There was a young man who wanted my pot cupboard.” I was dimly aware of a glance being exchanged over my head. “Very much. But he's not been in touch since."

  "Your pot cupboard? It seems an unlikely object of desire. Was it empty?"

  "Completely. Hey,” I added, picking up their doubt and excitement, “you don't think the old lady left her diamonds stuck to the back of the drawer, do you?” I whipped off upstairs and came back carrying it.

  If there had been so much as a dead woodworm in it, we would have found it. But there was nothing—that had simply been an excuse to stop Conrad Blue Eyes forcing my hand.

  "Well in that case,” Aidan said, “I should take it and its twin to your next fair—clearly marked SOLD—and leave them as bait. See if either Deborah Kerr or the faint-hearted young man appears."

  * * * *

  I've never found reading easy, but at least I'm not afraid of books anymore, and I can also work my way round the Internet without too many tears. All the same, I didn't embark on my next project—one I didn't tell Griff about—lightly. I was going to find out all I could about Victorian dressing cases: the best makers, that sort of thing. Even if I could never lay my hands on that lovely coromandel one, I needed, in a way I can't explain, to know about it. But the research—a bit of a posh word for what I was trying to do—went slowly, because I still had my restoration and repair work, and I spent longer in the shop these days, simply so that Griff could preserve his strength. And if any customers were going to get violent, at least I knew enough about street-fighting to give as good as I got.

  Nothing like that happened. We had a couple of quiet weeks, with no harassment at all, and accordingly set off to Ardingly Fair with both newly polished pot cupboards and a couple of SOLD labels. And who should appear, halfway through the first morning, but Blue Eyes.

  "I thought you didn't want to sell that,” he said, without preamble. “And now you've sold a pair! Who to?"

  "All our transactions are confidential,” I said primly. Then I added, “Believe me, I didn't want to sell, but—well, you know how it is if you get a cash-flow problem. The buyer's nipped off to get some cash."

  "You know I wanted it!” Those blue eyes seemed very cold.

  "If you'd contacted me I could have told you. But you never did.” I swallowed hard, as if both upset and angry.

  "Well, whatever the other guy's offered, I'll give you double,” he said, producing a well-filled wallet.

  If I'd really sold them there's no way I'd have accepted. As it was, I thought of a number and doubled it. And had the notes counted out into my hand. Okay, I would miss the cupboards either side of my bed, but with that sort of deal I couldn't afford to be sentimental.

  "Just get them away from here straightaway,” I whispered, looking furtively from right to left.

  * * * *

  "Are you sure that was what you wanted to do?” Griff said over a medicinal glass of champagne with his lunch.

  I patted the wad of notes in my bumbag and smiled. “What was it you told me—there are as good fish still in the sea as ever came out of it? Well then, now we can afford to go fishing."

  "We can indeed. And who knows how soon we shall find just what you want to catch."

  We found it—or rather them—much sooner than I'd ever have guessed. We were joining the trudge to the caravan park at the end of the day when I saw some legs sticking out of a hedge and stopped. No, I don't mean human legs. Mahogany cupboard legs, eight in all. The poor things were no longer joined to their bodies. Two pretty inlaid doors were lying a little further along, and beside them two polished tops.

  "Poor, poor pot cupboards. What have they ever done to deserve that?” I wept, gathering up what looked no better than firewood and stacking it neatly.

  Griff put an arm round my shoulders. “I suspect they didn't contain whatever that young man of yours hoped they'd contain."

  "He's not my young man! Nor ever could be, not if he does this sort of thing. Oh, Griff, thank goodness that dressing case is safe with whoever commissioned you to buy it!"

  "Dressing case? What dressing case?"

  "The one you and Wally Moore locked antlers over at Miss Fairborn's house sale. The one you spent so much money on. Remember? You said you knew exactly who'd want it."

  He kissed me. “So I did. And now, my dear one, I'm afraid our supper must wait. We have to go and see Aidan immediately. Oh, bring those poor wrecks if you want. If anyone can repair them, you can."

  * * * *

  It's not so very far from Ardingly to Tenterden, but finding the wrecked cupboards had upset me and I was dead crabby. “I don't understand,” I bleated, “why we have to turn out in this weather and go to Tenterden. Surely a phone call would do?"

  "Do you trust me, Lina?"

  "You know I do. With my life."

  "Well, pray just drive. Or better still, pull over here so that I can drive and you can make that mobile phone of yours work. Good. Now,” he said, settling himself into the driver's seat, “I think you should summon to Aidan's that police-officer friend who thinks the sun shines out of your ears. And you should ask him to tell his constabulary colleagues to pay a great deal of attention to our own abode this evening. Tell them to look out for a handsome woman of a certain age or an equally handsome young man, possibly her son. No, no questions,” he said. “You know how I have to concentrate on my driving."

  So I couldn't tell him that DS Dan Freeman wasn't an admirer of mine. Not really. He'd always been kind, but nothing more, and I wasn't sure if I wanted a man a good ten years older than me, with wispy hair he refused to have close-cropped, to be anything more than kind. All the same, it was nice to know he'd drop everything to talk to me, and even nicer when he asked if the shop and cottage were at serious risk of being burgled.

