A Quiet Life in the Country (The Lady Hardcastle Mysteries Book 1)

by T E Kinsey

  The terrace was in uproar. There were shouts of disbelief and of outrage, and Lady Hardcastle was bombarded with questions. Only three people remained entirely impassive: Mr Verma, his servant, and Captain Summers himself.

  When the hubbub had died down, it was once again Mr Verma who led the questioning, while Captain Summers remained silent under the extremely watchful gaze of Mr Verma’s mountainous servant.

  ‘One presumes you have an explanation for this blackguard’s actions, Lady Hardcastle,’ he said. ‘And how did you uncover his perfidy?’

  ‘I have both, Mr Verma,’ she said. ‘To be honest, I’m rather annoyed with myself for not thinking of it sooner, but Captain Summers actually gave us his motive the very first time we met him. He told us he intended to propose to his colonel’s daughter back in Bengal, but said that he needed to “impress” her. That should have set my mind racing at once as soon as I found out that the whole affair revolved around a gem which had been stolen from Nepal but which had passed through Bengal on its way to Europe. But I didn’t manage to put two and two together then, nor would I have if desperation hadn’t made me ask an old friend for information about one of the house guests. We had reached a dead end with our investigations and our main suspects were becoming less suspicious by the moment. And so I decided to contact my dear friend, Colonel Dawlish. Do you remember Dawlish, Captain? I believe you met in Calcutta early last year, just before he returned to England.’

  The captain said nothing.

  ‘He certainly remembers you. I got his telegram this afternoon and he has quite a bit to say about your relationship with Lavinia Isherwood.’

  At this the Captain looked up, his face scarlet with indignation. ‘How dare you!’

  ‘How dare I indeed,’ said Lady Hardcastle, calmly. ‘But let me tell you what I know – or surmise – and you can tell me whether it’s true. Lavinia is the eldest daughter of your regiment’s colonel, Sir Basil Isherwood. You have been besotted with her ever since she and her mother travelled to Calcutta to join the colonel two years ago. You pursued her relentlessly, but it seems her own affections were directed elsewhere, towards a dashing young subaltern. According to Colonel Dawlish, you bullied this young lad remorselessly until he requested a transfer to the North West Frontier, but even with your way clear, Lavinia still rejected you.’

  The captain was still fuming, but offered no dissent.

  ‘The story of the Emerald Eye was well known throughout northern India, and earlier this year rumours began to circulate that the Eye was once again on the move. The barracks was alive with chatter about the gem and many of the men, enlisted and officers alike, began talking wildly about recovering the Emerald Eye, and what they’d do with the handsome reward offered by the King of Nepal for its return. You dismissed all this as foolish nonsense until you overheard a remark made by Lavinia to one of her friends at dinner. She’s a silly, romantic girl of the sort that has read much but experienced all too little, and it seems she had become enchanted by the notion of the “cursed” gemstone. She said that she would surely marry the man who was brave and resourceful enough to recover it for her.’

  Still the captain said nothing, but his expression softened somewhat, presumably as he recalled the fair Lavinia.

  ‘Somehow – and perhaps you might one day explain how, since it seems to have eluded some of the most diligent and well-motivated investigators in the region – you managed to find out not only where the Eye was, but also where it was going. You arranged a leave of absence based on a fabricated family crisis and set off in pursuit, following the trail of the gem all the way to Paris where it was now in the hands of a shady antiquities broker named Praveer Sengupta. You witnessed a meeting in a Paris nightclub and guessed that the band leader that Sengupta was talking to was going to bring the gem into England. I confess I’m a little hazy on the next steps, but you ended up here at The Grange. I believe you were here entirely by chance, but when you found that the band you’d seen in Paris were playing here, you saw an opportunity perhaps to finally lay your hands on the Eye. It was by no means certain that they would have it with them, but what a stroke of luck if they did. You could steal the Eye and then return to Lavinia a hero. How am I doing so far, Captain?’

  ‘Pretty damn well,’ he said, coldly. ‘Some of the details are missing, but you’ve captured the essence of it. I never meant to kill Holloway. And if he’d not tried to play the bally hero, none of this would have happened.’

