by T E Kinsey
‘Noticed it, m’dear,’ he said as he handed us our drinks. ‘Just didn’t want to say the wrong thing – I’ve been caught out like that before. “That’s a lovely dress,” I say. “Is it new?” Then I’m treated to a stern lecture lasting, I should say, at least ten minutes, on how I never pay attention, and that it’s a shabby old dress that you’ve had for years, and that if I cared at all, I’d buy you a new one. Can’t win, m’dear. Can’t win.’
Lady Farley-Stroud tutted, but continued to beam. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so devoted a couple in all my days, though the Hardcastles came close before Sir Roderick was murdered in China.
Lady Hardcastle was similarly touched and was smiling broadly as she accepted her G&T.
‘’Fraid we’ve no limes, m’dear,’ said Sir Hector, oblivious to the effect his exchange with his wife had produced. ‘Can do you a slice of lemon, if you fancy?’
‘No, darling,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘This will do splendidly.’
I sipped tentatively at my drink, trying to remain as unobtrusive as possible.
‘Don’t look so nervous, dear,’ said Lady Farley-Stroud kindly. ‘I’ve said before that if Emily treats you as one of the family, then we should too. And we did invite you especially, after all.’
Sir Hector winked. ‘She’s a little afraid of you, too, m’dear. She’s told everyone we know about the time you brought down that chap outside The Hayrick. “Wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her,” she always says.’
I laughed.
‘Oh, Hector! Really!’ she said.
I looked around the library, trying to work out why it always seemed so comfortable and welcoming, despite being ever-so-slightly shabby and past its prime. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps it was the loved-and-lived-in quality that made it feel so cosy. The chintz-covered chairs had been fashionable once, as had the mahogany sideboard, but their glory days were behind them.
‘Life really has become much more exciting since you two moved to the village, you know,’ said Lady Farley-Stroud. ‘I’m sure the most interesting thing to have happened before you came was the occasional bit of late-night shenanigans behind the cricket pavilion during the mating season.’ She winked theatrically.
‘Steady on, old girl,’ said Sir Hector. ‘Don’t get yourself flusticated.’
‘There were fewer dead people, though, I shouldn’t wonder,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘No, m’dear,’ said Sir Hector. ‘Always plenty of murders around these parts. Somethin’ in the water, what?’
I remembered our friend Inspector Sunderland from the Bristol CID telling us that we’d moved to what he described as England’s ‘murder capital’. He had told us, as we helped unravel the mystery of a murder that had been committed in this very library, that there were ‘more murders per head of population in this part of Gloucestershire than anywhere else in the country’. It was going to be a relief to get away to Rutland, where no one was likely to die in suspicious circumstances and we could get on with the serious business of enjoying ourselves.
‘But that’s by the by, Hector, dear,’ said Lady Farley-Stroud, clearly keen to steer the subject away from dead bodies. ‘My point is that village life has been a great deal more eventful since Emily moved in. And it’s wonderful to have someone living in your house. We were afraid that it was going to remain empty when we heard that the chap who built it wouldn’t be returning to England quite as soon as he’d hoped. It could have fallen derelict, or become a haven for vagabonds. Terribly irresponsible of him, whoever he is.’
‘Jasper Laxton,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘We heard from him just the other day, actually. He’s staying in India for the foreseeable future, it seems – his business is suddenly prospering and his wife is trying to set up a school. I’m very seriously considering making an offer to buy the place from him, as a matter of fact.’
Lady Farley-Stroud very nearly clapped her hands. ‘Oh, I say, how wonderful. Oh, do please stay, Emily, dear. She should stay, shouldn’t she, Hector?’
Sir Hector had been sidling back towards the drinks tray when he heard his name. ‘What?’ he said distractedly. ‘Who should do what?’
‘Oh, Hector, do pay attention when we have guests,’ said his wife impatiently. ‘And don’t you dare refill that gin glass. You’ve had quite enough already.’
I rather suspected that Sir Hector might well have found a surreptitious way to defy his wife’s injunction, but the decision was taken from both of them by the arrival of Jenkins, who announced, in solemn tones, that dinner was served.
