Belchester Box Set

by Andrea Frazer

  ‘Thank God for that,’ murmured Hugo under his breath, under the camouflage of nipping at his eye-wateringly alcoholic cup of tea.

  ‘What I couldn’t understand was, several times, seeing the major yammering away with them Jerries, out in the forest where no one could see them. I thought he was gathering information for the Resistance lads, so we could make more of a nuisance of ourselves, but he never said nothing about it afterwards, not even to me.

  ‘We must’ve been there about a month when this started, and, only a few days later, one of our young Frogs was shot as he left the restaurant. The first shot missed, and he made for the barn over the road, and took one in the shoulder there. He managed to get out and hared off down the road as if all the hounds of hell were after him, but Jerry got his aim together, and he put one through his head, that dropped him like a stone.

  ‘They got us out of there the next day, in case we drew unwanted attention, and passed us on to another group travelling north, to see if they could get us back to Blighty somehow; perhaps on a fishing boat, over the Channel.’

  ‘So, did you ask him what he was chatting so earnestly about with the enemy?’

  ‘I did, Mr Hugo. I waited until we were completely on our own, and I put it to him that I’d seen him talking to them, and he said he’d just been passing the time of day in German, to sort of keep his hand in with the language. A couple of days later, just when we were about to try to get back home, we heard through the unit we were now with, that the unit that had looked after us had been carrying out a raid on a railway line, trying to de-rail a Jerry train, when the Jerries appeared out of nowhere, and just fired until they were all dead. Ten men from the little village we were staying near were killed that night, and the Jerries went back there and shot all the males that were left: old men and teenagers, some of them; even kiddies.’

  ‘What did your major have to say about that?’ Hugo had half an idea he was on to something here, and ought to stick it out to the bitter end.

  ‘I thought he’d be devastated, like I was. They were people we’d got to know. In fact, if we’d stayed on, we would have been in that raiding party with all the rest of them. But, that was the funny thing: he didn’t seem to give a damn. Just said it was part of the price of warfare, and that we should just forget it and get on with what we were posted to do.’

  ‘I say! That was a bit cold of him, wasn’t it?’ asked Hugo.

  ‘Cold weren’t the word for it. We went our separate ways, though, having got back, and I didn’t see him again until near the end of the war. We met again in a convalescent home. We’d both got a Blighty shot, and it was the end of our service for that war. He’d taken a hit to the shoulder that had done a lot of damage to the bones, and I was left with a game leg.

  ‘We got talking, one day, and I suppose I was a little down, what with thinking what on earth I was going to do when the show was over. I mean, how much chance does a man with a game leg have against fit candidates, for a physical job? I reckoned I’d end up in the gutter, and that’s when he turned up trumps. He gave me his card and said to get in touch with him when I was de-mobbed, and he’d take me on as his gardener. And here I am, still working on the same garden I came back from the war to.’

  ‘Wonderful story, old man. Been most interesting talking to you. I’d better be off, though. I was only sent here to ask you about those cuttings,’ Hugo said, his head full of enough food for thought for a cranial banquet.

  ‘Tell her ladyship that, as soon as they’ve struck, I’ll bring them over and hand them over to Beauchamp. He’ll know what to do with them. Grand fellow! And give old Grundle’s regards to her ladyship. Fine figure of a woman, she is. If I was only a few years younger …’ The old man trailed off, a leering smile forming fleetingly on his lips.

  Hugo entangled himself with his coat and scarf in an effort to re-don them, and generally made himself ready for the return journey. Old Grundle had to give him a hand with his gloves, as he’d managed to get them on the wrong hands and then stood helplessly, wondering how on earth he could right the situation.

  With a final twist of the scarf round his neck, he headed, rather haphazardly, towards the tricycle, mounted it, started the engine, released the brake. And drove straight into the pile of manure that was quietly and warmly steaming in the cold, as it rotted at the end of the garden.

  When Lady Amanda opened the doors, slightly later in the afternoon, Hugo entered at a staggering run, turned a full three-hundred-and-sixty degree circle, staggered to his left, and ended up hugging the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, several feet of scarf draped in his wake, like the trail of a giant snail, and his hat down over his eyes at a very jaunty angle. ‘H’llo, Manda,’ he intoned, joyfully and slowly, taking great care with what enunciation he could muster.