  ‘One might say, though,’ said Lady Hardcastle, ‘that it also wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t travelled halfway round the world on some romantic quest to impress a silly girl who cares nothing for you.’

  Suddenly the captain was on his feet, a revolver in his hand. ‘Have a care, my lady,’ he said, menacingly. ‘I’ve listened to altogether too much impertinence from you as it is. How dare you judge Lavinia! A woman like you who doesn’t know her place and imagines she can behave like this? You’re a disgrace to your sex, you vicious old harpy.’

  He advanced on her and I was powerless to help, trapped as I was between the inspector and the table. He took the gem from her outstretched hand and stared coldly into her unblinking eyes as he cocked the revolver. She held his gaze and the terrace held its breath.

  But then there was movement. Sudden, violent movement. I had entirely misjudged Mr Verma’s servant whom I had thought a clumsy, lumbering, muscle-bound lump. He moved with the silence and grace of a man a quarter his size and before Summers had even noticed him, much less had time to react, he had grasped the captain’s wrist, angling the pistol upwards and away from Lady Hardcastle as his other hand punched him forcefully in the back. Summers fell, the pistol fired, and the Man Mountain bent and retrieved the Emerald Eye from Summers’s left hand. He backed away from the fallen captain, holding the gem in one hand and, as we all now noticed, a dagger in the other, wet with blood.

  Lady Hardcastle knelt to try to assist the captain, but it was clear that he was dying.

  ‘Tell darling Lavinia that I loved her always,’ he whispered, but then the fight left him as he breathed his last, rattling breath.

  It was as though we had awakened from a trance and suddenly there was uproar once again. The inspector was struggling to reach the Man Mountain but everyone was on their feet and he couldn’t get round the table.

  Another shot rang out and Dora and Clarissa screamed in unison. We all turned to see Mr Verma brandishing a square-looking automatic pistol of his own.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ said Verma, loudly. ‘Take your seats, if you please.’

  Those that had seats meekly sat, while those of us that did not, stood stock still.

  Mr Verma ushered his servant behind him and began to back away from the table towards the steps leading down to the expansive back lawn.

  ‘I have my King’s gemstone, and your murderer is dead. Justice has been served.’

  ‘It has not, Mr Verma,’ said Inspector Sunderland forcefully. ‘Your servant is under arrest for the murder of Captain Summers and you are under arrest for threatening these people with a firearm.’

  ‘I can see at least two problems with your arrests, Inspector,’ said Verma, still backing away. ‘The first is that I’m still holding the firearm in question and if anyone makes any attempt to stop us, I shall make good on that threat and shoot them. The second is that, as emissary of His Majesty, the King of Nepal, I have diplomatic status. I’m sure you can imagine the sort of pressure which would be brought to bear at the highest levels if you attempt to bring charges against me or my servant.’

  The inspector sighed and shook his head, an almost comical gesture which I confess did make me smile a little.

  ‘I knew you’d see reason,’ said Verma. ‘You all seem like intelligent people, so I’m sure I don’t have to issue any more melodramatic warnings about the consequences of attempting to stop us. Sir Hector, Lady Farley-Stroud, thank you for your generous hospitality. Miss Clarissa, long life and happiness
to you and the charming Mr Woodfield. Lady Hardcastle, thank you for returning the gem to me, I knew you’d manage it.’ And with that, he set off towards the front of the house where his motorcar was parked on the drive.

  For a few moments no one seemed quite certain what to do until Lady Farley-Stroud spoke up. ‘Jenkins,’ she said, calmly. ‘Telephone Doctor Fitzsimmons and tell him there’s been another death. Inspector Sunderland?’

  ‘My lady?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll want to make one or two telephone calls of your own. Please use the instrument in Sir Hector’s study. Dewi and Bert, you can clean up out here as best you can, but don’t disturb the body. Dora, fetch fresh tea and bring it to the drawing room.’

  Her servants immediately went about their appointed tasks, glad, it seemed, for something to do.

  ‘The rest of us, I feel, are in need of a stiff drink. There’s brandy in the drawing room.’

  ‘I couldn’t do without my brandy, my dear,’ said Lady Farley-Stroud conspiratorially to Lady Hardcastle. ‘I keep some hidden away in here where Hector can’t find it.’

