by Lynda Wilcox
She poured the tea and offered him the plate of crumpets.
“Now, tell me what you know of these jewel robberies?” she demanded.
He blinked and nearly dropped the plate. “Bejabers, is it always about work with you? Can’t you relax, even for a minute?”
She sat back and picked up her teacup, cradling it to her with both hands. Her mother would disapprove — the duchess believed that cups should only be held by the handle between thumb and forefinger — but Eleanor didn’t care. Mother was two hundred miles away.
“I’m sorry, Danny, and no, I can’t really be as carefree as you want me to be. I have a murderer and a missing boy to find. I told you before that I’m not playing at this.”
“You can say that again.”
“Look, if it makes you feel any better, once this case is finished and I’ve given you your scoop, then we’ll go out together and paint the town red. What about it?”
He waved a finger at her. “Be careful. I shall hold you to that. Now let me eat this crumpet whilst it’s still hot.”
Only when he’d eaten and drunk his fill did he return to the question she’d posed him.
“I’ve been hearing about these robberies for a day or so. Not surprisingly, most people are reluctant to talk about it. By my reckoning there have been at least half a dozen in almost as many days, and they usually take place when there are guests in the house.”
“Yes, that’s my understanding, too.”
“So it’s unlikely to be the servants that are responsible.”
“Do you know any fences, Danny?”
“No, but I’ve opened a fair few gates in my time.” He grinned, and was instantly apologetic. “Sorry. Not playing, you said. Right?”
Eleanor nodded.
“Well, strictly speaking, as acting as a fence is a criminal activity, then if I knew any I should tell the police. However, there’s a pawnbroker on the Edgeware Road, who isn’t too fussy what he takes in, or where it came from. Name of Hobson, as I recall.”
“Thank you. I may drop by there tomorrow and try and get him to talk.”
“Uh huh? Would you like company? I’m prepared to be your back up?”
Eleanor was considering the offer and about to accept — at the very least it would do no harm to have a witness — until he added, “The lady sits on the fence. It would make for a great story, and an even better headline.”
“Thanks for the offer. I’ll think about it and let you know.”
And if she went at all, she would take Tilly, not some story-hungry reporter.
Chapter 24
Eleanor went home with every intention of committing a breach of etiquette and turning up, uninvited, at a friend’s party. Luckily, a phone call from Ann saved her from this solecism.
“Hello, darling. Did I tell you I’ve organised a last minute party for Penelope Studley-Gore?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Oh, good, because I’m inviting you as my guest. Your man of interest is going to be there and it would give you a chance to work your wiles on him.”
“Oh?” Eleanor frowned. “And who might that be?”
“Gerald Hope-Weedon.”
About to refuse — two lots of Weedon in one day constituted a surfeit in her estimation — Eleanor changed her mind.
“Yes, all right, thanks. I’ll meet you there though, Ann. I’m going to call in on Barbara Lancashire on the way.”
“Rather you than me.” Ann’s tinkling laugh rang out. “I’ll see you there, then.”
To say that her erstwhile client was not pleased to see Eleanor was an understatement. She wasted no time in telling her so.
“Really, Lady Eleanor, this is most inconvenient. What on earth you want at this time of an evening I can’t imagine. Sir Robert and I have barely finished dinner, and I do not take kindly to the interruption.”
Her face had turned puce and the puckered mouth closed with a snap.
Eleanor, however had no time for her ladyship’s tantrums.
“How long had Sir David Bristol been blackmailing you?”
Barbara let out a squawk and sank, deflated, into an armchair with a hand to her throat, as if it was searching for the pearls that weren’t there.
“How...how did you know?”
“A simple matter of putting two and two together.”
“Please,” Barbara put out a hand. “You won’t tell Robert, will you?”
Eleanor shook her head. “I see no reason to. I presume it was over your gambling debts. Did it start at Menton? Did you have losses at the casino in Monte Carlo?”