The dining room was as comfortingly shabby and unfashionable as the rest of the house. It was clean and mostly tidy, but the furniture and decoration had all seen better days. We were just four for dinner, and we sat together at one end of a large, highly-polished dining table that could seat at least sixteen, or twenty if they were all good chums.
Whatever one might say about Mrs Brown’s personality and the way she ran her kitchen and treated her subordinates, she was a fine cook. She had clearly been instructed to push the boat out for this evening’s meal, and Jenkins, with the help of Dewi, the footman, brought in course after course of some of the most delicious food I had tasted outside the restaurants of Paris. Well, perhaps that’s a tiny bit of an exaggeration, but Mrs Brown certainly treated food with a great deal more respect than she treated her underlings.
The conversation, assisted by copious quantities of very passable wine, was convivial to the point of jollity, and the Farley-Strouds each made a great effort to include me and make me feel welcome. By the time the pudding (an extravagant construction of meringue, liqueur-soaked fruit, and whipped cream) had been demolished, and Jenkins had left us with the cheese and port, I felt thoroughly at ease.
‘Now then, Hector,’ said Lady Hardcastle, helping herself to a generous slice of Double Gloucester and an even more generous glug of port, ‘just what exactly is this mysterious mystery you’ve brought us here to discuss? I do hope it’s enough of a puzzle for us to be able to repay you for this wonderful meal.’
I had been slightly surprised by the apparent extravagance of the meal myself, knowing as I did that the local landowners weren’t nearly so wealthy as the rest of the village believed. I shared Lady Hardcastle’s desire to do something to repay them for their generosity.
Sir Hector chuckled. ‘Don’t worry about the meal, m’dear. Just sharin’ me ill-gotten gains.’
Lady Hardcastle and I both looked enquiringly at Lady Farley-Stroud, hoping that she might elucidate.
She tutted and rolled her eyes. ‘Hector has been gambling. He and his old pal Jimmy Amersham – lives in a lovely old place over near Woodworthy – he and Jimmy will wager on almost anything that can race: horses, homing pigeons, bicycles, motor cars, runners . . . On one particularly desperate occasion, even ants crawling across the verandah rail. They went to a race meeting at Cheltenham last week and Hector actually managed to make a profit for once. So I have a new frock and we all had a special meal.’
‘No point in hangin’ on to it, eh? Might as well spend it while you’ve got it, what?’ said Sir Hector gleefully.
‘Quite right, too,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘It’s not like the progeny will put it to any better use once we’ve pegged out, eh?’
‘Be that as it may,’ persisted Lady Hardcastle, attempting to get the conversation back on course, ‘we do need to repay your generosity in some way, and you did mention a mystery on the telephone.’
‘Quite right, dear, I did,’ said Lady Farley-Stroud. ‘But bear in mind that this has nothing to do with me, and that I think it the very apogee of silliness.’
We turned to Sir Hector.
He looked slightly abashed, but after a few moments spent composing his thoughts, he began. ‘Feelin’ a bit foolish about it all, now that Gertie puts it like that. It’s Jimmy, y’see. Gertie’s right, we do love to wager; been doin’ it since we were youngsters. He’d bet me he could run to the oak
tree faster than I, then I’d bet him I could swim across the river faster than he. As we grew up, we’d bet on anything – horses, athletes, you name it. The favourite wagers were always the ones where we were doin’ the racin’. Our runnin’ and swimmin’ days are far behind us now, though, so we have to find our pleasures where we may. A few years ago, we saw a few young lads racing in some little go-carts they’d made. They’d found some wheels from somewhere, put them on old boxes, steerin’ the front wheels with a length of rope. They took ’em up to the top of a hill and raced each other to the bottom. And that got us thinkin’, d’y’see?’
Lady Hardcastle laughed. ‘Don’t tell me, you and Jimmy started building go-carts,’ she said. ‘How absolutely wonderful.’
‘Got it in one,’ said Sir Hector. ‘Build ’em and race ’em. Annual event. Invite some old pals down, make a weekend of it.’
‘And what’s the mystery?’ asked Lady Hardcastle, still doggedly trying to get him to get to the point.
