Feeling satisfied that she had won yet another battle with the excellent but exceedingly temperamental chef, Bess went to the dining room and walked among the tables. Crisp, white, and perfectly ironed tablecloths had been placed on the tables in such a way that ensured the same amount of fabric hung over the four sides of each table. Looking about her to make sure she wasn’t being watched, Bess straightened a couple of uneven place settings on the table nearest to the window, before counting twelve porcelain Reserved markers.
Most guests found a table on their first night and stuck to it for the time they were staying at the hotel. Tables nearest the windows were favourite, because of the views. Tonight, every table with a view was taken, which was academic because the sky was already darkening. By the time the guests came down for dinner there would be little or nothing of the grounds or the lake to see.
Checking for dust, Bess ran her fingers along the window ledge - a habit she had picked up while working in a hotel in Leicester. She glanced at her finger. There was no dust! Before leaving Bess cast her eyes over the room. Everything was in its place, everything was just as it was supposed to be.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘Mrs Donnelly?’
The nerves on the top of Bess’s stomach tightened at the sound of Detective Inspector Masters’ voice. ‘Yes,’ she said, looking up and putting on a smile.
‘Do you have room for one more at dinner tonight? I’d be very grateful. I have been staying at the Denbigh Arms in Lowarth, but I had to go up to London for a couple of days and when I got back someone new to the job, the manager said, had let my room and there isn’t another. The hotel is full.’
It flashed through Bess’s mind that the inspector was lying. The Denbigh might be full on a Friday night, but if someone had let his room by accident, surely the manager would have offered him dinner. He owed him that much. Bess gave the Detective Inspector a cautious smile. If he was lying she could easily find out. She looked around the room and pointed to three tables that hadn’t been reserved. ‘Where would you like to sit?’
‘Here will be fine,’ the inspector said, his hand on the back of the chair of the nearest table.
Bess went to the chest of drawers and took a Reserved sign from it. ‘This is your table, then,’ she said, handing him a menu. ‘Dinner is served from seven for guests who have pre-ordered. If you decide what you want now you’ll be served then, or just after. If you order when the dining room opens at six forty-five, you’ll have a wait for your meal. The meat is already in the oven, for obvious reasons, but everything else is cooked fresh.’
‘Home-made vegetable soup, and lamb casserole,’ the inspector said.
‘Good choice. I’ll give your order to Chef. If you’d like to go up to the smoking lounge. Have a look at today’s newspaper, perhaps?’
‘I was wondering if I could have a word with you and your husband in private?’
Bess’s heart plummeted, but she said, ‘Yes, of course,’ and on the way to the office, popped her head round the kitchen door. ‘One more for dinner tonight, Chef. Vegetable soup and lamb casserole. Is that all right?’ The chef put up his hand. ‘If you need me to help with the washing up later, let me know. I’ll be in the office.’
‘Do you have to work in the kitchen as well?’ the inspector asked.
‘Only when Chef’s short staffed - and he is tonight, he has just lost his washer-upper.’
Inspector Masters stopped at the reception desk. ‘I won’t be a moment,’ he said, ‘I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome, so I only made a temporary booking for tonight. I had better confirm.’
Bess pointed to the door with brass plaque on it that said Private and left the inspector with Jack.
‘Inspector Masters wants to talk to us.’ Bess kissed her husband as she passed him and sat down at her desk.
‘Now what?’
‘No idea, but I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. He has just ordered dinner and now he’s in reception booking a room for tonight. He wouldn’t be doing that if he was going to accuse either of us of murdering David Sutherland, would he?’
‘I suppose not. I wonder why he’s staying here?’
‘He said the Denbigh was full.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me. Henry was saying there’s a Masonic do on somewhere. He said the town’s heaving. Apparently Freemasons from all over the county have descended on Lowarth for the weekend.’
Bess wrinkled her nose. ‘Oh, and Chef has sacked Mrs Sharp.’
‘What for?’
‘Gossiping. She saw McGann leave this morning, then she saw me in tears. She heard me say, he knows, and decided I meant McGann knew I’d killed Sutherland. I’m only telling you because I might have to do a stint of washing up later.’
‘It’ll be all over Woodcote by this time tomorrow,’ Frank said.