  Still on the step, she found Grundle, his hat held respectfully in his hands. ‘I’m terribly sorry to bring Mr Hugo back like this, your ladyship, but he seemed to be having a bit of trouble with his old pins.’

  ‘But, how on earth did you get him back here? And where’s the tricycle?’ Although Lady Amanda cared very much about Hugo’s welfare, there was an expensive tricycle in this equation to consider as well. Hugo would, no doubt, be sober in the morning, but a new tricycle cost money.

  ‘Down by my greenhouse, your ladyship. I loaded him into the bucket of the digging machine and drove him here by the back route. My digger’s just across there, near the stables. I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘I am most pleased with your ingenuity, Grundle, and I shall tell Col. Henry so, when I see him.’

  ‘Thank you very much, your ladyship. I’ll be taking my leave of you then. Good day!’

  As Lady Amanda closed the door, she discovered that Beauchamp must have helped Hugo to a more comfortable position, and opened her mouth to locate him. ‘Hugo! HUGO! Where the devil are you?’

  A groan answered her from the direction of the library, and she turned and headed in that direction. She knew Grundle of old, and Hugo had probably fallen for the offer of a nice cup of tea. Nice cup of tea, be damned! It was nearly neat whisky, the way that old rascal served it.

  Well, he’d better be feeling tiptop by the witching hour. She had work planned for them that night, in the wee, small hours, and she didn’t want him blundering around giving away what they were up to.

  After a late and solitary luncheon, Lady Amanda decided to leave Hugo to sleep off his excesses, for he had, seemingly, dispatched himself to bed in the library, not only without any supper, but without several more meal stops along the day’s menu. As ‘it’ had happened in her residence, she thought she’d pay a courtesy call on Porky, to see how the old thing was doing. If, during that time, she had the opportunity to conspire with Enid, then so much the better. Before she left, she dropped a small brown bottle into her handbag, and smiled to herself. Some people didn’t need official search warrants.

  When Enid saw who was on the doorstep, her face became a mask of misery. ‘Oh, Lady Amanda, I don’t know how to break this to you,’ she began.

  ‘I know what you’re going to say, Enid, but I already know about the police search. Never fear, there’s bound to be more than one copy. No one puts all that effort into writing a book and then only keeps one copy of it. There’ll be at least one more copy, or an earlier version of it around. The original notes are still probably tucked away somewhere, too. How hard did they search?’

  ‘They were only here a few minutes. They found a manuscript on his computer and took that away with them, saying that the book would probably contain the motive for the captain’s murder, and would be stored and given in evidence in any subsequent trial. They also found a copy for proofing in paper and took that as well.’

  ‘How did poor old Porky take it?’ They were speaking in whispers, but poor old Porky was obviously aware of their conversation, and her voice called out to Enid plaintively, ‘Who’s that, Mrs Tweedie? I don’t want any visitors at the moment, not while I’
m feeling like this.’

  Before the lady of the house had time to draw breath, Lady Amanda was bustling into the drawing room, all smiles, pulling a pile of ladies’ magazines and a small box of chocolates from her capacious handbag, and asking after the welfare of the recent widow. ‘Poor, poor Porky,’ she crooned, sitting down beside the woman and asking, ‘How are you going to manage without Popeye?’

  ‘I don’t know how I shall manage,’ Lesley Barrington-Blyss replied. ‘Popeye did all the household accounts and managed all the bills and his own business affairs, and I haven’t the faintest idea where to start with all that paperwork, let alone arranging a funeral for him. It might have been I who had all the money, but I had nothing whatsoever to do with the handling of it, and now I’m all at sea. I’ve no idea how to go about managing my own affairs.’

  She spoke in a voice that gave the impression of husky grief, but Lady A noticed that her fingers were working on the cellophane round the chocolate box in an effort to get at the contents as she spoke, an independent action that said more about the way she really felt than any words could.

