Belchester Box Set

by Andrea Frazer

  ‘Enid!’

  ‘I’m perfectly entitled to have my own opinion, and state it,’ she replied rebelliously, not at all like the meek little thing she had been until recently.

  Beauchamp noisily cleared his throat. He was supposed to be the centre of attention, and he wasn’t ceding that position to anyone, not even not-so-meek-mannered Enid. ‘She couldn’t actually identify the voices she heard, because she had her ear pressed to a door. She only knows that they were male voices, and the situation frightened her.’

  There was a double sigh from his employer and her friend, and he quickly put them out of their misery, that he had found out something of worth. ‘BUT,’ he said, in capital letters, ‘I was in the scullery looking for a tea-strainer – I don’t know where they get to in this household. I think something must eat them. Anyway, while I was in that dismal cave of a room, I tripped over something: something that the old rag rug in there must have covered previously.’ He stopped at that point, and smiled like the Cheshire Cat, teasing them with his reticence to finish the story.

  ‘Go on, you rotter. You know how you’ve got us on tenterhooks.’ Lady Amanda was losing her patience, and was getting ready to cuff her manservant round the ears, even if, or probably because, he had turned out to be her half-brother.

  ‘It was an inset ring that hadn’t been seated properly in its groove. There was no one around. Cook had gone off for her afternoon nap, Sarah Fraser had some mending and ironing to do for Mrs Elspeth, and Mary Campbell sloped off to have a soak in the bath with scented candles. Oh, the temptation to push such an ugly woman under the water and hold her there, thus putting her out of our misery, and yes; I did mean to say that.’

  ‘Come on, Beauchamp, before I play the big sister with you. And stop being so cruel about the poor girl. She can’t help the way she was born.’

  Beauchamp actually chuckled, then went on, ‘I pulled it up, having pushed the scullery door shut, and found that it led to a flight of stone steps. I feel certain I have discovered the entrance to the dungeons, and it seems fitting that it should be from the servants’ area of the castle, for you wouldn’t want to have to drag prisoners through the living quarters on their way to be incarcerated, would you? Sounds of pain and suffering do not sit well when one is entertaining.

  ‘I believe we have our opportunity to explore what’s down there, after nightfall and, as the castle is, at this moment, almost empty, I suggest we go to the cellars and have a good look around there, while the coast is clear.’

  ‘Is there any lighting down there?’ asked Lady A, stuffing her sandwiches down her throat as if she were in an eating competition.

  ‘I believe there are some of those flaming torches, but I’d suggest we take electric torches. We might have to get out quickly, and, if we’ve lighted torches, they’ll be a dead giveaway,’ he commented, lapsing into the vernacular in his excitement. ‘I believe I can supply all of us from the emergency kit in the Rolls.’ He had also changed recently, but Lady A put it down to the fact that the truth about his parenthood was now common knowledge in Belchester Towers.

  ‘Now you know why I have such a large handbag, Hugo,’ Lady A told her friend, who was always moaning that she had room in its capacious interior for a hundredweight of coal, with space left over for the kitchen sink. ‘I can put four torches in my bag without anyone noticing anything odd. Think how we’d look, just in case someone did see us, trotting off to the cellars, each carrying a torch. It would be frightfully suspicious.’

  Hugo had to admit defeat on this occasion. A large handbag could be a very useful accessory when one had something to keep hidden. Finishing off his sandwiches, he rubbed his hands together with glee, and asked when they were setting off on this particular adventure.

  ‘I would suggest as soon as Enid and I have returned the tray to the kitchen. We should still have quite a bit of time before anyone returns when the light starts to go. If Lady Siobhan is discovered and brought back, everyone will be in a mood of such relief that no one will notice where we are, or what we’re doing, in their mood of euphoria. Come along Enid. You can load the dishwasher while I rinse out the teapot.’

  Within a quarter of an hour, they were inside the interior cellar door, Lady A surreptitiously handing out torches before they ventured any further into the dark. Beauchamp locked the door behind them, and they all four slunk inside and down the shallow flight of steps, keeping a keen eye out for anyone who might catch sight of them, but they proved to be totally alone. The interior of the room smelt of damp and mould, and closer inspection revealed an earth floor. This part of the castle had, in all probability, not been altered since the place was built.