‘Tomorrow? You underestimate Mrs Sharp’s ability to spread bad news.’
‘Does Chef have a replacement in mind? We’re busy next week.’
‘No idea.’ Bess groaned. ‘I had to kiss Chef’s backside earlier - metaphorically speaking. I’ll probably have to do the same to Mrs Sharp to persuade her to come back, if Chef can’t find anyone to do her job. Washing greasy dishes isn’t exactly a sought after career.’
There was a knock at the door and Frank got up and opened it. He shook Detective Inspector Masters’ hand. ‘What do you want with us, Inspector? After the hell Sergeant McGann put my wife through earlier today, I’d have thought you had all the information you need.’
‘I have no intention of asking any more questions about David Sutherland. I am satisfied that neither you, your wife, or Miss Dudley - I mean, Mrs Burrell - had anything to do with his death.’ Bess looked quizzically at the inspector. ‘I arrived back from London a few hours ago and went to the Denbigh to drop off my case. As you know, Mrs Donnelly, I wasn’t able to do that because I no longer had a room. While I was there, however, I bumped into Henry Green. He told me that McGann had been here today and that he had interrogated you, so I went to see him at the police station.’
The inspector turned at the sound of chatter and laughter on the other side of the office door. A second later, Claire and Ena came giggling into the room followed by Henry.
‘Excuse me, Inspector,’ Bess said. Jumping up she ran to her sisters and hugged them.
‘Is Aimee with you, Claire?’ Frank asked.
‘She’s in the car asleep. Would you fetch her?’ Claire gave Frank her car keys and when he had gone, turned on Inspector Masters. ‘What are you doing here? Can’t you give my sister a moment’s peace?’
Masters put his hand up in a friendly gesture. ‘I am not here to interview Mrs Donnelly, I am here to apologise for Sergeant McGann’s behaviour today.’
‘Inspector Masters knows the score, Claire,’ Henry said. ‘Go on, Inspector.’
‘After speaking to Henry earlier, I went up to Lowarth police station. McGann had clearly been waiting for my return because before I’d had time to take off my coat, he began making excuses for coming here today, and gabbled out the most preposterous lies.’ The inspector turned and looked at Bess. ‘As I said, I came here to apologise to you, Mrs Donnelly. And,’ he looked at Henry and laughed, ‘the Denbigh really did let my room to someone else.’
A dull thud on the door told Bess that Frank wanted to come in but had his hands full. Claire stood up, but it was the inspector who got to the door first and opened it. ‘I’ll take her up and put her in our bed,’ Frank said, ‘until you get a room sorted out, Claire.’
‘What if she wakes up? She won’t know where she is,’ Bess said.
‘I’ll stay up there. I need to finish that paperwork,’ Frank motioned with a nod of the head to a mound of papers on his desk. ‘I can work on the table in the sitting room.’
‘But you’ve had nothing to eat, Frank. You can’t keep going without food.’
‘I’ll get Chef to make Frank something, and I’ll take it up,’ Ena said, leavin
g the office.
‘I had better go up too, in case Aimee wakes,’ Claire said.
‘Bring the papers on my desk, Claire, and the reservations diary.’
‘You go, Claire, I’ll bring the papers,’ Henry stacked dozens of bills and hotel receipts on top of the diary. ‘When I’ve taken this lot to Frank, I’ll go back to the Denbigh, see who shows up. I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Henry said to Inspector Masters, before kissing Bess on the cheek.
When the family had bustled noisily out of the office, the inspector turned to Bess. ‘I was hoping I’d get to speak to you on your own.’ Bess felt a surge of panic rise in her stomach. The inspector must have sensed her discomfort, because he said, ‘It’s nothing for you to worry about, but while I was in London I called on Mr and Mrs Goldman. There’s nothing for you to worry about there either. Police procedure! Eliminate them from the enquiry.
‘They made me very welcome, offered me refreshment and showed me around the theatre - backstage too,’ he said excitedly. ‘And of course, they verified yours and Miss Dudley’s story at New Year. They are good people,’ he said.
‘Yes, they are.’
‘They told me Miss Dudley, Mrs Burrell, has had the baby and they are both doing well.’
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when you first came in.’ Bess looked quizzically at the man sitting in front of her. ‘I didn’t realise you had a personal interest in my sister. I don’t mean to be nosy, but you often call Margot “Miss Dudley.” Did you know her in London? See her at the theatre perhaps, in one of the shows?’