  She opened her large sewing box and rummaged around, eventually producing a bottle of very fine cognac which she proceeded to pour into the teacups as Dora filled them with tea.

  The inspector came into the room and beckoned Lady Hardcastle and me over to him.

  ‘I’ve got some boys coming up from Bristol to help dot the Ts and cross the whatnots, but I think that more or less wraps things up,’ he said.

  ‘Have you put out an alert for Mr Verma and his servant?’ asked Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘I have, but to be perfectly honest, my lady, I can’t help but think that Verma was right: there’s not a lot we could do even if we did manage to catch him.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘At least the murder was solved,’ I said.

  ‘Again, miss, if I were being properly honest, I’m not completely sure that we’d ever have got the poor chap for murder at all. A decent brief would talk that one down to manslaughter, I’ve no doubt. And if he played up the “romantic quest” angle, a sympathetic jury might even have gone for self defence. But the mystery has been solved, at least. I do hate loose ends. Thank you for that, ladies.’

  ‘It was entirely our pleasure, Inspector,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘I am slightly puzzled, though, my lady,’ said the inspector. ‘You say you got all that from a telegram from your friend Colonel…?’

  ‘Dawlish, Inspector. Yes. Or, more properly, no.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Well, I might have embellished a little. Indulged in a tiny bit of imaginative speculation.’

  ‘So what exactly did Dawlish say?’ he said with a grin.

  She produced the telegram from her jacket pocket and read it aloud. ‘“Remember Summers from Calcutta. Stop. Bit of a rum un. Stop. Rumours he loved the colonel’s daughter. Stop. Almost court-martialled for fighting with a subaltern who then transferred to NW Frontier. Stop. Will contact Isherwood for more if needed. Stop. Love George.”’

  The inspector laughed. ‘And from that meagre cloth you embroidered the whole tale?’

  ‘And from all the painstaking interviews you conducted, my dear Inspector,’ she said, laying a hand on his arm.

  He laughed again. ‘You’re very kind, my lady, but still…’

  ‘Oh pish and fiddlesticks, Inspector. He didn’t contradict me, and it does all fit with the facts that we know of.’

  ‘I suppose it does at that, my lady. And he’s not in a position to contradict anyone, now, so I expect that yours shall become the official explanation.’

  ‘Oh no, Inspector,’ she said, slightly horrified. ‘That will never do. I shall contact Colonel Isherwood for confirmation so that the official explanation is as true an account as we can make it. I can’t leave it like that.’

  ‘As you wish, my lady,’ he said. ‘But as far as Bristol CID is concerned, this one is over and done with. I’m afraid I have a lot to attend to, though, so I shall leave you to your tea. It’s been a pleasure working with you both. Till next time.’

  He shook us both warmly by the hand and went out to the corridor where I heard him say, ‘…at Chipping Bevington station? Thank you, Sergeant. Tell them to cuff her this time and get her down to Bristol.’

  Skins came over to us.

  ‘Thanks for that, Lady H. I know it was still all a bit of a mess, but at least we know now. And what a story. I met a bloke once up North. Milton, his name was, Milton Hayes. He writes poems and that. He’d love this one. I might write to him.’

  ‘Oh, I say,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘What fun.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘But thank you. It was awful not knowing who killed Nelse. He was a good lad.’

  ‘It sounds as though he was,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘What will you do now, though? With poor Mr Holloway gone, and Richman and Montgomery facing charges for theft, smuggling and who knows what else, there’s only you and Mr Dunn left.’

  ‘Don’t worry about us, Lady H,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘There’s always work for the likes of us. Best rhythm section in London, us. We’ll be all right.’

  ‘That’s reassuring,’ she said. ‘And your immediate plans?’

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose the Farley-Strouds will want us hanging about now the case is closed. Not sure, really. We could get a train back to London tonight, I suppose, but it’s a bit of a schlepp with just the two of us and all our clobber.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘That will never do. I have two spare bedrooms and you shall be my guests for the night. There’s certain to be someone in the village who will lend us a cart to get your instruments to the house.’