  "Tell him it's at imminent risk,” Griff shouted. “And cut the call as quickly as you can so you can take over at the wheel. Unless he wants to attend a road accident!"

  * * * *

  "All this sudden interest in our premises has to be tied in with the dressing case, you see, Dan,” Griff explained, no longer a shaky old man but a very alert professional. “Do sit down."

  We were all in Aidan's elegant sitting room.

  Dan looked about him as if unable to believe the pictures on the wall. “So where is it?"

  "Aidan is fetching it downstairs now. I had asked him to look after it for me until Lina's birthday. But I see it must make an appearance now. And I would like it to give up whatever secret it holds before someone smashes it up to find it."

  "Oh, Griff! But—but—” I'd hardly had time to hug him when Aidan reappeared, irritably waving me to a seat.

  There: On my lap lay the coromandel dressing case, its wood glowing and the brassw
are with not a trace of tarnish.

  Even Dan gasped. “Hey, that's lovely.” He added, letting himself down, “What exactly is it?"

  "It's what every posh lady would have had,” I said, grateful I had checked out as much as I could. “A sort of portable dressing table, with bottles and pots for all her cosmetics. And here, in the lid, behind the mirror, she might keep incriminating correspondence. And maybe more.” As I pressed on the mirror to release it, I fully expected something priceless to drop out—the something that Blue Eyes had thought might be hidden in the pot cupboard. But there was nothing. Nothing at all.

  I could have wept. The others sighed as if someone had missed a Cup Final penalty.

  I lifted every little lid, moved every bottle, and pressed anything that seemed likely to move. Nothing. I felt like a conjuror whose rabbit was on strike.

  "Perhaps they just wanted it because it's beautiful,” Dan said.

  I shook my head. If they'd appreciated beauty, then they wouldn't have smashed those cupboards. “Just let me think."

  "Thinking is what a jealous husband would have done, my child. He'd apply logic to finding where his wife had hidden incriminating letters. Whoever designed this hoped only someone with intuition would be able to find it. Like priest's holes,” Griff explained to Dan, who clearly didn't quite follow.

  "If a jealous husband couldn't find it, he might slam down the lid or throw it onto the floor,” I said. “So if we start shaking it we might activate some safety lock."

  Dan's mobile phone rang. Excusing himself as politely as if he were Griff, he turned away and took the call. “Take them in and let them kick their heels for a bit. I'll talk to them as soon as I've finished here,” he said at last. Cutting the call, he sighed, “If only we knew what the buggers were looking for—oh, yes, we caught them in the act, a young male and an older female, believed to be his mother."

  "I do wish you wouldn't use police-ese,” said Griff pettishly. “No one ever talks about males and females, not if they're human."

  "And we do know what they're looking for,” I said, surprising even myself. “The codicil to Miss Fairborn's will. The one she never had time to sign. The one leaving her house and garden in trust. The one they want to destroy so they can sell everything to developers."

  Their eyes couldn't have been rounder if the case itself had spoken.

  "Now all I have to do is find it.” I ran my hands gently over the worn velvet lining, trying to feel if it had ever been disturbed. But that was crazy. Miss Fairborn stowed it for safekeeping but she'd want to be able to get it out to hand it to her solicitor. Any attempt to pull the velvet away would simply have torn it.

  "We'd better get our forensic team to check it out.” Dan held out his hands for it.

  "And let them take apart a work of art like this? Indeed no!” Aidan exploded.

  Griff added quietly, “Trust Lina, Dan. She'll get there sooner or later. Why don't we adjourn to the kitchen and leave her in peace? Aidan makes the best cup of coffee you can imagine...."

  Dan looked at his watch. “You can have five minutes and then it goes to Forensics."

  "I know it looks like a screw,” I said, “but if you lift it gently, see what happens. There! This panel shifts slightly and a drawer comes out, all of its own accord. Do you want to see what's in it, Dan?"

  Almost as if he were in church, he leant forward and fished out a piece of paper. Yes, there was the solicitor's letter heading, and there Marguerite Fairborn's signature. There was an additional scrawl, with the words DARREN BLOWER, WINDOW CLEANER, printed after it. Bless her, she'd even got it witnessed.

  Dan grabbed the paper, and set off to wave it under Blue Eyes's nose.

  * * * *

  "So the urban wildlife sanctuary will come into being, just as the old lady wanted,” Aidan said, passing me a glass of Champagne. “And with luck, Deborah Kerr and Conrad Blue Eyes will go down for a good long stretch."

  "And the scales will drop from Lina's eyes and she'll realise what a handsome prince she has in Dan,” Griff said, raising his glass.

  I shook my head as I sat with the case still on my knee.

  Aidan filled the silence. “My betting is that the two criminals will just get fleas in their ears—after all, breaking and entering isn't really a capital crime."

  "They smashed up those pot cupboards!” Griff objected.