The inspector smiled sheepishly, as a teenage boy might. ‘Yes. I saw Miss Dudley in several shows at the Prince Albert Theatre. Whenever I was home on leave my uncle got me a ticket.’
Bess rocked back in her chair, open mouthed. ‘Your uncle was the lovely stage doorman, Bert Masters?’
‘Yes.’ Inspector Masters smiled with pride. ‘Uncle Bert told me about the girl Sutherland beat up at the time. He was very fond of all the dancers, especially those who didn’t have family in London. He had no children of his own and saw himself as a father figure. From what I’ve since been told, my uncle never forgave himself for not being able to keep Miss Trick safe. It’s for her--’
‘And for your uncle?’ Bess suggested.
‘Yes, and for me. Sutherland slipped through my fingers in 1938 and I joined up in the summer of thirty-nine. I’ve thought many times since then that, if I’d stayed a copper and put him away, he wouldn’t have been around to hurt Miss Trick, or anyone else.’
‘But you couldn’t have known Sutherland would do what he did. You left the police force to fight in a war that put an end to fascism and Nazism. You’ll never know how many women you, and men like you, saved from fascists like Sutherland.’
The inspector raised his eyebrows. ‘I’d like to think that’s true,’ he said, with concern. ‘When I heard that Sutherland had been found dead in a lake in the Midlands - and he’d been an associate of Gerald Hawksley’s - I was determined to investigate the case. Meeting Miss Dudley again was a bonus. Meeting you all was. I am not sorry that the Denbigh didn’t save my room. I feel as if I’m among friends here. And I think the Foxden Hotel is splendid. I love the marble hall and the sweeping staircase. From the little I’ve seen so far, the hotel is full of old-world charm and character.
‘It is probably because you and your husband have done so well for yourselves that Sergeant McGann has got a bee in his bonnet about you.’
‘We’ve worked hard to make the hotel a success,’ Bess said, ‘and we will have to work hard for many years to come. But it’s worth it. When Frank was signed off as fit after losing his eye, he couldn’t go back to the engineering factory where he had done an apprenticeship before the war; it would have been too dangerous. He got a security job at Bitteswell Aerodrome and I carried on working on the estate here at Foxden.
‘When the war ended the Land Army didn’t disband, but when the local lads were demobbed they naturally wanted jobs. Many of them had been farm workers, and so the Land Girls moved on to other work. I thought about going back to teaching, but I’d missed the beginning of the school year, so I got a job in a hotel in Leicester. At that time, Lord Foxden’s plan was to lease the Foxden Acres, which had been turned into farmland, to the tenant farmers and restore Foxden Hall to its former glory.
‘The servants’ quarters, kitchen and the library, were redecorated. And the ballroom, which had been a large open ward for recuperating servicemen after Dunkirk, was reinstated. The refurbishment of the rooms in the west wing, which was the main hospital wing, took a lot of work but they were eventually turned back into bedrooms.
‘The rooms where Lady Foxden had spent much of her time during the war, while her husband was in London at the War Office, had been decorated to her taste and her carpets and furniture brought out of storage. Everything was pretty much ready for her return.’
‘But she didn’t return?’ Inspector Masters said.
‘No. When Lord and Lady Foxden visited the Hall, just after the work was completed, Her Ladyship announced that she could never come back to Foxden to live. The memories of her son, James, growing up here and then being killed, were too distressing. James was a bomber pilot,’ Bess explained. ‘He was shot down over Germany.’
Bess winced at her own painful memory, then forced herself to continue brightly. ‘So, Lord Foxden entrusted the Hall to me.’ Bess saw the inspector’s eyes widen. ‘James was my fiancé and Lady Foxden said if James had lived we would have been married by now and Foxden Hall would have been our home. Frank and I couldn’t afford the upkeep of the Hall, even if I went back to full time teaching. So, Frank, Lord Foxden and I had a meeting and we came up with the Foxden Hotel.
‘Obviously we couldn’t do it on our own, we didn’t have the money, so Lord Foxden became our partner. He still owns the Hall, and he loaned us our share of the refurbishment costs, which we are paying him back. So, yes, I am proud. The Foxden Hotel is our business, our responsibility, and it is our home for as long as we want it.’
