The Death of Downton Tabby

by Mandy Morton

  The day was another hot one, and the garden was at ease with itself. The flowers which had bowed their heads against the torrential rain had turned their faces back up towards the sun, and the air was alive with bees, dancing from one flower to another. The scent from Beryl’s roses was intoxicating; mixed with the aroma of steak and kidney pie, it gave Hettie the strange sensation of being in some far-off, perfect heaven.

  Bruiser’s stable door was open and he sat in a shaft of warm sunlight on an old armchair which he’d rescued from one of Lavender Stamp’s refurbishments.

  ‘The Butters have sent you some lunch,’ Hettie said, positioning the plate close to his one good paw. She could see that the injuries brought about by Muddy Fryer’s broadsword were still troubling him. Without asking, she broke the pie into small pieces and popped them into his mouth a bit at a time; the mash and gravy were delivered by spoon, but she left the final wiping of the plate to the patient, who managed to balance it on his good paw long enough to lick it clean.

  ‘Catnip, that’s what’s needed here,’ said Hettie, gathering up the empty plate and spoon. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’ She returned moments later with her catnip pouch and proceeded to fill Bruiser’s pipe and then her own. Sitting with their backs to the shed, the two cats smoked their pipes in blissful peace, blowing smoke rings up into the cloudless sky. Bruiser’s pain began to ease as the catnip took effect and Hettie dozed in the sun, letting the heightened murmurs of a perfect summer’s day wash over her.

  Their peace and quiet was shattered some time later as Lavender Stamp arrived to the clatter of deckchairs and trestle tables. Hettie opened one eye and took in the commotion which was now playing itself out on the lawn close to the house, and suddenly remembered that she was supposed to be helping with the tea party. The thought of engaging with the postmistress so soon after the festival debacle filled her with dread and, as Tilly approached, she looked across at Bruiser, envying him the bandages which constricted his movements.

  ‘We could do with another pair of paws up there,’ Tilly said, nodding in the direction of the chaos. ‘Lavender’s already caught her paw in a deckchair trying to put it up.’

  ‘Pity it wasn’t her neck,’ grumbled Hettie, opening her other eye to get a clearer view. ‘I’m not sure I can face seeing anyone this afternoon. I’m having one of my quiet moments.’

  Tilly giggled. ‘Well, I think you’ll have to save that moment till later. Polly Hodge has just phoned to say she’ll be making a significant announcement at the party and you wouldn’t want to miss that, would you?’

  ‘A significant announcement?’ snorted Hettie, standing up. ‘Whatever next? Perhaps she’s found another bloody Brontë sister lurking on the Porkshire Moors!’

  Tilly chose not to encourage another of Hettie’s soliloquies on the Brontës. Instead, she took her friend’s arm and led her back up the garden path in time to see Lavender Stamp disappearing under a trestle table which had collapsed on top of her. Betty bustled out at the same moment, and – doing her best to control her laughter – suggested that the postmistress might like to ‘cream and jam some scones’ while Hettie and Tilly set up the seating and tables.

  Lavender, grateful for the intervention, followed Betty inside, leaving Hettie and Tilly to their work. The two cats had just finished when they spied Poppa making his way up the path.

  ‘Watcha! I’ve brought Miss Scarlet back from Furcross. I didn’t think Bruiser would be up to driving her at the moment, so I’ve parked her in her shed.’

  Tilly clapped her paws and hugged him. ‘Thank you! I wondered how we could get her back. Now we’re all home safe and sound.’

  At that moment, Turner Page and Mr Pushkin arrived, sporting matching bow ties and waistcoats. They were swiftly followed by Jessie, adorned in what appeared to be a floaty red tent-frock, her ears circled with daisy chains. Hettie looked down at her own ‘Born to be Mild’ T-shirt and began to feel slightly underdressed until Meridian Hambone barged into the back yard on her disability scooter, wearing the last of her ‘Littertray’ merchandise; the shirt looked as if it had been run over several times before wrapping itself around the bony, ancient form of the town’s hardware shop proprietor.

  ‘Gawd love us!’ she said, crashing into the trestle table that Hettie and Tilly had just finished putting up. ‘These ’ere scooters never stops when you want ’em to. It’s not like me biker days – I could stop on a sixpence in them days.’

  Keen to cut off the flow of Meridian’s transport history, Hettie disentangled the scooter from the table and pushed her across the lawn, leaving her in the company of Mr Pushkin. Tilly and Poppa rescued the table in time for Beryl to place a large samovar of tea on it. On cue, Delirium Treemints appeared, still wearing her pink skid lid, and took up her position to serve beverages as if she were connected to the tea urn by a magical gossamer thread.

  Hilary and Cherry Fudge arrived next and made a beeline for the bottom of the garden, where they insisted on dressing Bruiser’s injuries with clean bandages. Looking a little subdued, Bugs Anderton slid quietly into the garden and over to the tea urn, briefly severing the gossamer thread and giving Delirium a rare chance to mingle. Lavender Stamp and the Butter sisters made repeated journeys from kitchen to garden, filling the tables with delights. There were salmon sandwiches with the crusts cut off, sardine vol-au-vents, beef paste bridge rolls, mountains of crisps, cheese balls, miniature Cornish pasties, sausage rolls, cheese straws, dainty pork pies, cheese and bacon turnovers and a giant plate of small cooked sausages. The savoury table, as Beryl called it, was groaning under the sheer weight of the food and the party guests salivated in anticipation.