  "But they were their own to do what they want with. My advice,” he added, looking round to make sure Dan really had gone, “is to say nothing about them—unless someone asks, of course. As it is, you simply found some pieces of wood in a hedge, Lina—and if I know you, you'll nurse them all back to health in no time. And they'll end up back on either side of your bed, with the dressing case on one of them."

  And so they did.

  But Dan still hasn't got to see them.

  (c)2008 by Judith Cutler

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Novelette: HANDEL AND GRETEL by Edward D. Hoch and Jon L. Breen

  * * * *

  Art by Mark Evan Walker

  * * * *

  Our book reviewer, Jon L. Breen, an award-winning fiction writer with a flair for the class-ical whodunit, seemed the ideal choice to complete the story Edward D. Hoch was working on when he died. We had no idea, however, that he would come up with a solution to the crime the legendary Ed Hoch conceived that would so neatly bring together all the complex plot elements and characters. We think the story reflects brilliantly upon them both!

  * * * *

  Gretel Domonick was one of those young women who always attract a second glance. Her curly red hair was unusual enough, but coupled with her youthful face and petite figure, your first impression was of Orphan Annie come to life. It wasn't until your wandering eye traveled down to her booted feet, with their four-inch heels, that you realized this Gretel was no fairy tale.

  "I'm Walt Stanton,” I said, shaking hands. “This is my partner, Juliet Ives.” Juliet merely gave her a nod, a sure sign there'd be no love lost between the two of them. “What can we do for you?"

  She hesitated, glancing around at our unpretentious office across the street from Manhattan's Strand Bookstore. Finally she said, “I understand you're a courier service."

  "That's right,” Juliet agreed, jumping into the conversation. “What would you like delivered, and where?"

  "I don't have it yet. I need someone to accompany me to England while I retrieve some valuable papers and manuscripts, then deliver them back here to New York."

  "Are these manuscripts your property?” I asked.

  "They will be. I'm purchasing them."

  "I want to make clear that Stanton and Ives is a courier service only. We do not function as bodyguards."

  "I don't need bodyguards. The woman who has the papers agreed to turn them over to me. I just need your service to carry them back here."

  "I assume they have some value."

  "They are manuscripts and musical compositions of George Frideric Handel,” she told us in an awed whisper, as if fearing the walls had ears. “They are nearly three hundred years old."

  Ives perked up. “Handel of Handel's Messiah?"

  "Yes, but that came later in his life, in 1741. The papers that interest me are from his early days in London, around 1717."

  I decided it was time to quote our fee by the day, plus all transportation and lodging costs. It didn't seem to scare her off. “I'll handle the plane tickets and there'll be no lodging expense,” she explained. “For the one night we'll be there, we can stay with Mrs. Oldfield. It'll take that long to have my initial payment transferred to her account."

  "She's the one with the Handel material?” Ives asked.

  "Exactly. Would one of you be free to accompany me next week?"

  Ives and I exchanged glances. “We usually work as a team. On long plane flights it's necessary that one be awake at all times to safeguard the property. The fee I quoted is for both of us."

  "Very well.” Gretel Domonick
produced a checkbook from her purse. “We should be gone for three days, counting travel time. How much of a retainer do you require?"

  "Two days now and the remainder when we return."

  She nodded and wrote out the check. “I'm thinking we could get a flight to London next Monday evening. Would that be satisfactory?"

  * * * *

  Though we now employed a full-time secretary, Stanton & Ives was not yet a thriving business. We'd started the company five years earlier, just out of Princeton. Our five or six jobs a month were barely enough to keep us going, and most of our assignments were deadly dull. We liked to imagine the day when we'd have a staff of a dozen or so, chasing around the world on courier assignments, but we both knew that day was a long way off.

  "At least we're getting to see a lot of the world,” Ives remarked that night during our usual postcoital chat. “This'll be our third trip to England. They say it's lovely in June."

  "We'll see."

  Gretel met us at JFK with the tickets and we landed at Heathrow early Tuesday morning. It was obvious that she was a seasoned traveler, surprising us with a hired car to transport us to the country home of Mrs. Oldfield, about an hour away. The familiar early-morning fog was already dissipating as we sped through the English countryside, though it was a bit cooler than we'd expected.

  Gretel told us a little about the woman we'd be visiting. “She's in her late sixties now, and still lives on the family estate with her daughter, Veronica Biel. The daughter hosts a popular cooking show on the BBC and their home has become something of a tourist attraction."

  "Good!” Ives exclaimed. “Maybe she can give me some cooking tips."

  Presently the car turned off the country road and passed through open gates, following a paved driveway to the house itself. I suppose it was a fairly modest country home by Victorian standards, but its gables and cupolas were still impressive. We could see a pair of gardeners at work, tending to a variety of rose bushes in full bloom. Only the somewhat startling sight of a television remote unit with its antenna raised reminded us that the Victorian Age was long gone.

  "Can you believe this place?” Ives remarked as we pulled up before the main entrance. A massive oak door was topped by a wooden banner with gold letters announcing The Gingerbread House. Almost at once the door swung open. If we were expecting a staid English butler to greet us, we were startled by the brisk young woman who ran down the steps to our car.