‘Tell me more, Mrs …?’
‘Everton. Eileen Everton. Miss. Pleased to meet you,’ she replied holding out a claw-like hand to be shaken. ‘I have inherited a house from my great-aunt, who died recently.’
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ interjected Garden, trying to be as sympathetic as possible.
‘Oh, I never liked her; she was a cranky old biddy, and she was ninety-eight when she passed on, but I was her only surviving relative, as she never married, and she was the last of the sisters of that generation.’
‘So, do you wish to sell or rent out the house for income? If that were the case, I’d suggest you consulted with one of the local estate agents.’
‘I haven’t made up my mind yet what I want to do with it. If you would let me tell you the whole story from the beginning, without any interruptions, then you might understand why I came here, young man.’
Garden felt chastened, as he had done as a child when one of his mother’s aunts had told him off for some mischief or minor misdemeanour. ‘A very sensible idea, if I may say so,’ he replied, and put on a face of concerned concentration.
‘I used to go there a lot when I was little and it was such a wonderful rambling old house for a child to run around in. My mother and her aunt fell out when I was in my twenties and, I must confess, that I have been neither near nor by the place in decades.
‘To my knowledge, all her possessions of any value were auctioned off under the aegis of her solicitor when she went into a nursing home and the house has stood there ever since, the worthless items still in situ, but without either a tenant or a caretaker.’
Garden was furiously scribbling notes as she spoke, and looked up at this juncture to nod sagely. She continued, taking his nod to indicate that she should continue. ‘I am aware of these facts because she has left everything of which she died possessed to me, and one of the conditions of her will was that the thing be published in the local newspaper and The Times, the way things used to happen in her day. I can only presume that she was cocking a last snook to those of her acquaintances who might have outlived her, to let them know that they wouldn’t get a penny piece from her – a last demonstration of her spiteful nature.
‘The will duly appeared in those publications about three weeks ago, and ever since, I have been having calls from all sorts of people; some in person and some on the telephone, trying to purchase the property, lease it, or represent me in its sale. I must admit to feeling rather harried. A couple of days ago, however, I had a personal visit from one of the local estate agents telling me that it had come to his knowledge that someone had entered the property, as a light had been seen burning there on some evenings.
‘I am most unhappy about this, and I would like the place checked out. I don’t want it entered at the moment, but I would like someone to take a look at it during the evenings. If I can commission you to undertake this task, we can discuss later what should be the next step.
‘Meanwhile, I will continue with my cogitation on what I should do – whether to have it renovated, converted into flats, or sell it and, if I sell it, what condition do I want it to be sold in. I have a lot to consider. I think that when we have worked out whether someone has trespassed on the property, we should proceed to get the keys from my great-aunt’s solicitor as he is still in possession of them, then I should like you to accompany me on a tour of inspection.’
‘Why not your solicitor or an estate agent?’ asked Garden, thinking that her request was most unusual.
‘Because both of them would have something to gain from my decision, and I realise that you will have nothing to get out of it, except for your normal fee. You will give me a more impartial opinion than either of those gentlemen.’
‘That is very perceptive of you, and I think it is a well-made decision.’
‘It is also the reason that I am not seeking an opinion from any of my friends and acquaintances, as they might harbour thoughts of benefitting from its sale or the proceeds when I eventually die.’
Garden didn’t know quite how to respond to this overt expression of mortality, and merely smiled at her again, then a question suddenly struck him. ‘Do you think you could go home and make a written record of who called or contacted you about the house, and anything that you remember them saying about it?’
‘I can certainly do that. I may be old in years, but my memory is as sharp as ever. Perhaps when you have seen and considered that, we can work out a date from which you will keep an eye on the place for me.’
‘Let me just make a note of your contact details, and take down the address of the property in question for our records. I shall await your next visit with eager anticipation.’ He wasn’t laying it down a bit thick, was he? But there was something about this old woman that made him feel almost like a Victorian gentleman coming to the aid of a maiden in distress – and, from her title, she was certainly still a maiden.
‘I have in my handbag a photograph of the house as it used to be when I was a child. I turned it out of my mother’s things, for I was fairly certain that such a likeness existed.’ Miss Everton had no need to scuffle and fumble in her handbag to locate the photograph. As was to be expected from such a precise lady, it was tucked inside a little internal pocket of the receptacle, and she handed the small black and white image across the desk to him.
He took it and glanced at it, before staring a little harder. ‘It’s a fair-sized property. It must be worth quite a tidy sum: even if it’s just knocked down for redevelopment, the land must be valuable.’
‘That’s exactly what I thought, and this little old lady’s not for diddling, Mr Garden.’ Miss Everton was evidently nobody’s fool. ‘I shall go away now, check my diary, for I keep a record of all calls and communications should I have a sudden attack of memory loss – one never knows – and bring you in the written statement as soon as it’s ready. Then, we could discuss terms and conditions.’ Very business-like.
‘Thank you very much for coming in to consult with me today, Miss Everton. I shall look forward to your next visit in the near future.’
‘Thank you very much, young man, for your time and, dare I say, your old-fashioned courtesy. Both have been very much appreciated.’
