by Rhys Bowen
“Ah, well, they wouldn’t be, would they?” the butcher said, giving me a knowing look. “Fire last night at the exchange. Didn’t you folks hear about it? Terrible it were. Seems there was something wrong with the wiring and one of the poor telephone operators plugged in her headphones and she were electrocuted right away. Then the whole thing caught on fire. Took the fire brigade hours to put it out. Such a terrible shame so near to Christmas.”
“So the girl was killed?” I asked, swallowing back my rising fear.
He nodded. “Not exactly a girl anymore. Poor old Gladys Tripp. She’s been operator at the local exchange for years. Bit of a nosy parker if you ask me, always listening in on people’s calls, but a good enough soul. Didn’t deserve to die like that.”
“Did she live out toward Tiddleton-under-Lovey?” I asked.
“No, right here in town. Born and bred here. She and I went to primary school together.”
I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I came out and walked down the high street, no longer noticing the lively Christmas-card scene. The fourth death. Again it could have been a horrible accident—wiring that had been badly done. Electric wires too close to telephone wires. I didn’t exactly know how telephones worked, but I didn’t think that kind of accident would happen too often. And the telephone operator who had been killed was the type who loved to listen in, to gossip. Had she overheard something she shouldn’t? At least I couldn’t tie her to the Lovey Curse when she had always lived in a town ten miles away.
There was nothing I could do to help and I couldn’t see any way that her death was related to the others, unless a madman in the area was randomly targeting people to kill in different ways. Then I remembered there was one connection: I had heard her name before. Inspector Newcombe had mentioned that Gladys Tripp was the quick-thinking operator who had been sharp enough to alert the police after she had received the emergency call about Miss Effie. A link between two deaths at last, but a tenuous one. I toyed with it as I walked down the high street, being buffeted by round ladies with shopping baskets. By the end of the street I was none the wiser and tried to turn my mind back to the job in hand—finding Christmas presents in a hurry. I looked in dress shops, shoe shops, newsagents, even a haberdashery, and found nothing that looked nice but cost little. I paused to look in the bow window of a small jeweler and saw some lovely pieces of antique jewelry that made me sigh with longing. There was some high-quality stuff here. I wondered how many people in a small Devon town had the sort of money to patronize a place like this. I was about to walk on when a small display at the bottom of the window caught my eye.
Lucky Devon Pixies, said the sign.
I’m a lucky Devon pixie, from the legend old and true,
Kiss me once and turn me twice and I’ll bring luck to you.
The pixies were silver charms in pretty little boxes with the verse on the lid, obviously put there to attract tourists and bring people into the shop. I decided that Granddad could use some luck and that maybe my mother might be charmed by the pixie too. I was about to buy one for each of them when, on impulse, I took an extra one for Darcy, if and when I had a chance to see him again. If anyone needed luck it was he, since he was as impoverished as I and was always popping off to dangerous places.
The man who served me was an elderly Jewish man, presumably Mr. Klein, since the shop was called Klein’s Jewelers. He treated me with great deference even though I was buying such humble items.
“I’ve just acquired some fine pieces from Paris if you’d care to look, miss,” he said as he wrapped up the boxes for me.
“I’m afraid that I don’t have the money for your lovely things,” I replied, giving him a regretful smile.
“I understand.” He handed me the boxes. “It’s not easy to survive these days for most of us, is it? It’s rare that I have a call for my better-quality items these days. My compliments of the season to you, miss.” Then he added astutely, “Or should I say ‘my lady’?”
I came out of the shop with three pixies then went into the sweet shop next door and bought a box of chocolates for Mrs. Huggins and Black Magic for Lady Hawse-Gorzley. I wasn’t going to attempt to buy anything for the invisible Mr. Coward.
Chapter 12
The next lot of guests arrived around two o’clock. They were Mr. and Mrs. Upthorpe and their daughter, Ethel—a large girl with a rather vacant moon face and Marcel-waved hair that somehow didn’t make her seem smarter. Both mother and daughter wore well-cut clothes that shouted Paris, but they still seemed ill at ease. The Wexlers and the Upthorpes regarded each other suspiciously. I showed Ethel up to her room.