  ‘Let me help you with that, old girl,’ offered Lady Amanda, reaching forward, but Porky merely looked down into her lap with surprise. ‘I had no idea I was doing that!’ she stated. ‘It must be one of those automatic reactions that people speak of.’

  ‘I’ll just get them open for you and then I’ll go. You need everything from which you can derive comfort at a time like this, as well as a lot of time on your own to reflect on what has evidently caused an enormous upheaval in your life. There you go, my dear. I hope you enjoy them.’

  With that, she left the room and sought out Enid in the kitchen, who was forward thinking, and was already making a pot of tea. ‘Psst! Enid!’ she hissed, opening her bag once more, as Enid poured the amber cascade into three cups. ‘I’ve got something here for you, and I want you to do exactly as I tell you to do with them.’

  ‘What are you scrabbling about looking for?’ asked Enid, whispering again, in the conspiratorial way they had spoken in the hall.

  ‘Aha! There it is!’ said the older woman, and produced a small brown bottle from her bag, opened it, and placed two tiny white tablets in the palm of Enid’s hand. ‘Take these, crush them between two spoons, dissolve them in a little water, and then sneak them into anything in which she might not notice a slightly bitter aftertaste.’

  ‘Like what?’ Enid had only been there a few hours, and knew nothing of Mrs Barrington-Blyss’s daily habits.

  ‘She always has coffee after dinner, and she has it black and strong, with no sugar. Slip it into her coffee, and make sure you manage to get her upstairs as quickly as possible.’

  ‘What on earth are they?’

  ‘Sleeping tablets. And they work like magic. Don’t ask any more questions. Just make sure you get her to swallow them,’ ordered Lady Amanda.

  ‘Why? I expect the doctor’s left something for her anyway.’

  ‘Because, when Hugo and I get here about midnight, we’re going to turn this place upside down, looking for another copy of Popeye’s book. I don’t know what he’s put in it, but I can’t just see my friends socially ruined. I heard he had been boasting about absolute dynamite, and I don’t want it to blow up in the face of anyone I know.’

  ‘But we’re sure to get caught,’ Enid squeaked, starting to shake.

  ‘How? Even if she wakes up, she will be too dopy to remember anything in the morning, and if there’s anyone who can see lights on in the house, they’ll know there’s been a recent bereavement. That sort of thing sparks all sorts of out of character behaviour, such as roaming around the house at night.’

  ‘I don’t like this at all, lady Amanda,’ Enid opined, looking anxious.

  ‘I didn’t ask you to like it Enid, I asked you to do it. Those are two totally different things. Got it?’

  ‘Got it.’

  Back at Belchester Towers, Lady Amanda went straight to her desk, having made sure the doors to the library and her study were shut. Hugo was making a hell of a racket in there, mumbling to himself, snoring and even once breaking into song. She needed to gather her thoughts and make some notes. There was work she knew she would have to conduct on the computer, but she needed to see her thoughts in writing first, so that they would gel in a comprehensible way.

  After a moment of contemplation, she began to write. Same one-shouldered shrug. Then followed that with Head on one side when asking a question to which the expected answer is ‘no’. Here, she paused for a moment and mumbled, ‘But couples do get very alike when they’ve been together for a long time. Might be nothing at all.’

  She then gnawed on her pen for a couple of minutes, before jotting down, Auction catalogues – sales during the two years prior to five years ago. Ring Lady Mumbles! Births, marriages and deaths. What is Somerset House called now? Use search engine!

  Lord above, she was thirsty. That tea with Enid had disappeared without trace. Putting down her pen, she called, ‘Beauchaargh!’ The man was already behind her. She’d never known a man so cat-like, and was wondering if he led a double life as a cat burglar. His sudden appearances must have taken months, if not years, off her life.

  ‘I didn’t want you to wake Mr Hugo,’ Beauchamp informed her in a low voice.

  ‘I don’t think a cannon would wake him, at the moment. You’ve had a mug of Grundle’s tea before, haven’t you?’

  ‘Oh, no! Not the tea!’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ she confirmed.

  ‘Well, what may I get you, my lady?’ asked the manservant, at a more normal volume. ‘If he actually drank that witches’ brew, he’ll be out for hours yet.’