  ‘That’s very generous, Lady H. Very generous indeed. Thank you very much.’

  ‘It’s purely selfish, Mr M. I’ve become rather fond of your ragtime music and we could do with some proper musicians to accompany our poor efforts.’

  ‘You’re on, my lady, he said, cheerfully. ‘’Ere, Barty,’ he called. ‘Put that maid down and come over ’ere a mo.’

  Barty Dunn disentangled himself from the Dora’s flirtatious attentions and joined his friend, who explained their good fortune. Dunn, was as effusively grateful as his friend and they both left to get themselves packed.

  Skins had only taken a few steps when he turned back and said, ‘There is just one thing that never got resolved.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Lady Hardcastle.

  He turned to me. ‘Did you ever decide what I can call you?’

  I smiled. ‘You, Mr Skins, may call me Flo.’

  ‘Righto, Flo,’ he said, and hurried off to join his friend.

  ‘I suppose, my dear Flo,’ said Lady Hardcastle, ‘that we probably ought to get going, too. Leave the poor Farley-Strouds to try to get things back to normal.’

  And so we said our goodbyes and slipped away.

  Our evening with the two musicians had been an unqualified success. They had arrived with all their traps just as I was putting the finishing touches to dinner and they had joined us for what they both proclaimed was the best meal they had eaten for weeks.

  We had adjourned to the drawing room where we pushed the furniture to the walls so that Skins could set up his drums and we had the most enjoyably entertaining time. They proved themselves extremely versatile musicians and managed to turn their hands to almost every musical style that Lady Hardcastle threw at them. By the time we had finished, following a spiritedly syncopated version of Chopin’s Nocturne No. 2 which had left us all laughing with the joy and silliness of it all, Skins had assured us that if ever times were hard, we should get in touch with them. He knew a few clubs, he said, that would “love a bit of that”.

  We had managed to secure a carriage to take the boys and their instruments to the station at Chipping Bevington and they had left with our good wishes ringing in their ears and a few rounds of sandwiches in their pockets.

  And now we were back to normal. T
he mystery was solved, the culprit was dead, the Inspector had returned to Bristol and we… we were once again at something of a loose end.

  There was plenty for me to do, of course – we’d not been in the house for a few days and there were chores aplenty simply waiting for the attentions of a diligent maid – but it all seemed a bit mundane after the excitement of the past few days.

  ‘What we need, Flo dear,’ said Lady Hardcastle as I tidied up around her. ‘Is to take a holiday. We should get away for a few days, take the air.’

  ‘Is there not sufficient air here, my lady?’ I said.

  ‘There’s an abundance of air, and it’s as fresh and clean as one could wish. Apart from the dismaying smell of dung when one ventures too close to a farm. But I was thinking of the seaside, perhaps. Brighton? Or a nice spa. Harrogate? We haven’t been to Harrogate for simply ages.’

  ‘It sounds lovely, my lady. Will there be hotels with cooks and waiters and chamber maids?’

  ‘I should think so. Or we could rent a little cottage.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure that your idea of “taking a holiday” quite matches mine.’

  ‘Oh pish.’

  ‘And fiddlesticks, my lady. Yes, I know.’

  The doorbell rang.

  I returned with a telegram which she read with growing alarm.

  ‘Pack, Flo. Now. We need to get to London on the next train. Harry will meet us at Paddington.’ She scribbled a reply on the reply form and handed it to me with some change for the boy.

  When I came back she showed me the telegram.

  HONEST - MAN - ARRIVED - SOUTHAMPTON - YESTERDAY - STOP - SEEN - BOARDING - TRAIN - BRISTOL - THIS - MORNING - STOP - GET - OUT - STOP - WILL - MEET - YOU - PADDINGTON - STOP - HARRY

  We packed in a rush, stuffing a change of clothes and some toilet things into two Gladstone bags and were out of the door in less than twenty minutes. We hurried into the village and managed to catch Constable Hancock in the police station. Lady Hardcastle explained that we were going away for a few days and asked him to keep an eye on the house for her. She didn’t tell him where we were going, nor why, though she did say that a German man might arrive in the village looking for us. If he did, she said, it was imperative that the constable say nothing about our having left.