“I’m glad to see there’s someone else ordinary here,” she said in a whisper. “I was afraid they’d all be lords and ladies. We’re plain folks really, except that my dad has made a lot of money. But that’s not enough, is it? They wanted to have me presented at court, but I got turned down. So now my mum has set her heart on my marrying into the aristocracy; that’s why she decided we had to come here. But I don’t actually see any young men around.”
“I gather that three of them are due later today,” I said. “The son of the house, his friend from Oxford and his cousin. I can’t tell you what they are like because I haven’t met them yet.”
“So what does your dad do?” she asked.
“He used to be Duke of Glen Garry and Rannoch,” I said. “He’s dead now.”
She put her hand up to her mouth. “Oh, crikey. I know who you are. I’ve seen your picture in the society pages. Oh, I do feel a fool.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “I am quite ordinary, really. I’m unattached with no job, so probably worse off than you are.”
“But you have royal relatives,” she pointed out.
“Well, yes, that’s true.”
“I should be curtsying and calling you ‘my lady.’”
“Not at a function like this. We’re all friends together this week. Why don’t you call me Georgie?”
She beamed at me. “You’re a good sport, Georgie. Just wait till I tell the girls at home about this.”
At least I’d made someone happy. We came downstairs to find that Colonel and Mrs. Rathbone had arrived. They looked exactly as I would have expected. He was portly with a small military mustache. They were both wearing country tweeds and she had a good-quality Cairngorms brooch in her lapel.
“Of course it can be dashed uncomfortable in Calcutta in summer,” he was saying. “I usually send the memsahib up to the hills, don’t I, old thing?”
“It’s lovely up in the hills. Tea plantations for miles and miles. Have you ever been to India?” Mrs. Rathbone looked at the Wexlers and the Upthorpes, only to be met with blank stares.
“I wouldn’t like a place like India at all,” Mrs. Wexler said with a shudder. “All that dirt and disease and cows running around the streets. No, sirree.”
“Damn fine place, India,” the colonel said. “You should see the maharajas’ palaces, and the tiger shoots, and the lake in Kashmir. Damn fine place.”
“Are you home on leave or back for good?” Lady Hawse-Gorzley asked.
“Long leave. We take one every five years. We used to have a house in this part of the world, but not any longer, unfortunately. Circumstances being what they are. Not at all sure that we’ll come back to England to settle when I leave the army. Life is just so pleasant for the memsahib in India, isn’t it, old girl?”
“Apart from the heat and the diseases, I must say life in India is very easy. Our servants are devoted. There are always parties and dances. No, I think I’d find it rather dull in England. I did when we were last home four years ago, especially as Reggie was gone most of the time—weren’t you, my dear?”
“Dashed inconvenient, I called it. Only here for a few months and I got summoned to—”
“Oh, I believe that must be the dowager countess now.” Lady Hawse-Gorzley sprang to her feet. “Please excuse me while I go to greet her. We’ll be serving tea shortly a
nd you’ll have a chance to try our Devonshire cream.”
She motioned to me to follow her as an ancient Rolls-Royce drew up and a very distinguished-looking lady was helped from the backseat. She was dressed in a long sable coat with matching fur hat. She held an ebony and silver cane and she lifted a lorgnette to survey the scene as another woman, a mousy little creature, scurried around to lead her to the front door.
Lady Hawse-Gorzley came forward to greet her, arms open.
“Countess Albury—what a delight. Welcome to Gorzley Hall and the compliments of the season to you.”
“How do you do,” the countess said stiffly, holding out a black-gloved hand before she could be touched.
“Have you been traveling long?”
“Not too bad. Drove from London yesterday. Spent the night at the Francis in Bath. One of my favorite cities. Always loved shopping for antiques on Milsom Street. Not anymore, of course. Nowhere to put them.”
“Come inside, do,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said.
“I fully intend to,” the countess sniffed. “Certainly don’t expect to stand out here in the cold all week.”
Lady Hawse-Gorzley gave an embarrassed little titter and tried to help the dowager countess up the steps. The latter fought her off. “I am not quite decrepit yet, you know. People have tried to put me away in mothballs, but I won’t let them.”
