‘Manda! How lovely to see you again!’ she brayed, putting down her glass and coming forward to embrace her unexpected guest fondly. ‘Take a seat and I’ll get you a dry martini. I know how you love your cocktails.’
‘Please don’t bother on my account,’ countered Lady Amanda. ‘Got to watch the old digestion after all that rich food over the festive season, but don’t let me stop you.’
Taking this as an invitation, Angelica swayed over to the cocktail cabinet and fixed herself another drink, calling over her shoulder, ‘And to what do I owe the honour of this visit?’
‘Just thought I’d drop in and see what you thought of the old tour of the Towers, you know. Stinky not about?’
‘Absolutely not! He went up to his club for a couple of days after that dreadful incident in your library, but I’m expecting him back tonight.’
A voice in Lady Amanda’s head yelled, ‘Yippee!’ although she wasn’t quite sure why this part of her mind was so pleased. She’d ask it later. Instead, adopting a very casual air, she enquired after the antiques business that the lieutenant colonel used to run.
‘I never did ask you why Stinky relinquished the old antiques game in North Street. Wanted to retire, did he, and just gave it up?’ she purred casually.
‘Not a bit of it,’ replied Angelica, absorbing her dry martini in the manner of a parched sponge. ‘It was more like it gave him up. Dammit! Empty glass again! I was sure I’d just mixed myself one.’
As her host returned to the cocktail shaker (for, like James Bond, she preferred hers shaken, not stirred) Lady Amanda cast her bread upon the waters and asked temptingly, ‘Whatever do you mean? I can’t see how that can have happened,’ then added, ‘It’s so rare that you and I get the chance to have a good old girlie chinwag, Donkey old sport.’
‘You’re right, there,’ replied Donkey, the bread and hook firmly in her mouth. ‘I’ll tell you all about it, and you can see how it went from fabulously profitable to absolute zilch in just a few short years.’
With an internal grin of triumph, Lady Amanda relaxed back in her armchair and prepared to make mental notes.
‘When he first started in the business – that was when he took over from his father, and he himself had just come out of the army – things were selling like hot cakes. Whatever he bought was snapped up in the craze for Victoriana. I remember, in particular, that even a broken gout stool and a dilapidated fire-screen fetched unheard-of sums.
‘Then the bottom fell out of Victoriana, so he turned to Georgian and Regency items, specialising in furniture and pictures – he isn’t really a bibelot man, as I’m sure you can appreciate. Then we hit the present, seemingly endless, slump, and the bottom fell out of brown furniture.’ At this point, she went off into screeches of hysterical laughter at her own humour, calming down again only to return to mix herself another martini, muttering, ‘Bottom fell out – heehee. Clunk, ouch! Heeheehee!’
‘So how did you manage?’ asked Lady Amanda, determined to get her on to more solid ground, and not let her disappear with a bad case of barman’s elbow.
‘Couldn’t believe it myself, but, for a while, it was horrible old pictures. Stinky had quite a lot of luck with them. Filthy old daubs, they looked to me, but he’d go off to a country auction or whatever, and come back with these horrible things, and the next thing we knew, one or two of them had sold for a fabulous sum at auction. Boy, did that man have an eye.’
‘To the main chance,’ muttered Lady Amanda inaudibly. This was what she’d come to hear, having spoken to the niece of the poor, dear, departed Lady Mumbles, and the auction house. That man had an eye, all right, but it wasn’t for a picture, it was for a sucker, and one who trusted him because of who he was. He’d out-and-out swindled old Lady Mumbles in her hour of need, and, no doubt, she wasn’t his only victim.
When Lady A looked across at Donkey, after this momentary pause for thought, she saw her eyes droop, and her martini glass along with it. Quietly removing the latter and placing it on a handy side-table, she tiptoed from the room and left the house. It was lucky she had caught Donkey in a ‘relaxed’ mood, as it had saved her the bother of being too wily in her quest to loosen the woman’s tongue – so naive, and so trusting, that she was.
Back at ‘the ranch’, all three of its occupants had tales to tell and, checking that she wouldn’t disturb any plans for dinner, Lady Amanda convened a meeting to share the intelligence they had gathered that day, and requested that Beauchamp might like to join them in a cocktail for this gathering.
