A Very English Murder

by Verity Bright

  ‘Yeah. ’Cos who’d believe them? Wouldn’t stand a chance, all three’s got a record, one of them longer than your arm.’

  ‘So, to protect your friends, you agreed to kidnap Lady Swift,’ Clifford said.

  Eleanor tilted her head. ‘So who set you up, Mr Cooper? Who was it who threatened your friends?’

  He held her gaze. ‘Couldn’t say.’

  Clifford slid forward in his seat and added an edge to his voice. ‘What a shame. It seems then that you will have to pay your full dues for preying on a helpless woman. Your full dues… or maybe more?’

  Ambrose started out of his chair. ‘Now see here.’

  ‘No!’ Clifford leaned in to Ambrose’s face. ‘You see here, Mr Cooper. Strange to you though it may seem, I understand entirely where you’ve come from. I even sympathise that your efforts to go straight were thwarted by someone who wanted a lackey to do his dirty work. However, the matter rests that you attempted to attack a woman, and that is unforgivable. I am offering you one chance to redeem yourself. I suggest you take it before I change my mind.’

  Ambrose sunk back into the chair. ‘But I can’t!’

  Eleanor flapped a hand. ‘Oh, let him make his choice, Clifford. It’ll be several years before he gets out of prison. Then, if he’s lucky, his paymaster will have forgotten that he was going to take Mr Cooper’s kneecaps as souvenirs for squealing to the judge to reduce his sentence. I’ll go and ring the detective inspector. He’ll be here before lunch, I’m sure.’

  ‘Stop!’ Ambrose wrung his hands. ‘Please, miss, I didn’t mean to yell at a lady, any more than I meant to kidnap her… you. I didn’t know what to do, honest.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Clifford sat back in his chair. ‘But you know what to do now, don’t you, Mr Cooper?’

  ‘I’d tell you who made me do it if I could, really, guv. I never met him. Just got messages.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Notes, paper notes, nothing fancy.’

  ‘Have you got any with you?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘Nah, burnt them every time. It don’t do to leave evidence, that’s how they catch up with you.’

  Clifford picked up the thread. ‘What did the note that told you to kidnap Lady Swift say?’

  Ambrose sighed. ‘It said to grab the lady, by any means, but not to hurt her too much and deliver her to the crossroads way out past the end of the village.’ He spread his hands. ‘Honest, guv, I done me best but the likes of me can never get away from being brought up wrong. We was fools to think it could ever be different. Didn’t work for Honky.’

  Clifford’s brow creased. ‘Honky? You knew Jack Cornell, didn’t you!’

  Thirty-Five

  ‘That’s right. Poor blighter, oh sorry, miss.’ Ambrose smiled at Eleanor but she was staring at Clifford with her mouth agape.

  ‘Clifford?’

  ‘Apologies, my lady, I should explain. Cockney relies on simple rhymes and obtuse associations. “Corn” rhymes with “horn” and “hell” with “bell”, so “Cornell” becomes “Horn bell”. However, to disguise it further, the noise a horn makes is substituted for the word itself, so horns honk, hence “Honky”. Thus “Cornell”, “Honky Bell”. Simple really.’

  Ambrose stared between them. ‘It ain’t complicated, not like you made it sound. Just comes natural like. Used to be a way to talk without the bluebottles knowing what you was saying. But then they started to cotton on, so we had to make it a bit more’ – he grinned at Eleanor – ‘sophisticated, like.’

  Eleanor nodded. ‘Understood, Mr Cooper. But tell us how you were acquainted with Jack Cornell.’

  He looked unsure for a moment but then seemed resigned to his lack of options. ‘I met Old Honky when I was doing time with me mates in Wormwood Scrubs.’

  Eleanor looked to Clifford for a translation.

  ‘It isn’t rhyming slang, my lady. Wormwood Scrubs is in fact the name of a prison, near Hammersmith in London.’