  Closer to the back door, and taking up the only shade available in the garden, was the sweets and pudding table. By the time Lavender, Betty and Beryl had finished laying it out, the assembled company and those still arriving had to admit that it was a masterpiece of culinary magnificence. Tilly – delighted to see so many of her personal favourites gathered together on one table – decided to offer a running commentary, pointing to each individual item with her paw as she slowly made her way down the row.

  ‘Cream and jam sponge, cream and chocolate sponge, cream and custard trifle, cream iced slices, custard tarts, chocolate eclairs with cream, coconut haystacks, pink and lemon iced fancies, butterfly buns, chocolate cornflake nests, and the biggest plateful of cream horns I’ve ever seen!’ She had been playing to a captive audience, and, as she reached the end of the table, the guests clapped and stamped their feet, allowing Betty and Beryl to take a well-earned bow. Then the sisters passed out the paper plates, signalling that the tea party was well and truly underway.

  As the cats came together to eat and share conversations in the sunshine, there was very little mention of the horror that had consumed them only a few hours before. It was as if there had been an unspoken decision to move on. There were, of course, a few matters still to be dealt with: the front of Furcross House would need a makeover to hide the inferno that had raged there; Bugs Anderton would need to come to terms with her brief romantic fling with Darius Bonnet; and Bruiser would, in the fullness of time, recover from his wounds.

  Hettie watched as her friends moved around the garden, stopping to admire a flower here and there, at ease in each other’s company and all sharing the badge of survival. She mused on what might have happened if Charlene Brontë had been allowed to continue her murderous rampage. Would she have killed again? If Poppa hadn’t turned up when he did, Hettie was certain that she and Tilly would by now be lying somewhere on the Porkshire Moors with their throats cut. She shivered as the dark thoughts began to fill her mind. It had never occurred to her that running a detective agency could be such a perilous business. Perhaps they should quit while they were winning: a sweet shop on the high street would surely be a safer bet?

  She was wrenched away from her considerations for the future by the arrival of Polly Hodge and Nicolette Upstart. The two crime writers were warmly welcomed a
nd immediately issued with paper plates, which they filled and emptied in record time. Wiping the pastry from her whiskers with the back of her paw, Polly Hodge took centre stage on the Butters’ lawn. The formidable white cat drew everyone’s attention immediately, and all eating and conversation ceased as the cats gathered round, instinctively knowing that there was to be an announcement.

  Satisfied that she had a captive audience, Polly addressed them. ‘My friends – and after what we have all been through together, I think I may call you that – I must apologise for my late arrival at the party, but Nicolette and I have been engaged in negotiations of great excitement.’ She paused for effect, leaving the crowd in no doubt that she was indeed the mistress of suspense, and Nicolette beamed one of her best smiles into the throng. ‘The television company responsible for Downton Tabby’s series, In the Kitchen and Up the Stairs, has asked me to produce a series of detective stories based on real cases to replace Sir Downton’s programmes. I have asked Nicolette to assist me in this project, and there is only one final “i” to dot and “t” to cross.’ Again the writer paused, but this time her steely gaze fell directly on Hettie. ‘With the permission of Miss Hettie Bagshot,’ she continued, ‘I would like to call the new series The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency, starting with episode one, “The Death of Downton Tabby”.’

  Tilly dropped the cream horn she’d been quietly sucking and Hettie blushed red from her toes to the tips of her tabby ears. A cheer of approval went up as the cats raised and chinked their tea cups.

  ‘Fame at last!’ said Tilly, resisting the urge to dance a jig.

  ‘And bang goes the sweet shop,’ muttered Hettie, more to herself than anyone else.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I am indebted to Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë for inspiring me to write this book, and to the joy that Julian Fellowes has brought to the nation with his stories above and below stairs in Downton Abbey. I trust and believe that there is no greater compliment than a satirical swipe at the things we love and admire.

  I would also like to thank Maddy Prior, Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention and Spriguns for making this book richer; and Nicolette Upstart for her continued love and support, in spite of everything!

  Finally, to Polly Hodge, who – in life – held the prestigious position of P. D. James’s cat. I’m sure they are both cooking up plots in some far and distant Elysian Field, remembered and greatly missed.

  We hope you enjoyed this book.

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  About the Author

  MANDY MORTON began her professional life as a musician. More recently, she has worked as a freelance arts journalist for national and local radio. She currently presents the radio arts magazine The Eclectic Light Show and lives with her partner, who is also a crime writer, in Cambridge and Cornwall, where there is always a place for an ageing long-haired tabby cat.

  @icloudmandy

  @hettiebagshot

  HettieBagshotMysteries

  By Mandy Morton

  The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency

  Cat Among the Pumpkins

  The Death of Downton Tabby

  The Ghost of Christmas Paws

  Copyright

  Allison & Busby Limited

  12 Fitzroy Mews

  London W1T 6DW

  allisonandbusby.com

  First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2016.

  This ebook edition published in 2016.

  Copyright © 2016 by MANDY MORTON

  The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978–0–7490–2065–1