Beauchamp arrived promptly with the drinks tray, but Hugo was tardy by a good two minutes. ‘Sorry!’ he called as he came through the door, having been taken short unexpectedly again, by a call of nature on his amble along from his bedroom, then went flying across the carpet, as he tripped, just inside the doorway.
Beauchamp rushed to his rescue, ascertaining that he was uninjured, just rather surprised and shaken. As he helped the man to his feet, Hugo said accusingly, ‘I fell over your blasted handbag, Manda. What do you think you’re doing just dropping it on the floor where anyone could fall over it?’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she replied, real chagrin in her voice. ‘It’s just that I’ve learnt some things that I’m finding it hard to come to terms with, and I suppose I just abandoned it without thinking. My apologies, old stick.’
‘Well, be more careful in future. Thing like that could kill a man.’
‘I know, Hugo, and I’m so pleased you haven’t broken anything,’ she replied.
‘You should take a look at my dignity. It’s shattered into a thousand pieces on the floor. What on earth do you keep in the thing, bricks? It weighs a ton.’
‘Only what I deem absolutely essential,’ she replied with dignity.
‘And why would you carry around a couple of house bricks? Come on, what have you really got in it. Show me.’ Hugo had never examined the contents of a lady’s handbag before, and was now genuinely interested.
‘Pass it here,’ she asked, then began to intone, as she removed items from it, ‘Lipstick, mirror, face powder, small bottle of perfume, address book, mobile phone, house keys, screwdriver, apple corer, wire cutters, scissors, sewing kit, fifteen metre metal tape-measure, crochet hook, pen, pencil, cross-hatch screwdriver, small hacksaw, paint brush, nail polish, manicure set …’
‘Manda!’ Hugo exclaimed, although there were still items left in the bag. ‘Are you sure you haven’t got a cement mixer in there too? It’s as well-equipped as a tool box. Why on earth do you carry all that stuff around with you?’
‘Because it’s all very useful stuff, and I never know when I might need a hacksaw or a screwdriver. The apple-corer I use all the time. So useful for a healthy snack if one is on the move.’
‘Well, I have to hand it to you; you would have made a marvellous boy scout. Be prepared? You’re more than that, but I don’t think I could be bothered lugging such a heavy receptacle around with me wherever I go.’
‘That’s the difference between men and women, Hugo. When a woman needs something unexpectedly, she can usually find it in her handbag. When a man wants something unexpectedly, he usually asks his lady companion if she’s got such a thing in her bag.’
‘Touché! I surrender!’ Hugo retired from the battlefield with a good grace, nursing his wounds without rancour.
‘Any luck, chaps?’ she asked, when they were all settled round the fire with a drink apiece. Receiving a pair of answers in the affirmative, she told them to fire away, and listened with round eyes to what they had gleaned from their visits.
At the end of it, she availed herself of a, ‘Well, I’ll be blowed,’ then set out to summarize what they had learned so far. ‘Let’s start with the Heyhoe-Caramacs. We’d all heard about his father being a war hero and his work with the Resistance in France, but from what has been turned up, it would seem that there is a strong possibility that he collaborated with the Germans, and was the cause of several civilian deaths. Unbelievable!’
she added, ‘but probably absolutely true. Unsubstantiated rumours are often disproved as merely malicious, while the guilty truth is guarded like Fort Knox.
‘Next, we’ll look at what we’ve discovered about the ffolliat DeWinters – good work there, Beauchamp, with old Fustion. No one ever suspected there was anything suspect about ffolliat DeWinter senior’s death, because he had been so ill, was a reckless old fool with his health, and would heed advice from no one.
‘Now, it would seem, that he was given a helping hand into the afterlife by his loving son and daughter-in-law. Of course, there’s nothing to disprove that he wouldn’t have popped off that very day, but the old fellow, knowing how stubborn he was, might have hung about for years, and those two obviously had pressing financial problems that couldn’t wait.
‘Mapperley-Minto’s behaviour while abroad seems to be completely beyond the pale, and if that book were published, it was more than likely that the tale would be examined in minute detail, and his ‘not-wife’ and illegitimate child traced. Utter disgrace!