Miss Everton positively swept from the office, her head held high, her stature regal. She had set wheels in motion which would sort out the unsettling mystery that had suddenly appeared in her life, and make her decision about what to do with the property in the relative peace and quiet that would follow this resolution.
Shortly after her departure, Shirley returned from the quite short break she had taken for lunch, and Garden went back into the rear office to re-join Holmes, thoroughly excited about this new case he – he, Garden – had just taken on. The old man would be so jealous that it was not he who had manned the desk in their receptionist’s absence.
The piper had also taken another break – playing must be quite exhausting work – when Shirley left the office, and they could hear him now, resuming with a reel. As Garden got behind his desk, he couldn’t decide whether his brainwave about using a piper to bring custom, or at least curiosity, to their door had left him fond of the pipes, or whether he would be glad never to hear them again. They had certainly carved a place in his memory for the launch of this business venture, and today would live in his mind forever.
‘Oh God! Not another surveillance case. We’re going to need clones if we carry on like this,’ moaned Holmes, his head in his hands.
‘Don’t worry about it. I’m sure we’ll get a quick result on both of the other cases we have, and this one won’t even start properly until after Miss Everton has come in with her information about the various parties who have been bothering her about disposing of her inheritance,’ Garden assured him.
‘We’ll manage. After all, we don’t need to start at the allotment until Monday night, and we can be on guard outside Lesley Markham’s house first thing in the morning. I’ll go over there and you can open up here,
if you like. I don’t mind an early start. Then you can take the early stint at the allotment, and I’ll relieve you at half past two so that you can, at least, get a few hours’ uninterrupted sleep.’
At this selfless suggestion, Holmes’ good humour was restored. ‘John H., you’re an absolute brick. This is going marvellously well, but I can see how easy it would be to get swamped with work.’
‘I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that we could be facing a famine or feast situation, where we get snowed under, only to find ourselves with nothing to do for a while. But at least that will give us a chance to keep the files up to date and in order.’
But Holmes wasn’t listening. He had heard the wail of the pipes in a sudden crescendo – he would have thought of it as the skirl, first thing this morning, but by mid-afternoon, it had definitely degenerated in his opinion into a caterwaul – and the bell that announced that someone had entered the outer office from the street rang out. ‘More business, my boy; more business, by the sounds of it,’ he said, smiling and rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
It proved, however, to be a reporter from the local paper, come to interview them for the business section of the newspaper, along with a photographer to take a shot of the outside, and the two men in their office.
‘So, you’ve already solved two cases, and this is only your opening day,’ said David Remnant, chief (and only) reporter for the Hamsley Black Cross Echo, usually just known as The Echo.
‘Pretty slick, isn’t it?’ asked Holmes with what he considered the appropriate pride.
‘And there are just the three of you working here?’
Holmes gave a grin of triumph, and announced that they did have their secret weapon, a deep undercover agent, but Garden feigned a coughing fit, then, when Holmes came over to pat him on the back, hissed in his ear, ‘Don’t blow Joanne’s cover before she’s even had the chance to frock up.’
‘Now, can you tell the Echo’s readers about your fourth member of staff.’ Remnant was nothing if not persistent.
‘Can’t do that, old boy,’ Holmes replied, now that he had been put on his guard.
‘What use is a secret weapon that everyone knows about,’ commented Garden, filled with relief that Holmes hadn’t, like Mr Toad before him, let boastfulness get in the way of practicality. He also didn’t want it broadcast that he was a cross-dresser. That was an intimate secret known by only the three of them in the office, and that was how he would like it to stay. Joanne had to be kept well under wraps if she was to do any good in this chancy business venture.
As the reporter left, Holmes blushed an unlovely red in his embarrassment at almost outing Garden. ‘I’m so sorry, old chap. I just didn’t think. I was so damned pleased about this wonderful start we’ve had that I suppose I just wanted to show off.’
‘And just how long have you lived at Toad Hall, Mr Toad?’ asked Garden, sarcastically. ‘Just remember that wartime saying, “Be like Dad. Keep Mum”, and we’ll be all right. And remember that walls still have ears, and that loose lips might not sink ships any more, but they can sink businesses like ours.’
‘I’m not that old,’ Holmes blustered in reply.
‘Neither am I, but the old sayings make a lot of sense,’ returned Garden.
Changing the subject completely, Holmes asked, ‘What did you do about payment from those two old biddies that came in this morning?’
‘I tried telling them that it was on the house, as a first day only offer, but neither of them would have any of it, and they both said that they would put a tenner in the post which we could either treat as payment, or just have a drink on them. They were just so grateful to get back their pets that they wanted to say thank you in some way.’
‘Good man. Open a new accounts book and enter the two sums of ten pounds, “in return for locating missing animals”. We’re up and off, John H! We’re actually in business.’
‘May I suggest that you open an accounts book while I create a computer file to record the same, then we have a back-up in the book, should we be unfortunate enough to be infected by a virus? I’ve already typed up the notes of how the animals were located and raised paper files. If you would be so good as to print them out, I have paper files ready and waiting to take the notes.’
‘Umm … not sure how to do that.’ Holmes was a real technophobe.