  Ambrose thumped the arm of the chair. ‘Terrible place it is. We swore we’d never go back, and we’d help each other stay on the straight and narrow. Ain’t easy, you know.’

  ‘I imagine not.’ Clifford spoke slowly. ‘Mr Cooper, we believe Jack Cornell did not commit suicide. He was murdered.’

  Ambrose’s jaw dropped. ‘Done in, you say?’

  ‘Yes,’ Eleanor said. ‘And we suspect it was by the same person who forced you into trying to kidnap me.’

  ‘Blimey! Oh, sorry, miss.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘Old Honky done in? But what for?’

  Clifford shook his head. ‘That is what we are trying to find out. Help us, Mr Cooper, for Jack’s sake if nothing else.’

  Ambrose nodded slowly as if in shock. ‘I honestly thought his plan would work. He got accepted onto that programme where you get help to find a job and a place to live. Help to have your bad past all forgotten like. He should a been on his way up.’

  Clifford nodded in agreement. ‘But somewhere, somehow, someone tricked and manipulated him. Just as they did you.’

  ‘Did you see Jack recently?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘About two or three months ago. He wasn’t looking so good, weight of the world on his shoulders.’

  ‘We suspect Jack was being blackmailed. He must have been getting notes like you did.’

  Ambrose shook his head. ‘He never said nothing about it.’

  ‘You seem very sure, Mr Cooper,’ Clifford said. ‘The suicide note that was found with him said he had been blackmailed.’

  ‘Suicide note? Old Honky wouldn’t a left no suicide note! He could read a bit, numbers and things, but he never learned to write.’ Clifford and Eleanor shared a look. They’d both suspected that Cornell’s suicide note was a fake, but now they had firm evidence. Ambrose was still talking. ‘He could just about sign his name. Looked like it had been signed by a spider with a set of broken legs, mind.’ Ambrose dragged himself from his chair and stood unsteadily before them. ‘Suppose you’re going to ring the police now.’

  ‘Not a bit, Mr Cooper.’ Eleanor grinned. ‘I’m going to return to the kitchen and ask Cook to pop down with some of her pastries and a pot of coffee.’

  Ambrose shook his head. ‘Don’t really understand why you ain’t turned me in yet, but mighty kind, miss.’

  ‘Well, Mr Cooper, we’re hoping you may be able to help us further. We may be back to pick your brain on how to trap the man responsible for all this misery later.’

  ‘Whatever you says. If I can help catch the b—, sorry, miss, catch the lowlife what murdered Honky, I’ll be proud to do it.’

  Back in the kitchen, Clifford pulled on his gloves. ‘I have another contact, a petty villain your uncle also helped back onto the straight and narrow. There is a possibility he may be able to furnish us with a clue as to the identity of the real brains behind all this now that Mr Cooper has told us what he knows. I will be back as soon as I can.’

  Left alone with her staff, Eleanor realised they were waiting for her direction. After the perils of the previous days, she felt she’d earned an evening off from sleuthing. It really could be quite draining! ‘Well, it’s been a funny sort of day, ladies. So, being new to country house rules…’ The three women rocked with laughter. ‘I think it calls for a celebration! How does one celebrate with one’s staff?’

  Mrs Butters answered, ‘Well, my lady, in a grand house them as is downstairs never stops working. So if the lady of the house is to hobnob with us, she’ll have to pull on an apron and muck in.’

  Eleanor grinned. ‘Let the hobnobbing begin!’

  The housekeeper smiled. ‘Polly, get her ladyship a fresh apron from the linen cupboard, clear away the silver and start on them vegetables. You remember what Mrs Trotman said we’re making for tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Butters.’ Polly nodded. ‘Potatoes, peas and corn.’

  The cook tutted. ‘Celery, onions and tomatoes. We’re making slow-braised brisket, child. And finishing the fish. Where is your memory?’