  One by one the orbs of light descended, bringing into view a rough stone interior that was quite large, and contained, near the door, the remains of what had, at one time, been quite an extensive cellar. The few dozen bottles of wine that were still stored there were of superb quality and vintage, but they hid the secret of the room behind this more conventional screen of respectability.

  Behind were rows and rows of bottles of the illegal spirit brewed in the forest, those in the front bearing labels, those to the back still awaiting this badge of apparent verity. In one corner, a table cowered in the darkness, its top covered in an assortment of labels, a small cabinet beside it containing what looked like a variety of greatly condensed flavourings.

  This was the heart of the operation, with easy access, large storage space, and privacy; for who else would ever come in here, with this being a dry house, except Sir Cardew himself and his co-conspirators? It was the perfect set-up for the bottling and labelling of illegally manufactured liquor.

  Entering the room that had access from the exterior of the castle, they found large plastic containers filled with a clear fluid, stacks of empty bottles, funnels, even a deep Belfast sink so that bottles could be sterilised before being filled. It was apparent that this operation was not a start-up side-line, but must have been in existence for some considerable time.

  It seemed probable that Siobhan had not been aware of it, for they could not believe that, if she had suspected what was going on down here, she would keep quiet about it. She was a very honest woman who, quite obviously, lived in an otherworldly way, with her mind above such sordid things as had been going on in the castle itself, as well as out in the forest. She would have been mortified, had she been aware of such criminal goings-on.

  ‘I think we should adjourn to our rooms for a rest now,’ Beauchamp suggested. ‘We don’t want to chance our arms any further at this juncture.’ There he went again, resorting to the vernacular. He just wasn’t one to use slangy language, and now he’d done it twice in one day.

  It was a sensible suggestion, though, and they obediently slunk out of the cellar rooms, leaving the manservant to lock up. Enid decided that she would have a lie down in her room as well, and the three of them left Beauchamp to his own devices, with an arrangement to dine at six-thirty from the cold collation left out, and meet again in Lady Amanda’s room at midnight.

  The search party trickled back in ones and twos, no sign having been found of Siobhan, or any clue to her whereabouts, and the cold collation was consumed in a gloomy silence. The only thing that could be said for dining a la buffet was that the food was rather more edible than some of the hot dishes had been. The Cullen skink and haggis had been the last really good things the party had eaten, with the exception of the Belchester Four, who had dined on smoked salmon sandwiches, with just a hint of horseradish mayonnaise, at luncheon.

  After-dinner conversation also proved not to be brisk, and the only animated conversation to be seen, for it took place at a distance from which no one could hear it, was between Grizzly Rizzly and Menzies. They may have taken the decision not to stand somewhere where they could be eavesdropped upon, but they looked to Lady Amanda just like villains in a cheap Victorian melodrama plotting the overthrow of the hero, and Hugo agreed with her, when she broached the subject.

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nbsp; Knowing what time they had planned for their meeting, Hugo and Lady Amanda took themselves off to bed very early, in the hope that they could complement their afternoon naps with a little pre-exploratory sleep. They had to take account of their age, and they didn’t know how long they would be out of their beds in the wee small hours.

  At five minutes to midnight, Beauchamp knocked discreetly on Lady Amanda’s door and was bidden to enter, in a low voice that indicated that her ladyship was up and about, and wouldn’t need wakening. The manservant was greatly relieved, because not only was waking his half-sister a thankless task – in that she slept like the dead – but if woken before she was ready, meant that she acted like a bear with a sore head, until midday.

  A discreet knock on the door of Hugo’s adjoining room produced no response, and Beauchamp, after two more attempts, was forced to open the door and hiss at the lump under the covers to wake up, for it was time to go. This also produced no response and, eventually, he had to shake Hugo’s unconscious form, quite vigorously, to get any response.

  ‘Whassup?’ asked Hugo blearily.

