The Claresby Collection: Twelve Mysteries

by Daphne Coleridge

  “Yes, but how? You gained the impression he came from a very modest background and he was not successful in his career – certainly not successful enough to buy and run a place like this as well as having his own home.”

  “Well, that’s the mystery, isn’t it? I suppose we can assume that he created the impression that the place was hers in case anyone inquired how he came by the money. No one knew anything about her, so they just accepted her as another independent lady come to live in Claresby.”

  “But if he bought the property, someone must have known: the estate agent, the solicitor? And his name was on the deeds clear as day.”

  “True, but nobody cared and nobody looked, it was all just taken at face value, right up to the point where everyone thought she had bequeathed him the place, although there was probably no will at all as everything she had was his anyway.”

  “So the only remaining question is how, in 1979 when the house was bought by Gordon, did he have the eighty or ninety thousand pounds it would have cost him then?”

  “Exactly. And why did he want me to use my “investigatory skills” to find the truth, after he had so successfully covered it up?”

  “Well, I’ll take a look about the place, but I don’t know what I’m looking for,” said Laura, pushing her long auburn hair behind her ears as if to prepare herself for the search.

  “We’ll know when we find it, I guess,” replied Rupert.

  Again the search only went to prove the paucity of evidence available. Other than the handful of popular novels, it seemed that the only other form of entertainment available would have been provided by the television. There was also a box, rather like a toolbox, full of painting articles which backed up Annie Hart’s reference to Gordon having been fond of art. Rupert looked through the collection for a second time. There were a number of sable brushes suitable for watercolour, a little case containing half pans of watercolours and a few tubes in addition. There were also some tubes of acrylic paints and some bristle brushes and an artist’s knife and another tool for scratching out details. Then there were some bottles of ink and a collection of pens with fine nibs such as Gordon might have used to draw the little cameo which Rupert had seen at Annie’s house. There were a couple of cameos of similar design which appeared to depict Janice displayed on the wall above a bookshelf, although most of the pictures in the house seemed to be shop-bought prints rather than originals. Rupert had also come across a couple of sketch books containing meticulous drawings of commonplace objects carefully initialled by Gordon and one book of watercolour sketches.

  Laura returned from her own tour of the house as Rupert packed the art materials back into their box.

  “I’ve discovered where Janice’s interest lay, anyway,” she said. “She obviously loved shoes and clothes and has some quite lovely things. Lots of makeup still in the dressing-table too – it’s a wonder Gordon kept all that stuff. What did you find?”

  “Nothing: just looked through Gordon’s paint box again.”

  “There were a couple of lovely engravings in the bedroom,” said Laura. “Nudes; very elegantly done.”

  “Show me!” demanded Rupert, suddenly interested. He followed Laura upstairs and into the main bedroom. The largest pictures in the room were matching prints of pink floral displays. To one side of the bed, however, were two beautiful black and white engravings which Rupert had previously overlooked. Examination proved Laura to be correct: they were exquisite pieces of work.

  “Do you think Gordon did those?” asked Laura. “They are lovely – modelled by Janice, perhaps?”

  “They have his initials on them so, yes, Gordon’s work. And haven’t I just been an idiot and missed the obvious!” exclaimed Rupert

  “What’s obvious?” asked Laura.

  “Gordon’s talent for meticulous detail and painstaking work. These are engravings – you do know how they are made, don’t you?”

  “Of course. The engraver uses a sharp tool to work into a copper plate and then that is used to print the picture – at least, that’s how I’ve seen it done.”

  “And that’s not so dissimilar to how banknotes are made. Which reminds me...” Rupert galloped down the stairs, ungainly limbs flailing in all directions. Laura, following at a more moderate pace, caught up with him as he tipped the contents of the art box unceremoniously on the floor and started to scrabble though the resulting heap. “Look!” he exclaimed triumphantly.

  Laura looked. He was holding a sharp tool with a wooden knob for a handle.

  “This is a burin or a graver – a tool for engraving. Of course he must have had more, but he obviously disposed of them along with his finished plates. He must have been extraordinarily good, because no one ever spotted his forgeries. And he must have been putting something like fifty pounds worth a day into the system over a ten year period to buy the house for Janice.”

  “He was a cashier – so you think he was switching the notes with genuine ones?”

  “Maybe, but he didn’t really need to. He could simply have had an account with another bank which didn’t know him and deposited the money on a weekly basis.”

  “Wouldn’t they have thought it odd that all the notes were obviously crisp and new?”

  “Perhaps. You may be right; he’d switch a few at his own branch to get a variety of ages and serial numbers.”

  “He was still taking quite a chance. Suppose someone had spotted that they were forgeries or seen him making the swap?”

  “Some men like the thrill of a risk. Presumably he got a kick out of the fact that quiet, dull, overlooked Gordon was getting one up over all of them!”