&nbs
p; Polly pulled an apologetic face at Eleanor, who gave her a reassuring shrug.

  Mrs Butters brought two bottles of wine from the pantry and placed them next to the cook. Mrs Trotman added a generous splash from one bottle into the pan she was stirring on the range. As she tied on the freshly starched apron Polly handed her, Eleanor’s nose started tingling at the mix of delicious aromas circling the kitchen.

  ‘One moment, Polly.’ Eleanor took down four glasses from the shelf. Mrs Butters poured them each a wine, adding half water to Polly’s glass and topping up Eleanor’s generously.

  With the fish wrapped in paper, Mrs Trotman dispatched Polly to the cool pantry. ‘Place them carefully on the bottom shelf, my girl.’ The cook grinned at Eleanor. ‘Doesn’t seem altogether fair to keep the fish in the cellar as usual, my lady, not with our gentleman visitor down there.’

  ‘Well, at least he’ll have some company.’ Eleanor giggled.

  The next hour passed with entertaining anecdotes of dinner party disasters and eccentric visitors to the Hall from the cook and the housekeeper. The second bottle of wine had been opened and the ladies’ faces were glowing a soft pink. Giggles turned to roars of laughter as they moved on to good-natured chit-chat about the more colourful characters of the village. Eleanor’s stomach rumbled. She’d completely lost track of time.

  ‘Supper’s almost ready, fifteen minutes,’ Mrs Trotman called, sipping from her glass as she chivvied Polly on with finishing the multitude of pots and pans in the sink. ‘I was planning a platter of cooked meats, minted salad potatoes and a basket of tarragon and onion bread, hot from the oven. Would that suit you?’

  Eleanor’s eyes lit up. ‘Sounds heavenly. And the company will make it all the more so.’

  The three women exchanged a quiet smile of delight, which Eleanor pretended not to see. They were clearly enjoying her company as much as she was theirs.

  Mrs Trotman wiped the table while Mrs Butters laid four place settings and collected the ladies’ glasses from around the kitchen.

  The housekeeper clicked her fingers. ‘I’ll tell you what would go perfectly with the platter, Mrs Trotman, is that dandelion delicacy you conjured up last year.’

  ‘I was thinking more of the parsnip perry, that was one of the more successful experiments.’

  ‘Let’s try a bit of both,’ the housekeeper suggested.

  The cook rose and beckoned to Polly to follow her to the pantry. They returned, each carrying a large bottle of homebrew and more glasses.

  Mrs Trotman then made up two extra plates of food, arranging each selection precisely but generously. Taking one of the plates and a bottle of beer from the dresser she disappeared for a few minutes. On her return, she settled back in her seat, her eyes sparkling.

  A jug of water was added to the array of plates and cutlery and the ladies looked at Eleanor.

  ‘Oh, I see. Err… dive in!’

  The busy clink of knives and forks and the splashing of wine into glasses filled the kitchen. In the taste test the parsnip perry won, as Mrs Butters was outvoted by Eleanor and Mrs Trotman, while Polly abstained for fear of offending the cook or housekeeper.

  As the meal progressed, the ladies begged Eleanor to regale them with stories from her adventures, which she delighted in doing. She felt more relaxed than ever and beamed round the table at the company, who were ‘ooh-ing’ and ‘ah-ing’ at her every tale.

  ‘My stars, what incredible stories!’ Mrs Butters said.

  Just then the back door opened and Joseph the gardener came in backwards, pulling his boots off with the edge of the step. He jerked to a stop mid-turn at the sight of the four rosy-cheeked women and the row of bottles and glasses.

  ‘Err, good evening, my lady.’ He bobbed to Eleanor. ‘Ladies.’

  ‘Don’t look like a rabbit caught in the torchlight, Joseph. I made you up a hearty plate in case you didn’t feel like joining us girls,’ Mrs Trotman said.