‘Then I’ll wait until we’ve finished this first task, and we can go to the printer together so that I can show you.’
‘Shouldn’t stuff like that be Shirley’s job?’ asked Holmes, with a note of hope in his voice.
‘It will be, but you need to know how to do it should you be on your own in the offices, and need stuff printed out. OK?’
‘OK,’ agreed Holmes, whose face told a totally different story.
They had no more new clients that first afternoon but two solved and three more on the go wasn’t bad for a first day. In recognition of this, at closing time, Holmes suggested that they went for a drink together to celebrate this flying start.
‘Actually, do you mind if I don’t,’ asked Garden ‘only I’ve got to wash Joanne’s hair tonight and there are so many versions it will take me ages to get them all dried and styled. ‘Oh, OK,’ said Holmes, a little nonplussed, ‘would you mind awfully if I asked your mother to accompany me? I had envisaged it as the three of us, but I don’t see why she and I should miss out on a little celebration drink just because you’re busy.’
How could Garden refuse, when it had been put so nicely, and if it meant that he wouldn’t have to go out for a noggin or two with his mother then he wasn’t bothered at all. He still found it difficult to think of her as an ally rather than an enemy, and he trotted off upstairs – leaving Holmes to lock up – to his little flat, now so snug and cosy and, most importantly, just his.
Meanwhile, Holmes and Shirley set off and walked down the road to the Fox and Hounds. Holmes had decided against the tiny Coach and Horses next door to their offices as too crowded, and he had noted, on previous short visits, that the clientele were just ‘not his sort’ – not that he was a snob, you understand, merely a bit choosy about with whom he spent his leisure time.
After the incidents that had brought him and Garden together at the Black Swan Hotel, he really didn’t fancy going there, either; not just yet. No doubt he’d grow out of his antipathy towards it over time but, for now, he felt he’d rather avoid its memory-filled ambience.
As they walked together, he lit his pipe, having asked Shirley’s permission first, and was delighted to be informed that she liked the smell of a pipe. Apparently her father had always smoked one, so she associated the aroma with happy memories. Marvellous, thought Holmes, puffing contentedly away, only to have to knock the bowl out on the wall of the pub before they entered, such delights as a quiet smoke no longer being on the menu, as it were, in today’s public houses.
He ordered a gin and tonic and a pint of best bitter at the bar, leaving Shirley to choose a table, and when he joined her again, he was in a really benevolent mood. Nothing could be finer than being interviewed by the local paper – memo to self, contact local newspapers in Farlington Market – solving a couple of cases, then going out for a drink with an attractive woman. Just for a moment, he was glad Garden hadn’t wanted to join them. This felt very daring, out with a woman in a public house, and he considered himself, to coin an innocent old phrase, quite the gay dog.
When he got back to his decidedly Edwardian apartment that night – his rooms, as he liked to refer to them, in honour of his favourite fictional detective – Colin the cat found his owner (slave!) in a very jolly mood, and benefitted in the best way, by being served an extra-large portion of his favourite food, and being played with, with his favourite toy, a tattered old clockwork mouse that he had chewed nearly into extinction.
Chapter Three
At six o’clock Monday morning, Garden became aware of a furious intermittent buzzing sound and a flashing light. Dragged unwillingly from a dream in which
he was being awarded a special medal for bravery, he suddenly became consciously aware that this was the alarm clock that his mother had given him years ago, when he found it particularly difficult to get up for work, a first symptom of his disillusionment with office life. He had retired it after only a week, as it was a ferocious and startling wake-up call, but that he had sensibly re-instated for mornings when he would have to get up extra early for his work as a detective.
His befuddled mind soon grasped the fact that he was on surveillance that morning, watching Mrs Markham’s house to discover who had been borrowing her car without permission, then making every effort to cover up their tracks. A quick icy blast followed by a stinging hot ten minutes under the shower soon brought his senses into line, and he dressed carefully in the few dull office clothes he had retained for just this sort of situation, congratulating himself on his foresight.
Sometimes it was important to look nondescript, something he had abandoned when he had sloughed off his skin as an office worker in an insurance company. Now he dressed in brightly coloured clothes and patterns, and had felt like a caterpillar that had metamorphosed inside its cocoon and emerged as a beautiful butterfly. Well, today he was back in moth’s clothing, but it would do him a good turn. Who would ignore someone trying to watch them surreptitiously if they were wearing red trousers, a turquoise shirt, yellow tie, and green jacket?
Wearing his old uniform of grey suit and white shirt, he set off for the target property feeling determined to succeed, if a little tired. As usual, when one plans to go to sleep early, one’s mind is plagued with interesting and diverting thoughts, and last night had been no different. His brain had constantly thrown up scenes that might occur in the course of his new career, and he had not managed to derail this interesting train of thoughts until one-thirty, or thereabouts.
Here he was, however, off on his first surveillance job in plain clothes, and he imagined himself as an agent deep undercover on a dangerous mission that would save the world, and gain him rewards and gratitude from the British government. Men are much better at this sort of thing than women in that they are all frustrated heroes.
The Bookcase of Sherman Holmes: A Holmes and Garden Anthology Page 3