“Yes.” Barbara wrung and twisted her hands, an abject figure. “Robert doesn’t know, though. I managed to keep it from him.”
“Bristol threatened to make your debts public?”
“Yes, in that rag of his, the Daily Banner.”
“And he demanded the necklace in exchange for keeping you out of the papers?”
A subtle change came over Lady Lancashire as Eleanor spoke, and an odd smile played around her lips. A look that might have been relief flashed in her eyes and was gone in an instant.
Relief at what? That her secret was out and that she no longer had to suffer blackmail? Or was it that the idea Eleanor had discussed with Armitage was correct?
“You do realise though, don’t you, that it gives you a motive for his murder.”
“Me? I did nothing of the sort.”
“No, but from where you sat in your box at the Viceroy you could see who did.”
Barbara cast her eyes down again. “I’m afraid not. I was looking at the stage.” She looked up. “I have explained that to a constable from Scotland Yard. He said he was asking everyone in a box at the Viceroy that night if they had seen anything. Ha! Ridiculous. No one could take their eyes off Deanna Dacre.”
“You didn’t hear the shot?”
“Certainly not.”
Eleanor was still puzzling over things when she arrived at Penelope Studley-Gore's party, but put a bright smile on her face as she embraced her hostess.
“You’ve obviously fully recovered from the ‘flu, I’m glad to see. I hope you don’t mind me inviting myself to your guest list, although Ann Carstairs must take most of the blame.”
“Not at all, darling, I’m delighted to see you. How’s the sleuthing business? I’ve been reading a lot of the Sherlock Holmes stories lately, and started to think of you when I do.”
“Good heavens, I hope not.” Eleanor laughed. “I don’t look good in a deerstalker and as for smoking a pipe...ugh.”
“Did you manage to speak to Marjorie Arbuthnot? Was she any use to you?”
“Yes to both of those, and thank you for pointing me in her direction.”
“Oh, you’re more than welcome. I’m glad I was able to help. Well, come in. I’m sure there are plenty of people here that you know. Make yourself at home. The drinks are in the dining room which is where I suspect you’ll find Ann.”
She drifted away to speak to other guests and Eleanor glanced around for her quarry, then having spotted him, wandered into the dining room for a drink.
As Penny had suggested, many of the faces of those clustered around the long table at the rear of the room were familiar to Eleanor. She chatted amiably for a while, nibbling on olives, drinking a cocktail, and listening to all the society gossip.
No one mentioned jewel thefts, and even the murder of so notable a character as Sir David Bristol was ignored. The talk was all of fashion, jazz musicians, cars, and forthcoming parties.
Feeling old, Eleanor left them to it and went back into the main room looking for Ann.
With the exception of a settee and a smattering of upright chairs, most of the furniture that had made the room feel so overstuffed on Eleanor’s previous visit had been moved out.
Gerald Hope-Weedon leaned against the wall next to the fireplace smoking a cigarette and talking to a man in a dark suit.
“I fear that MacDonald is an idealist and doesn’t ha
ve a clue. Mark my words, Baldwin will be back in power by the end of the year.”
“Naturally, we shall do our best to prevent that.” Hope-Weedon sounded his usual smug self.
Eleanor groaned inwardly. She hated politics, but that was what this case was all about. If she was to solve a murder for Deanna Dacre, and help Major Armitage catch his spies, then she had to put up with political talk and politicians.
She stepped closer, deliberately putting herself in the eyeline of the man in the dark suit, Penelope’s husband, Sir Peregrine Studley-Gore.
“Hello, Lady Eleanor. Has Penny sent you to tell me off?” He smiled at her before turning back to his companion. “Penny hates it when I talk politics, but what else is there to talk about to a politician, eh? Ha ha.”
“Not at all, Perry.” Eleanor returned his smile. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“Good-oh, what? Do you know Mr Gerald Hope-Weedon, my lady?”