‘Comin’ to that, m’dear. Comin’ to that. Old Jimmy, y’see, can’t bear to be beaten. Hates it. Me, I can take m’losses, but Jimmy gets in an awful black mood if he doesn’t win. Sometimes think he’d do anythin’ to avoid it. Startin’ to think he might be doing just that now, d’y’see? Doing anything to win. A couple of years ago, I had Bert help me with some special developments, some little enhancements to the cart, make it more streamlined, help it round the bends and whatnot. He’s quite the mechanic, our Bert – he doesn’t just drive the motor, knows it like his own child.
‘Anyway, we made all these tweaks and changes, and knew for certain we were going to win by miles, but blow me if Jimmy didn’t turn up on the day with almost exactly the same tweaks and changes to his cart. Last year, same thing: we tried some cunnin’ new changes Bert had read about from the motor racing world, and when old Jimmy wheels his go-cart to the startin’ line, there’s everything we’re trying, right there on his own wretched cart. Only one conclusion, isn’t there? The blighter’s spyin’ on us.’
Sir Hector looked genuinely aggrieved at this terrible turn of events, and I could see that Lady Hardcastle was trying hard not to laugh. Lady Farley-Stroud, too, was looking down at her empty cheese plate in a bid not to catch anyone’s eye, and I decided it was up to me to say something.
‘Are you sure, Sir Hector?’ I said. ‘Perhaps he’s just reading the same periodicals as Bert?’
‘Thought of that, m’dear,’ he said. ‘But what are the odds he’d do exactly the same things? All sorts of wild whatnots goin’ on in the motor racin’ world, and he just happens to try the same ones as us. No, he must be spyin’.’
‘Might he have an informer in your own household?’ I suggested.
‘Thought of that, too. Wouldn’t put it past young Dewi, I must admit, but he doesn’t know one end of a spanner from the other. He’d never be able to tell Jimmy anythin’ useful.’
‘Are you overlooked?’ I ventured. ‘Is there some way your work could be observed?’
‘Thought of that, as well, m’dear,’ he said despondently. ‘But we work in the courtyard – walled in, d’y’see. Walled in. No way to get so much as a peep.’
‘The mystery, then,’ said Lady Hardcastle, ‘is how does Mr Jimmy Amersham manage to find out what you’re up to and neutralize your engineering advantage by copying it?’
‘In a nutshell, m’dear, in the very nutshell.’
‘Do you know what I find always helps at a time like this?’ she said.
‘No?’ said Lady Farley-Stroud expectantly. ‘Do tell.’
‘Wait a moment,’ said Sir Hector, ‘I know. It’s your whatchamacallit, your blackboard thingy.’
‘My crime board? No.’
Sir Hector looked to his wife for assistance.
‘Don’t look at me, dear,’ said Lady Farley-Stroud. ‘I’ve no idea how she does it.’
‘Come on then, m’dear,’ said Sir Hector. ‘We give up. You’ll have to tell us.’
‘Brandy,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
The Farley-Strouds both laughed. ‘Then we’d better withdraw to the drawin’ room and see if we can’t offer you a drop or two.’
And we did.
We played several hands of bridge, where Lady Hardcastle and I were roundly beaten thanks to some extremely skilful play and a certain amount of reckless bidding from the old couple, who, we learned, had been playing together for over forty years and were seldom defeated.
When we became too befogged for cards, we moved through to the ballroom where the Farley-Strouds kept their magnificent baby grand, and Lady Hardcastle treated us to some Chopin and a little Schubert before we launched into a selection of ribald music hall songs, to which – to my gleeful astonishment – Lady Farley-Stroud knew not only the words but also the actions.
We left at two in the morning and walked home down the hill, having been assured that Bert would drive the Rover back to the house by nine o’clock the next day.
Dressing, breaking our fast, and finishing our packing were all accomplished at remarkable speed the next morning following far too little sleep and while still feeling the after-effects of our splendid evening with the Farley-Strouds.
I regretted Lady Hardcastle’s decision to give Edna and Miss Jones the whole week off. Couldn’t they start their holiday on Tuesday? I wondered as I cleared away the breakfast things and had one last tidy round.