  “Is that why you think he did it? Or did he just want a way to provide a love nest for the girl of his dreams?”

  “We’ll never know,” admitted Rupert. “He certainly doesn’t seem to have wanted the money for himself, because he left a heap of it unspent. He also lived quite modestly, even after he moved here. And then there is the fact that he wanted me to find out what he had been doing and tell the world.”

  “Yes, that is odd,” admitted Laura, sitting down on one of the settees. “Having so brilliantly covered up his tracks, why ask you to work out what he had done?”

  Rupert sat next to his wife his broad, ugly face expressing puzzlement for a moment whilst he thought,

  “I can only assume that what he really wanted was to prove how much cleverer he was than all the people at the bank. At first it must have been sufficient for him just to know that his forged notes were so perfect that no one ever noticed. Then he fulfilled his dream of winning the woman he wanted. Once she died, it must have been a more hollow victory as he lived a lonely life with a lot of money that meant nothing to him. I think in the end he just wanted to give the likes of Gilbert Howe the surprise of their life – he had been pulling off a fraud under his nose for all those years!”

  “What will you do?” asked Laura.

  “Well, I must admit I’m curious to see if the bank will accept some of the notes as genuine – and I suspect they will. Having said that, now that I believe the money to be forged, I can’t in all conscience spend it. I’ll tell the story to Veronica; perhaps all the proceeds can go to charity.”

  “What, give up the house?” asked Laura in mild surprise. “I got the impression you quite liked having a place of your own.”

  A very faint blush touched Rupert’s cheeks, as his wife was very close to the truth. “In some ways I did,” he admitted, “but at the same time I never felt comfortable with the whole deal and the house gives me the creeps.”

  Laura nodded understandingly.

  “Also, Gordon’s request was for me to make his story public, and I don’t know that I will. The idea of his almost bragging about the deception from the grave is a little distasteful. And, as ever, I am only making deductions: it would be a whole different business to go back and prove that Gordon had pulled off a prolonged fraud, dumping tens of thousands of pounds worth of forged notes into the system.” />
  “So Gilbert Howe will never know?”

  “There is a possibility that I will buy him another pub lunch and run the theory past him,” said Rupert, the hint of a wicked gleam in his eye.”

  The two of them tidied up the collection of paints and brushes that Rupert had spilled and carefully locked up the house, ready to pick up their daughter and return to the homely tranquillity of their own Claresby Manor.

  The Twelve Days of Christmas Mystery

  It was Laura Latimer, Lady of the Manor, who made her way down the draughty corridor to open the ancient double doors to her guests. She was greeted by the smiling face of Keith Lowe, the village doctor, and his wife of a few months, Veronica.

  “Merry Christmas!” exclaimed Veronica. “We’ve even brought you a seasonal flurry of snow.”

  Laura squinted out into the darkness and saw that where the warm light from the mullioned windows of Claresby Manor fell on the ground outside it twinkled on a thin frosting of white. “You’d better come in. I see you came bearing gifts too. What is that you have, Keith? It looks like a small tree.”

  “A pear tree, if I am not mistaken,” said Keith. “Complete with partridge. And I didn’t bring it; I found it on the doorstep. At first I thought it was a decoration, but there is a gift label on it.”

  Laura raised an eyebrow at the thing, but ushered the couple briskly to the warmth of the Great Hall which boasted a blazing fire of apple wood and festive decorations of holly and mistletoe. Rupert, Laura’s husband, rose from his chair, a flush on his benign but ugly face.

  “I’ve been basting the turkey,” he said. “Everything is just about ready. How was your day, Veronica?” He bent almost double to place a kiss on her face, not failing to notice how striking she looked in a scarlet velvet dress which complemented her dark hair and green eyes.

  “Just about holding up,” she replied. “Late service last night, early service today – and I noticed you weren’t in the Family Service this morning to hear my Christmas address!”

  “I always enjoy the carols on Christmas Eve,” replied Laura smoothly. “And Florence enjoyed the crib.”

  “Where is my little goddaughter?” inquired Veronica.

  “Taking a much needed nap,” said Laura. “She’s had enough food, presents and excitement for one day; although I don’t doubt that she will wake up in time to eat Christmas dinner with us.”

  “I’m not used to waiting until the evening,” complained Keith mildly. “I didn’t realise the perils of being married to a vicar. I’ve sat through three services in the last twenty-four hours and the sides of my stomach are slapping together, I’m so hungry!”

  “We had some smoked salmon for lunch,” added Veronica, “but I must say there is a good smell wafting in from your kitchen. Anyway, Keith is on call, and there are a couple of nasty cases of flu in the village, whereas I am very much off-duty now.”

  “In that case, let me pour you a sherry,” said Laura. “And I’m sure Keith can have a small one.”