“Yes, we have met.” She held out a hand to the politician, and suppressed a shiver as he raised to it his lips.
“Ah, yes, Lady Eleanor Bakewell. A pleasure to meet you again, Lady Eleanor.”
“Thank you. That was quite a speech you gave in the House today, Mr Hope-Weedon.”
“You were there? Oh, and please call me Gerald.”
“Yes, I was. I thought, though, that you were attached to the Foreign and not the Home Office.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Well, yes, but that doesn’t stop me speaking out on matters of social inequality and injustice.”
“And what do you propose to do about that?”
“Yes, Weedon,” Sir Peregrine put in. “They say the poor will always be with us. What can your party do to change that?”
“Better and more affordable housing, perhaps?” asked Eleanor, remembering Cook Place.
“A lot of that is down to the landlords who don’t maintain their properties, yet charge extortionate rents, and there are far too many houses, especially within London, that are left empty by their owners. Take Bakewell House as an example. There is nothing to stop the Duke renting it out to tenants and those lower down the social scale.”
Now that he had got going, Eleanor plastered a rapt smile on her face and pretended to take an interest. She watched him closely, unable to shift the feeling that the man was putting on as good a performance as any given by Deanna Dacre at the Viceroy. He might espouse socialist ideals, but she doubted that he truly believed in them.
He was a fraud.
But not a fool. Certainly not that. Ann Carstairs had called him dangerous. She had better watch her step.
Peregrine, although constantly looking around, fearful that his wife might overhear him, interrupted from time to time. Eleanor considered that he made some good and well thought out arguments, but Hope-Weedon rarely answered them to her satisfaction, happy to steamroller on with the rhetoric.
She took out a cigarette which Hope-Weedon lit for her, and excused herself, saying she needed a drink and to find her friend.
What she really needed was time alone to sit and think.
She was sure, now, of many things that had previously puzzled her, though two things still eluded her. The most important of which was the whereabouts of young Joe Minshull.
“Hello, darling, glad to see you made it.”
Ann appeared at her side as if from nowhere. She looked flushed and flustered.
“Oh, I’ve been here a while,” Eleanor replied. “What happened to you? I looked everywhere for you.”
“I got stuck. Just be warned that if you need to use the Studley-Gores’ bathroom, that there’s a dodgy lock on the door. It’s taken me twenty minutes to get out and an unknown gentleman didn’t bother to help. He said he couldn’t wait and was going to inspect the garden.”
“Oh, dear.”
Eleanor couldn’t help but laugh at her friend’s predicament.
“It’s not funny.” Ann scowled.
“No, but look on the bright side. If you needed to go again, then at least you were on the inside.”
Ann flicked at her fringe. “If there’s a next time, you’re coming with me to guard the door. Have you seen Hope-Weedon?”
“Yes, thank you. I left him boring poor old Peregrine to death.”
“What a heartless woman you are. Poor Perry doesn’t deserve that.”
“Actually, he made more sense than Weedon. I think he was enjoying himself and winding Weedon up.”
They walked to the table for more drinks.
“Well, I hope it was useful to you, anyway. What about Barbara Lancashire? Two bores in one night, eh? You’re a glutton for punishment.”
Eleanor buried her nose in her glass, debating how much to confide in Ann. “I know I keep asking you about that night at the Viceroy, but are you sure you didn’t hear a shot?”
“Positive.” Ann took the olive out of her drink and had a good swig.
“Then how come I did?”
“You were closer, that’s all.”
“But then, someone in the box the other side should have heard it, and everyone out the front as well.”
“Maybe they did and did nothing about it. Or maybe the shot was muffled in some way. The killer may have had a silencer on the gun.”
Eleanor nodded, almost to herself, and ran a thumbnail over her bottom lip. “Yes, that’s a possibility. In fact...thanks, Ann. I think that’s just helped solve the case.”