Bert arrived with the Rover as the hall clock chimed nine and declared it a ‘fine little vehicle’, before politely declining my offer to drive him home in it and setting off on foot. He said that the walk would do him good, but I also suspected that an opportunity to wander into the village and then take his time getting back to The Grange was also quite appealing.
Not long afterwards, Newton arrived in Dr Fitzsimmons’s trap, ready to take us to the station in nearby Chipping Bevington, the railway never having quite made it as far as Littleton Cotterell. He was a stolid, henpecked man, whose abrasive wife was Dr Fitzsimmons’s housekeeper. I had met her during our first week in the village and hadn’t been favourably impressed. A convenient consequence of her domineering nature, however, was that Newton didn’t bat an eyelid when I told him that I would help him load our baggage on to the trap. He didn’t even comment on my strength, something which I found more refreshing and relaxing than any amount of ‘Here, let me do that for you, miss’ could ever be.
Within no time, everything was loaded and we were off on our sedate and steady way to Chipping railway station. Newton made no effort to engage either of us in conversation, but we were still sufficiently groggy that we were happy to spend the long ride in companionable silence. The sun was out, the air was warm, and I drank in the sights and smells of England at its late-summery best. From the trap’s high vantage point, we could see over hedgerows that occluded our view when we were in the little motor car, and I was able to get an early start on my study of the countryside with a good long look at some of the West Country’s finest dairy herds – from a reassuringly safe distance. Cows, as anyone with any sense knows, are terrifying beasts and should not be approached, but it was safe to view them from the other side of a sturdy English hedgerow. As the journey progressed and we drew nearer to our destination, I also managed a glimpse or two of some rather entertaining-looking pigs (Gloucestershire Old Spots, I sincerely hoped, though in truth I had no idea) rooting about near their little wooden huts in a field beside the road.
As we drew up at the station, the porter, who seemed to recognize us from our previous trips, hurried towards the trap with his trolley. He began cheerfully unloading the luggage almost before we had stopped moving. By the time Lady Hardcastle and I had clambered down and she had pressed a few coins into Newton’s hand for his trouble, the sturdy little porter had piled everything on to his sturdy little trolley and was already on his way towards the sturdy little ticket office.
He was waiting for us as we walked in.
‘Mornin’, m’lady,’ he said. ‘Nice to me
et you again. Just you have a word with Young Roberts there for your tickets and I’ll see you to your train.’
‘Thank you, Mr . . . ?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘Roberts, m’lady,’ he said, knuckling the peak of his railwayman’s cap. ‘“Old Roberts”, they calls me. Young Roberts over there behind the counter is me eldest, see. Railways is in our blood. There’s been Robertses here at Chipping Bevington station near sixty years now, startin’ with me grandfather, Mr Roberts.’
‘I say,’ said Lady Hardcastle with a smile as she approached the ticket counter. ‘How wonderful to be so well looked after. It’s like visiting an old family business.’
Roberts beamed proudly. His son looked faintly embarrassed, but gave a conspiratorial grin when Lady Hardcastle winked at him. ‘Two returns to Riddlethorpe, please,’ she said.
The young man reached under the counter and heaved up an enormous, well-thumbed volume. He spent some minutes flicking back and forth between the pages and making notes on a scrap of paper. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever sold a ticket to Riddlethorpe before, m’lady,’ he said when he had finished his calculations. ‘I shall have to note it in my book. I likes to keep track of all the places I sends people. It’s interestin’, I finds, seein’ where people gets to.’
She smiled warmly at him.
‘Your quickest route,’ he carried on, consulting his notes, ‘would be to get to Bristol Temple Meads, then get the express to Birmingham New Street. You can get a connection from there to Leicester, and then change on to the branch line to Riddlethorpe. Looks like you’ve arrived at exactly the right time, too. If you gets on the next train here, all your connections lines up nicely.’
The truth was that we knew this already, having spent almost an hour the previous weekend poring over Bradshaw’s Guide trying to work out the best way to get to Codrington Hall. But the young ticket clerk’s pleasure in having worked it all out for us was so evident that it would have been churlish to tell him.