  ‘I think I’ll take my afternoon tea a little early, if you don’t mind, Beauchamp. Then I’m going to do a little more research on the computer, before going to bed for a few hours. I have a little investigation to carry out tonight, and I want to be as alert as possible for it.’

  ‘Very good, my lady,’ answered that good man, not batting an eyelid at what his employer had just told him. ‘Do you wish me to be in attendance in case there’s any, er, bother?’

  ‘I think that might be a very good idea. I don’t want to involve you in anything criminal, but we might need to make a quick getaway.’

  ‘How jolly invigorating. I shall look forward to it with enormous anticipation.’

  ‘I somehow thought you would,’ replied Lady A, dropping him a half-wink.

  After taking her tea, her ladyship spent two hours surfing the net, tutting and expostulating in a genteelly mild way at what she read. Her notepad beside her, she jotted down what she considered important from her searches, then left it to ferment in her subconscious. She wouldn’t think about any of this until the morrow, for there were other plans afoot before then.

  At six-thirty, she rang for Beauchamp and asked him if he would be so good as to make sandwiches and coffee for eleven o’clock, and to rouse her and Hugo when all was ready. It wasn’t a long drive to Journey’s End, and they’d have time to assemble some sort of plan for the search.

  ‘I suggest that you awaken Mr Hugo as well, and get him properly settled in his own bed. If we suddenly spring coffee and sandwiches on him, on top of the fact that we’re going out to make an illegal entry to one of our friend’s houses, he won’t be too pleased, if he wakens in the library, wondering what on earth happened to the rest of his day.’

  ‘Very good, my lady,’ spake Beauchamp, and went off in the direction of the library on his unenviable mission.

  Chapter Thirteen

  A Midnight Misadventure

  Hugo hadn’t just been grumpy when woken from his alcohol-induced sleep in the library; he was pretty tetchy when he was woken again at eleven o’clock, grumbling about madcap schemes and batty old women. He then informed them that he’d been so bucked about by the tricycle and had lain at such an awkward angle while he was sleeping off his ‘tea’ that he could barely walk, and would have to take his sticks with him o
r he wouldn’t be able to come at all.

  ‘Hugo, how on earth do you think we can go off on this mission with you clumping along with two walking sticks? Are you mad, man?’ asked Lady Amanda.

  ‘Take it or leave it. I’d be quite happy to go straight back to bed.’

  ‘Oh, no you don’t! I need you there. I need all the eyes we can get, to get this search done, and you don’t get out of it that easily. Buck up, man! Where’s your sense of adventure?’

  ‘Back in my bed, where I ought to be too,’ he replied, poking his tongue out at her, as he had done as a youngster.

  ‘Put that thing away and pull yourself together. You’re probably just suffering from low blood sugar, and here’s good old Beauchamp with coffee and sandwiches for us. That’ll put some lead in your pencil.’

  ‘Should I need to make any notes, I shall use my trusty fountain pen,’ replied Hugo in a huffy voice, but he was reaching for a sandwich as he said it. It would be as pointless to try to hold Lady Amanda back as it would be to try to halt the sea in its progress inland, and he, unlike King Canute, knew when he was beaten.

  At eleven-thirty, Lady Amanda hooshed him along to get ready to go, as she had arranged for Enid to let them into Journey’s End at midnight, a suitable time for an illicit adventure in her opinion, then wished she hadn’t, as he appeared wearing so many layers of clothes that his movement was restricted.

  ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing, Hugo? What, exactly, are you wearing for this forbidden little outing?’

  Hugo looked down at himself and explained totally ingenuously that he had on his usual pullover, over which he had added a quilted button-in lining under his overcoat, a scarf, mittens, and his trilby. ‘It is rather late and the weather has been inclement. After what happened this morning, I want to be adequately dressed to cope with the night temperature.’

  ‘But we’re going house-breaking! How on earth do you expect to be able to search in silence and move about the house with stealth, when you look like a Michelin man, and with only half the limited mobility you usually have?’ asked Lady Amanda in exasperation.