She made it up the steps unaided.
“I’m sure you’d like to go to your room to freshen up before you join our other guests for tea,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said.
“Freshen up? Is that some horrible transatlantic slang? If you mean for a rest, a wash, a change of clothes, then please say so. People always said what they meant in my day. There was no ‘freshening up’ and ‘needing to relax’ when I was a girl.” She glanced up the long sweep of stairs. “Given the condition of my right knee, I think I will forgo the ‘freshening up,’ if you would please show my companion where we are to sleep and have someone escort me to a salon or wherever one sits in the afternoon.”
“There’s a lovely big fire in the drawing room,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “Maybe Lady Georgiana will find you a comfortable chair.”
The lorgnette was turned onto me. “Georgiana? Not Bertie Rannoch’s daughter! Yes, I see the family likeness.” She put a hand on my arm for me to lead her. “I knew your grandmother and of course your terrifying great-grandmama, Queen Victoria. I nearly toppled over when I was presented to her, I was so nervous. Your grandmother was a shy woman, I remember—well, she would be, wouldn’t she, not daring to say a word in her mother’s presence. But we became quite close after she married Rannoch and I married Albury. I remember your father as a boy. Sweet-natured child. Always loved company and was always so lonely. It was a shame they couldn’t provide him with brothers and sisters. He would have thrived in a big household.”
“Like me,” I said. “My brother was so much older than me that it was like being an only child.”
“At least your grandmother produced a son and heir before she died,” the countess said. “I wasn’t able to do that, I’m ashamed to say. In consequence the estate has gone to a no-good nephew and I was unceremoniously expelled.” She paused, staring out at the snowy scene through the window. “Well, I was offered the gatehouse, but his lower-class wife made it quite clear that she wanted nothing to do with me. So I’m living in a small place in Kensington these days. Most of my friends either share my reduced circumstances or are dead. And I had a hankering for the old days—the grand old Christmases of my youth.”
I gave her an encouraging smile. “I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time.”
She leaned closer. “What about the other guests? Anyone I’d know?”
“I don’t think so,” I said tactfully. “But I think you’ll find them pleasant enough.”
“That’s the problem,” she said. “There aren’t many people I know left alive. Outstayed my welcome on this earth, I fear.”
“You are very welcome here anyway,” I said.
She patted my hand. “A kind girl, I can see. Your father was kind, wasn’t he?”
“I hardly knew him,” I said. “He spent most of his time on the Continent.”
“I remember now. There was some kind of scandal, wasn’t there? His wife ran off and left him. Not that that kind of thing causes a scandal anymore. People are always doing it. Look at the Prince of Wales. One hears he’s trailing around after some American woman who is married to someone else. I don’t know what the world is coming to.” She turned to look behind her. “Don’t just stand there, Humphreys. Go and find out where I’m to be sleeping and put my things away.” She looked back at me. “She’s a poor specimen. No backbone. But she’s loyal. Been with me five years now.”
We arrived in the drawing room and Lady Hawse-Gorzley made the introductions. The other guests were suitably overawed by the dowager countess, except for the Rathbones. When they found out she had been to India, they entered into a lively session of name-dropping and one-upmanship with the countess.
“And Simla? How did you like Simla? Our of our favorite places, but of course we adore Ooty. Did you ever meet the Maharaja of Udaipur? Such opulence.”
“Yes, he was comfortably off, shall one say, but nothing to compare with dear old Pixie of Hyderabad. And did you ever go to Government House when dear Tommy was viceroy? Now, those were parties.”
The countess was winning the name-dropping handily when tea was announced. Low tables were produced, and a trolley was wheeled in, laden with all the items I particularly adore: warm scones with cream and strawberry jam as well as smoked salmon sandwiches, éclairs, brandy snaps, mince pies, slices of rich fruitcake and a Victoria sponge. Everyone’s mood lightened enormously. The Wexlers and the Upthorpes exchanged boasts about how much they spent on their motorcars and their wives’ furs. The Rathbones and the countess agreed that the good old days had gone and would never return. Even Junior Wexler had to agree that the scones and cream were “swell” and ate an impressive number. I was enjoying my own scones when Lady Hawse-Gorzley suddenly looked up at the doorway. “Why, the boys are here and I didn’t see them arrive,” she said. She got to her feet. “Monty, darling. How lovely to see you. So you made it safely, then.”