  ‘It’s time to wake up. We have to leave, now, Mr Hugo,’ Beauchamp replied, patiently.

  ‘Wake up? I wasn’t asleep! Couldn’t get off at all. Damned cheek, thinking a fellow’s asleep, when he can’t get a wink.’

  ‘You were snoring, Mr Hugo, with respect.’

  ‘I was?’

  ‘Very loudly, as it happens.’

  ‘’Straordinary! Was I really? Well, well, well! Amazing what one can do and not know a thing about it. Sorry about that, old chap. Give me five minutes or so, and I’ll come through to Her Nibs’ room.’

  Lady Amanda was wearing a pair of black stretch trousers and a black jumper for, as she always said, if one goes away, it’s as well to go prepared for a funeral, when one’s friends are the age of hers. Beauchamp was similarly attired in black, knowing that anything pale would pick up any light that there was, and pinpoint them immediately, if someone were looking out for them.

  When Hugo finally appeared, he had on the same light beige slacks, white shirt, and oatmeal jacket that he had worn during the day. ‘HUGO!’ hissed Lady Amanda, with real exasperation in the word. ‘Just what do you think you’re wearing?’

  ‘What I had on earlier. I didn’t want to soil anything fresh, and this is likely to be a messy job if we’re going down to the dungeons,’ he replied, with perfect logic – perfect logic for the daytime, maybe, but not for their secret explorations at this time of night.

  ‘Think about it, man! If you go out dressed like that, you’ll positively shine from any light source. We don’t want to be discovered poking around where some believe we have no business to be. Go back to your room and put on the darkest clothes you’ve got!’ she ordered him, in an imperious hiss.

  ‘Sorry! Didn’t really think it through, did I?’ he intoned in a voice full of chagrin. He hated to be found wanting, and his garb was rather ridiculous, when one thought about it.

  He reappeared after a considerable amount of drawer-opening and shutting, and rather a lot of mild cussing, wearing a pair of slate grey trousers and an old navy pullover. His reaction to their glances at the vintage of his jumper was to say, in mitigation, ‘Sometimes I wear it in bed over my pyjamas, if it’s particularly cold. In fact, I’ve got my pyjamas on under this lot. It’s probably darned chilly down in those dungeons.’

  Lady Amanda picked up her black handbag containing the torches and, just as they were about to go, Enid arrived, huffing and puffing. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said. ‘I set my alarm and put it under the pillow so I wouldn’t wake anyone else, but the dratted thing was a quarter of an hour slow. The battery must be running out. Sorry, sorry, sorry!’

  ‘That’s all right. We’d have given you a knock on the way past. I see you’ve sensibly dressed in dark colours,’ said Lady A.

  ‘Of course! Light-coloured clothing would be asking for trouble, wouldn’t it?’ she asked, and Hugo had the grace to blush, even though neither of the other two said a word about his first attempt at dressing for underhand deeds.

  Before they could get out of the room, however, there was a rumbling sound from outside, and a screech of elderly brakes outside the window, and they all stopped short. That sounded very like the arrival of an elderly lorry, and three of them approached the window with caution, Lady Amanda staying behind to switch off the light before the curtains were drawn back.

  There, illuminated in the starlight, was a truck big enough to hold everything they had discovered in the cellar rooms, and more. Someone they could not identify got out and unlocked the exterior cellar door; his passenger, just as unidentifiable, followed and, between them, they started loading the moonshine into the back of the vehicle.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Lady A exclaimed quietly. ‘It looks like they’re clearing out. This must be a reaction to Sir Cardew’s death. We’ve got to get away from here before they go off to fetch Lady Siobhan. If everything’s gone wrong for them, she may be killed like Cardew - if she’s not already dead.’

  ‘Leave this bit to me,’ said Beauchamp, with determination in his voice. ‘You three wait here. I’ll only be gone a short time – ten minutes at the very most.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Lady Amanda.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ queried Hugo.

  ‘You’re not going to do anything dangerous, are you?’ pleaded Enid.

  ‘I’m just going to put their truck out of action,’ he replied to them all.