  They were soon all seated in the big oak chairs which were set about the fireplace. Keith lifted his eyes to appreciate the view in the lofty Great Hall with its oak panelling, ornate plasterwork ceiling and shadowy musicians’ gallery. He was just contemplating the grand scale of everything, when he fixed upon a very small, artificial Christmas tree placed in a far corner. It somehow seemed anticlimactic given the context.

  “I thought you were going to have a noble Norwegian spruce?” Keith said to Rupert. “Did you change your mind?”

  Laura and Rupert exchanged slightly humorous glances.

  “Well, thereby hangs a tale,” said Laura. “Rupert did indeed specially order a tree – the sort of thing the Norwegians donate for use in Trafalgar Square every year – about sixty-foot tall!”

  “Laura is exaggerating,” said Rupert. “It wasn’t more than about twenty-foot tall – perfectly reasonable for the Great Hall.”

  “Where is it then?” asked Veronica.

  “I decided to put it up in the front drive instead.”

  “But only after a struggle to manoeuvre it around in here and the deposit of about a billion pine needles!”

  “I didn’t see it out the front. Are there lights on it?” asked Keith.

  “Well, it’s not actually up yet: I’m thinking it should be ready by New Year,” admitted Rupert; and they all laughed.

  “But what were you saying about a pear tree?” continued Laura, looking about to where Keith had placed a bag of Christmas gifts and what looked like a large potted plant with a brightly coloured soft toy wedged in it.

  “The gifts are from us, but the tree was on the doorstep,” Keith reminded her.

  Laura stood up and went over to examine the object. “It looks a bit sickly,” she commented.

  “Pear trees are deciduous,” responded Keith.

  Laura removed the stuffed bird from the branches absentmindedly and said, “Oh, well I’ll put it in the orangery and see if it thrives. I’ll take it there now whilst I go to see if Florence is awake.”

  When Laura returned, a still sleepy Florence snuggled into her arms, the others were discussing the gift and its possible origins.

  “The label just says Merry Christmas,” observed Rupert. “I suppose the fact that it was left by our door indicates that it is meant for us – but there’s no way of knowing who left it. I do hope it is not someone with a sense of the dramatic who is going to leave something on each of the twelve days of Christmas in accordance with the carol.”

  “The five gold rings would be acceptable,” commented Veronica.

  “Yes, but the eleven pipers piping could be annoying,” replied Rupert. “Not to mention all the doves, geese, swans and calling birds!”

  “Expensive too,” added Keith. “I don’t suppose eight maids to do the milking would come cheap!”

  “Arguably it would be more than eight,” said Laura, who had a quick head for mathematics. “In the traditional version of the carol the gifts are repeated every day up until the twelfth, so we can expect twelve partridges and…” she paused to calculate. “…forty maids-a-milking!”

  “And forty gold rings,” added Rupert, not to be outdone by his wife. By this time Florence had found the toy partridge and adopted it. With the perversity of a two year old child who was used to her own way, she then refused to be parted from it despite the enticement of all the other gifts she received.

  Soon the dinner was served on the old oak table set with goblets of silver, which flashed in the candle light as they drank, and ivory handled cutlery. This was followed by a homemade plum pudding, and Rupert doused it in brandy so that it flamed with a blue light and they all clapped. By the time they finished and presents had been opened and examined, Florence was saucer-eyed with tiredness and dozed on her father’s lap as he sat by the fire with Keith and Veronica whilst Laura played some carols on the piano. It was well after midnight before the two guests departed for a crisp, cold walk back to the vicarage, and Rupert and Laura retired to the four-poster bed in the fire-lit scarlet bedroom.

  On Boxing Day morning, Laura was making porridge when Rupert came into the kitchen.

  “Another inch of snow fell in the night,” Rupert commented, “but the roads are still passable – not that we are planning to go anywhere today. Oh, and another gift on the doorstep.”

  “Gift? What gift?” asked Laura vaguely as she stood on tiptoe trying ineffectively to reach a pot of honey on one of the high shelves which lined the wall of the medieval stone-built room.

  “A second day of Christmas gift, unless I am very much mistaken,” responded Rupert as he made use of his lanky six-foot frame to reach the honey.

  A slight frown creased the delicate brow of Laura’s pretty, oval face: “Two turtle doves?”

  “Actually two dead doves,” admitted Rupert. “But I think that the symbolism is there.”

  “That’s rather unpleasant,” said Laura. “What did you do with them?”

  “Dispo
sed of them in a sanitary manner,” replied Rupert. “And, for the record, there were two sets of footprints in the snow – one coming and one going. No snow had fallen on top of the prints. I think it stopped snowing at about five this morning and it’s only seven now – so our Father Christmas made an early start.”

  “Well, late really – since Christmas Eve has come and gone,” corrected Laura. “But why would anyone bother? You would think that on the day after Christmas everyone would be happily ensconced in a warm house with their family.”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Rupert. “The only other light I can shed on the matter is that the gift-giver had large boots on – probably a size ten broad-fitting.”