‘Still, at least it kept him out of Maddy’s bed for more than a twelve-month. I did hear that he was a real old lecher when he’d had a few drinks to relax him, and she really couldn’t be doing with that sort of thing.’
‘Manda!’ exclaimed Hugo, at this, in his opinion, totally unnecessary foray into bedroom habits.
‘It’s true! She told me once! First time I’ve ever mentioned it, though,’ pleaded Lady Amanda, in her own defence. With a regal shake of her head, to clarify her thoughts after this interruption, she went on, ‘Next, we come to the Fotherington-Flints, and that’s where I’ve been doing some investigation, with a little help from our friendly neighbourhood policeman, PC Glenister, who was able to obtain access that was denied to me, to certain records.’
‘But I did that one!’ cried Hugo, in distress. ‘It was me – I – who found out that Sir Montacute’s parents had an illegitimate baby and gave it away to private adoption.’ He felt righteously indignant that Manda should steal his thunder so.
‘I know, Hugo, but it was I who found out that fate conspired for them to meet years later and marry.’
‘No!’
‘Impossible!’
‘I know how you both feel. The machinations of a malevolent fate make my toes curl, but that’s the truth of the matter. I don’t think they found out until long after their marriage, but old sins have long shadows, and there’s always someone, somewhere, who knows the truth. I have a feeling that they’ve been living in a brother/sister relationship for a very long time, dreading the truth coming out.
‘No wonder Daisy tries to act younger than her years, being, in fact, older than him, and that Cutie has grown so grumpy in his later years, learning the truth about his wife’s parentage, having believed she was a product of the parents who had adopted her.
‘That only leaves us with the Featherstonehaugh-Armitages, and I confirmed the goods on old Stinky today. He was swindling trusting customers who came to him to sell some of their heirlooms when their circumstances became straitened. They trusted him because of where he stood in society, and he let them down completely, telling them that their pictures were copies, or their precious pieces of furniture were reproductions, and that their jewellery was paste.
‘When confronted with their disbelief, he told the old story; that their forebears had only done what they were attempting to do now, but actually replacing the originals with copies, so that they wouldn’t lose any face to the world at large. Isn’t that beastly, to cheat your own kind?’ she asked, then concluded with, ‘Well, that’s the lot of them, and I bet Mouldy Moody’s having a field day, running his grubby little eyes over that lot!’
‘It’s not quite all, Manda,’ said Hugo, softly.
‘What do you mean, not all. Isn’t that enough to be going on with?’ What else could there possibly be?’
‘You!’ he said, looking her sorrowfully in the face. ‘What about all the goings on in this family over the years? If Popeye got wind of that, he’d have thought he’d won the football pools.’
‘I think you’ll find it’s the Lottery, these days, Mr Hugo,’ interjected Beauchamp, but with his face creased with anxiety.
‘Don’t forget,’ Hugo went on, ‘Your mother’s still alive and living in Monte Carlo, and she’s living proof of all that went on in this family.’
‘Oh, my God!’ whispered Lady Amanda, more to herself than to her two companions.
‘So who did it, Manda? Which one of them killed Popeye?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ she replied. ‘All I know is that it wasn’t me.’
The sombre mood was broken at that juncture by a heavy knocking at the front door, and the sound of someone pulling frantically at the bell-pull, and Beauchamp left the room in thoughtful mood to answer the summons.
Inspector Moody stood in front of the fire unashamedly warming his buttocks as he addressed them, PC Glenister standing just inside the door, in the remote case that one of them would make a run for it. Moody wasn’t taking any chances with his run-in with a higher social circle: he didn’t trust them further than he could throw his car.
‘I don’t care if you find it distasteful. I insist that it be done. If anyone can blag their way through a believable tale, it’s you,’ he said, fixing Lady Amanda with a gimlet eye. ‘I want the whole lot reassembled in the library tomorrow, so that I can say my piece.’ And what a piece it was too. He was almost bursting with pride at his deductions, as well as his literary knowledge. He’d always wanted to gather the suspects in a case in a library, and give it to them with both barrels.