  ‘How?’ This was Lady Amanda again.

  ‘I’ll tell you when I’ve done it, to save valuable time now. The longer they’re stuck here, the longer we have to try to rescue the damsel in distress, and summon outside help to round the blackguards up.’

  ‘Damsel, my big fat hairy bottom!’ floated out of the door after him, as Lady A made her feelings clear about there being any resemblance whatsoever between Siobhan and a maiden.

  He was gone only eight minutes, and explained that he had gone down to the kitchen for a bag of sugar, which he had then poured into the petrol tank of the old vehicle. He had also collected a potato from the vegetable store, and shoved that up the exhaust pipe for good measure, having been lucky enough to arrive during a short period of the villains’ absence in the cellars. ‘I did hear them mention Lady Siobhan, though,’ he told them, ‘so I think our window of opportunity is short.’

  This quickly conjured up tale of horror galvanised even Hugo, and they decided that there should be no delay in them commencing their search of the dungeon regions.

  Chapter Nine

  They stepped quietly out of the room, finding only one torchere burning at the stairs end of the corridor, but Beauchamp steered them the other way, explaining, ‘Best to use the back stairs. Someone might not be able to sleep, and might have got up for a late nightcap.’ As he spoke, Hugo grabbed a small hunting horn from the wall and stuffed it into the capacious pocket of his disgraceful woolly, with no thought of what he would do with it, but just a vague idea that it might prove useful.

  ‘That’s nowhere near as likely with one of the staff,’ the manservant continued, ‘they’re usually whacked by ten o’clock, not just because they have to work so hard in this stone maze, but because they have to get up so early, with there being so few of them, to light fires, make early morning tea, and all the other chores to which owners of properties like these never give a thought.’

  ‘Nice grammar,’ hissed Enid, following closely on his heels.

  ‘Good God, it’s spooky on these old back stairs.’ Hugo, no hero in the dark, was more nervous of ghosts than he had ever been in his life, because of his two experiences during the night on this trip.

  ‘Grow a backbone,’ whispered Lady A, unsympathetically.

  ‘Please could we have a little quiet, until we get to the trapdoor? We need to listen carefully, in case there’s anyone else about.’ This was Beauchamp feeling rather like an infants’ school teacher on a school
outing, in charge of a small group of unruly charges.

  Totally ignoring this order, Hugo asked, with a quiver in his voice, ‘What’s that tapping noise,’ fearful that they might be in the company of a spirit who had been walled up on the staircase, hundreds of years ago, and was still waiting for his remains to be found.

  ‘It’s your walking stick!’ – Lady Amanda, in exasperation.

  ‘Damn! Silly me!’ – Hugo, once more embarrassed.

  ‘Is it much further?’ – Enid, who wasn’t very fond of confined spaces, and this staircase was very confined indeed. They were almost treading on each other’s heels.

  ‘Ssssh!’ – Beauchamp, in incomprehension at their inability to obey a simple order.

  Somehow, they made it to the foot of the winding stone staircase without mishap, and made their way, as silently as four people who are in a state of fearful anticipation can, and Beauchamp led them to the scullery, where the mat had now been moved, to cover the trapdoor he had found earlier.

  He was just about to lift it and reveal the hidden staircase, when a noise produced little yips of fear from three of the party, and they all froze as if they were playing the old-fashioned children’s game of musical statues. The fear of discovery coursed through all their veins, as they wondered who it could be that had rumbled their plan.

  Could it be Grizzly Rizzly? Menzies? Were they here already? Was it possible they had already cleared out their contraband? Surely there hadn’t been sufficient time for them to move all that gear? If it were one of them, they were in real trouble. Maybe he, or they, if it were both of them, really did have Siobhan hidden down below, and were coming to fetch her?

  They hadn’t thought the chances were very high that they might actually be right about where the miscreants had stashed their hostess. It was surely more likely that they would have used one of the out-of-the-way bothies for such a purpose. This was really supposed to be a bit of an adventure, not a life-threatening experience. What would be done to them? Would they, too, be kidnapped; or hurt; or even killed?