Bess was brought out of her reverie by Ena poking her head round the door. ‘Dinner’s ready. I’ve taken beef sandwiches up to Frank and I’ve sweet-talked Chef into finding enough food for me and Claire.’ Ena giggled. ‘He threw his hands in the air and said, after the guests have eaten, he’ll bring anything left over to the dining room and we can do with it what we want.’
Bess laughed out loud. ‘How did you manage that?’
‘I said we would do the washing up afterwards,’ Ena said, and ran.
Chef was as good as his word. When Bess and the inspector arrived in the dining room, there was so much food on the first non-reserved table that there was hardly room to sit and eat at it. A waitress brought in the inspector’s soup and placed it on the table that Bess had reserved for him, and Bess joined her sisters.
‘Any chance of me sitting with you?’ the inspector asked, with his bowl of soup in his hands. Bess got up and smiled apologetically at an elderly couple who had been enjoying their meal in the quiet, tranquil, atmosphere of an old English country house, until Ena and Claire entered and put a stop to it with their chattering.
Bess took a chair from the nearest vacant table and placed it next to hers. At the same time, Claire pushed several dishes of food closer together to make space for the inspector’s plate. ‘This is fun,’ the inspector said, to the grumpy couple on the next table who were looking down their noses at him. ‘Dinner with all my wives at the same time is such a rarity.’ Bess bit her lip, while Ena and Claire giggled. The miserable couple, Bess noticed, had found something interesting about their serviettes to talk about and were straightening them on their laps.
The inspector looked up at Bess from under bushy eyebrows. ‘Sorry,’ he chuckled, ‘I hope I haven’t lost you two future customers.’
Bess frowned at him and mouthed shush, but was unable to keep a straight face. ‘Eat your food while it’s hot, darling,’ she said, wagging her fi
nger.
‘I’ll make it up to you,’ the inspector said, and called over a waitress. ‘A bottle of your best--’ He looked across the table at Ena and Claire who both suggested red, and Bess nodded in agreement. ‘Your best red, please.’
‘A good wine, Sylvie,’ Bess said pointedly. The waitress nodded that she had understood her boss, and went off to get a bottle of medium priced red wine. After going to the kitchen, for Chef to uncork it, Sylvie returned with the bottle and four glasses. She poured a little wine into the first glass and gave it to the inspector to taste. He took a sip, swished it about in his mouth and nodded his approval. Blushing, Sylvie filled each glass to just over a quarter, removed a dirty dish from the centre of the table, and put the wine in its place.
‘Excuse me, Mrs Donnelly,’ Sylvie said, ‘Chef would like to see you when you have a minute.’
‘Thank you, Sylvie. Tell him I’m on my way.’ Bess rose from the table with a sigh. ‘What now? I’ll be back in a jiffy,’ she said, leaving the dining room.
Opening the door to the kitchen, Bess came eye to eye with Mrs Sharp. Ignoring the woman, she looked across the kitchen to the chef. ‘You wanted me, Chef?’ He raised his hand and flicked a limp wrist in the direction of Foxden Hotel’s dish-washer.
‘It’s me as wanted to see you, Mrs Donnelly,’ Mrs Sharp said, looking down at her wedding ring and twisting it round her finger. Bess didn’t speak, but waited to be enlightened. ‘It’s my husband you see. He sent me to ask for my job back.’ Bess looked at the chef again, and he looked to the heavens and shrugged. ‘It were unforgivable of me to say what I said. I don’t know what come over me. But if you could find it in your heart to let me have my job back…’
‘It isn’t up to me, Mrs Sharp. Kitchen staff are Chef’s responsibility. If he is willing to forget the trouble you caused tonight, I am. But, and I think Chef will agree with me on this, there must be no more malicious gossip.’ Joan Sharp hung her head, but Bess felt she needed to drive the message home. ‘Listening to another person’s conversation, hearing only part of it and then repeating what you think they meant, can have terrible consequences. Apart from which, it is a very unkind thing to do.’ Joan Sharp looked as if she was about to burst into tears. ‘If it happens again, Chef won’t be so lenient with you.’
Foxden Hotel (The Dudley Sisters Saga Book 5) Page 15