‘If you won’t comply with my request, I shall arrest the lot of you, and do it down the station,’ he threatened, intoning the last three words in a sepulchral voice, to emphasize the gravity of the situation.
After the departure of the two representatives of the law, Lady Amanda went to the telephone and consulted her address book. If it had to be done, it had to be done, and there wasn’t a thing she could do to prevent it.
Chapter Fifteen
Hugo Pulls it Off
The following afternoon, with the exception of Capt. Leslie Barrington-Blyss, the same guests who had assembled so hopefully on Boxing Day gathered again at Belchester Towers, but this time they were a subdued crowd, with hardly a word to say to each other. There was the smell of fear in the air, as they moved, for the second time that Christmastide, through to the library. Enid Tweedie, too, was in attendance, and in charge of refreshments, but these were simple today, as Beauchamp had thought that nobody would feel much like eating and drinking.
When they had all settled in seats, an utter silence filled the room as Lady Amanda announced that Inspector Moody would be joining them, as she had explained on the telephone the night before. There had been several cases of insomnia in and around Belchester the night before, at the prospect of what this little gathering would reveal.
PC Glenister, as usual, was in the background, as Moody began pompously, perhaps imagining himself to be Hercule Poirot, ‘I have asked you to return to the scene of the recent murder of one of your number, because I have several things to say which will, I am sure, lead to the unmasking of whoever committed this terrible crime.’
‘I have read Captain Barrington-Blyss’s book in its entirety, and, in that manuscript, I have found several motives for murder, should certain things be made public. ‘You!’ he suddenly shouted, pointing at Lt Col. Featherstonehaugh-Armitage. ‘You borrowed money from your father’s business before he died, and I know you didn’t have permission. How would that look to the public eye, stealing from a sick old man? Eh? Eh?’
Stinky and Donkey merely looked at each other and smiled, shrugging their shoulders as they did so. ‘If you say so,’ retorted Stinky, looking more cheerful than he had since he arrived, and causing Moody to crease his brow in puzzlement. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. They were supposed to look scared and guilty.
He plough
ed on, nevertheless, turning his attention, next, to Sir Montacute Fotherington-Flint. ‘You, sir, used to poach on your father’s land, and sell the valuable game birds to a restaurant thirty miles away, under a false name. Not only is poaching illegal, but what you did was out and out theft, then you fenced the proceeds to a restaurant.’
Cutie managed a wry smile, and invited the inspector to ‘pick the bones out of that one’. This laid-back attitude to criminal accusations was anathema to Moody. They should be quaking in their boots at the thought of prosecution, not to mention what else he had up his sleeve, not treating his statements as if they were an everyday occurrence, and of no consequence whatsoever. His law-abiding soul was scandalised.
‘And you!’ he suddenly roared, this time indicating Major Mapperley-Minto. You cheated at cards. I have it all in black and white that you were a card cheat, and you can’t deny it.’
‘I don’t propose to do so,’ replied Monty coolly, his face a mask of relief. ‘But I had my reasons.’
‘There’s no excuse for what you did!’ roared Moody, now beginning to feel his ship, which had just come in for him, beginning to sink beneath his feet. His voice rising a little as he lost a bit of nerve, he next singled out Sir Jolyon ffolliat DeWinter. ‘You were caught out having forged your father’s signature on a cheque. A more despic …’
At this point Hugo, feeling vastly relieved, began to tune out the hysterical accusations of the inspector. Old Popeye may have thought he had social dynamite between the covers of his book, but all he’d really had were a few damp squibs. He’d never really got down to the real dirt, to reveal the skeletons in the family closets, and Moody was ranting and railing to no avail. He’d get no change out of that lot.
As he mused to himself, he found his eyes lighting on a black patent leather handbag, sitting at the feet of Fifi and, given his uncommonly close encounter with one of those contraptions, and Manda’s revealing tour of the contents of hers, he wondered what weird and wonderful things she carried around with her. It wasn’t as big as Manda’s, but he had realised, the day before, that handbags were invariably bigger on the inside than they were on the outside, a fact that had escaped his notice all these years.
Belchester Box Set Page 33