“No, Mother, we’re lying dead in a ditch,” Monty said, giving a grin to his sister. “Of course we made it safely. We’re here, aren’t we?” He was tall and slim and looked absurdly young.
“And Badger. You are most welcome.” Lady Hawse-Gorzley held out her hand to a red-haired, freckled young man. “Come on in.”
“Thanks, Lady H-G,” the freckle-faced lad nicknamed Badger replied, giving her a hearty handshake. “Looking forward to it awfully. Frightfully decent of you to invite me.”
“May I introduce my son, Montague, and his friend Archibald, usually known as Badger,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said to the company. Then she looked around. “Didn’t your cousin come down with you on the train? He said he was going to.”
“He came in with us,” Monty said. “Ah, here he is now.”
And Darcy stepped into the room.
Chapter 13
He hadn’t seen me. Before he could cross the room Bunty rushed at him. “Cousin Darcy. How absolutely lovely to see you again. It’s been ages and ages. Haven’t I grown up a lot since you saw us last?”
“You certainly have,” Darcy said, accepting the hug and the kiss on his cheek. “And how are you, Aunt Camilla?”
“All the better now that you are here,” she said, beaming at him. “Lovely to see you again after so long, dear boy. I’m not sure where Oswald has disappeared to. Really, it’s so hard to make him be sociable. But here are our guests, all dying to meet you: Colonel and Mrs. Rathbone, recently home from India. Mr. and Mrs. Wexler, all the way from America, and their children. The Upthorpe family from Yorkshire, and may I present you to the dowager countess Albury. Countess, this is my nephew, the Honorable Darcy O’Mara.”
Darcy went over to her and kissed her ha
nd. She squinted at him through her lorgnette. “Kilhenny’s son? Yes, you have the look of him about you. I’ve no doubt you’re as big a rogue as he was as a young man.”
“Indubitably,” Darcy said and grinned.
“And this,” continued Lady Hawse-Gorzley, “is Lady Georgiana Rannoch.”
I had been about to eat a bite of scone, but had stood frozen with a mouthful unchewed. Now I tried to swallow it rapidly, which resulted in a fit of coughing.
It was hardly the traditional meeting of sweethearts. We didn’t rush across the room into each other’s arms. In fact, I read mixed emotions in Darcy’s astonished stare. “Good God, Georgie, what on earth are you doing here?” he said.
“Hello, Darcy,” I said, trying to recover my dignity from the coughing fit. “The same as you, apparently. Looking forward to a jolly good Christmas.”
“Ah—you two know each other. How splendid,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “But of course you would. You bright young things go to all the same parties in town, I’ve no doubt.”
“Shall I take Cousin Darcy up and show him his room?” Bunty asked, slipping her hand through his arm.
“You most certainly shall not,” her mother replied. “A young lady does not escort a young gentleman to a bedroom, Hortense, even if he is your cousin.”
“We’ll show Darcy his room later, Mother,” Monty said. “But at the moment we are all in dire need of refreshment and I notice scones and cream. Come on, Badger. Dig in, old chap.”
The two young men pulled over a sofa and attacked the scones. Darcy accepted a cup of tea, then came over and perched on the arm of my chair, which I found reassuring. Given his less than exuberant greeting when he saw me, I wasn’t sure how to treat him. I reminded myself that he hadn’t even contacted me properly when he arrived back in England. And a succession of wild thoughts were rushing through my head: that he might have been meeting a girl when my mother had spotted him in London at the Café Royal, and was embarrassed to find me here when he’d hoped to find her. Or, a second alternative, that Lady Hawse-Gorzley was no more his aunt than I was, and this was actually some kind of secret meeting of spies into which I had blundered by mistake. This one made more sense, since I suspected he secretly worked as some sort of spy. I gave him a polite little nod and waited for him to make the first move.