“Oh, I have my moments.” She stepped back with a laugh. “But don’t offer to kiss me like the last time I helped you out, or we’ll be getting entirely the wrong reputation.”
“Idiot!”
“So what do we do now? Beard the killer in his den, shouting j’accuse, or hare round to Scotland Yard in a taxi to tell our Chief Inspector friend?”
“Neither. I’m going to go home and think it through, dotting my I’s and crossing my T’s. Our killer isn’t going anywhere. It will wait until morning.”
Chapter 25
It was barely light when Eleanor got up the next morning after a night spent trying to make sense of what she had learned at Penelope’s party.
“I’ll just have toast and coffee, please, Tilly, and then we must get to Bakewell House. We will need fuses and possibly flash lights and the spare key to the back door.”
“Very well, my lady.”
Risking indigestion in her haste, Eleanor wolfed down her breakfast and ordered the car brought around.
“It isn’t far. Couldn’t we walk it?” asked Tilly, as her mistress finished speaking to the man at the garage and replaced the receiver.
“I’m sorry, but I really think we should hurry.”
Bakewell House stood as dark and silent as the last time Eleanor had been there. Glad that she had thought to bring the torches, she wanted still more light.
“The fuses first, Tilly. Is the box for them in the scullery?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“Come on, then.”
Eleanor led the way and with Tilly’s assistance the fuses were put into their box. Back in the kitchen, Eleanor pressed the switch and the room flooded with light.
“That’s better.” She glanced around and pointed to the candles on the table. “Look, Tilly. I said there’d been someone in here, didn’t I? What do you make of it?”
“Yes, you’re right.” The maid sniffed, but this was not her normal comment on the ways of the world. “Cigarette smoke. It’s stale, but it’s there, and I’ll swear mother put a dust cloth over this table before she left, so that’s been moved.” She strode to the window and put a hand on one of the boards. “This is loose. They must have got in this way, then put the board back.”
“I wonder who it was. Is the window open?”
The maid squinted through a gap in the boards. “A fraction, possibly. Whoever did this must have jemmied it open, then pushed the board away to get in. Have you checked upstairs to see if anything’s been taken?”
Eleanor shook her head. “No, but that can
wait. Apart from some fine pieces of furniture which would be hard to shift, Father made sure they left nothing of value.”
“Hello? What’s this?”
Tilly bobbed down, disappearing from view on the far side of the table.
“What have you found?”
Eleanor put both hands on the table and leaned over, trying to see what the maid was up to.
“There’s a piece of cigarette ash, and some crumbs.” Tilly stood up. “Biscuit crumbs by the looks of things. Look!” She pointed towards the back door. “There’s more over there. There! Do you see? Sprinkled in a line.”
“As though someone were laying a trail, you mean?”
“That would be my guess.”
Eleanor strode around the table, eyes on the ground. She soon saw what Tilly had seen and pulled a key out of her pocket as the maid tried the door.
“It’s locked.”
“Yes, and no key in it, nor hanging where it should be. Does that mean they are coming back? Never mind. Let’s get it open and see where those crumbs lead.”
Outside, a path ran down through the neat beds of the kitchen garden to a pair of sheds and an old lock-up garage.
Eleanor pulled the door to behind her, while Tilly bent over and inspected the path. “It’s lucky it hasn’t rained, I can see more crumbs up there.”
“They must be leading to the garage. Come on.”
“Be careful, my lady. You don’t know who, or what may be in there.”
No, but Eleanor knew what she hoped lay inside. The door was kept closed by a heavy wooden plank that rested on two metal brackets. Eleanor stood to one side of it.
“Wait! Perhaps I should go back for the rolling pin.”
“You’re as practical as ever, old girl, but I have my pistol in my pocket should I need it. Grab hold of the other end of this plank, will you. It’s going to take the two of us to shift it.”
They raised it up, moved it away and dropped it at the edge of the path. Then, Eleanor wrenched the door open.