  ‘Ta, Mrs Trotman. Perhaps I won’t join you, if that’s alright, my lady? Don’t mean to be rude.’

  Eleanor stopped eating long enough to reply. ‘No problem at all. I wouldn’t fancy taking on a table full of tiddly women either. Perhaps I should join you?’

  Joseph’s face showed such alarm that Polly had to thump Mrs Butters on the back to stop her choking. The housekeeper patted the maid’s arm in gratitude and waved Joseph away. ‘Enjoy your supper, muddy boots.’ She smiled affectionately. ‘Leave us to the taste testing.’

  ‘Oh no, you’re not on the parsnip?’ Joseph shuddered and looked at Eleanor. ‘Sorry, my lady, weren’t my fault. I grew them for the plate, not the glass.’ Grabbing his supper and beer, he shot back out into the darkness in his socks, pulling the door closed behind him.

  Mrs Butters coughed and turned back to Eleanor. ‘So back to this Rajah gentleman. Tell us more about the palace.’

  Polly held her knife and fork in mid-air, her mouth slack with wonder. ‘Oh, yes do, my ladyship, it sounds so beautiful.’

  Thirty-Six

  Eleanor’s stomach gurgled. Gladstone tilted his head sideways and stared at her.

  ‘Oh, boy, I’m too old or too out of practice for drunken evenings any more. Ow, my head!’ She put her face in her hands to block out the light. The truth was, she rarely drank to excess, but the events of the last few days had taken its toll and she’d needed to let her hair down.

  ‘Good morning,’ Clifford boomed as he entered the room with a silver tray.

  ‘Good… morning, Clifford. Are you having trouble controlling the volume of your voice?’

  Clifford smiled innocently. ‘No, my lady. Do you have a problem with your hearing this morning?’

  Eleanor glared at him from between her fingers and groaned. ‘How was I to know Mrs Trotman’s parsnip perry was so lethal?’

  ‘Indeed. And the dandelion homebrew. Forgive me for saying so, my lady, but I fear the real mistake, was to finish with the chestnut liqueur.’

  ‘What chestnut liqueur?’ Eleanor’s stomach lurched. ‘Oh help, I don’t remember us moving on to that.’

  ‘It’s very good,’ Clifford noted. ‘Robustly sweet, not too oaky and deceptively strong. Best added as a dash to a fine roux, rather than quaffed with gusto, perhaps.’

  ‘I’m sure it was only a snifter,’ Eleanor lied, even as her head and stomach violently disagreed. ‘How are the ladies?’ she ventured.

  ‘In fine form apart from a slight bleariness to the eyes.’ Clifford offered her the glass on the tray. ‘Rest assured, my lady, this will make it all go away.’

  Eleanor took the glass gingerly. ‘What is it?’ She sniffed the murky liquid and peered up at him. ‘Is this some hideous concoction of my uncle’s or are you really trying to kill me this time?’

  ‘A little of both, my lady.’ Clifford gave a half-smile as he noisily clanged the lids of the breakfast salvers.

  Eleanor downed the liquid in one. ‘Oh dear, that was disgusting!’

  ‘It is the penance one accepts for over-indulgence. It is also the miracle cure that will allow you to be back to your usual form in a trice.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ she moaned. ‘But what’s in it? Please tell me it’s not sheep’s eyeballs or herring innards?’

  ‘No, my lady, although your uncle was a fan of both Mongolian and Baltic cuisine. It is in fact lime, garlic, Angostura, tomato, a secret ingredient of your uncle’s and, of course, a hefty shot of the hair of the dog.’

  ‘Which dog?’ Eleanor groaned into her glass.

  ‘It is the country expression for another shot of the liquid culprit of the hangover. Which presented me with a conundrum, my lady. Should I add a shot of the parsnip, dandelion or chestnut?’

  ‘Alright, alright.’ Eleanor flapped her hand and pulled her morning robe closer round her.

  ‘However, Mrs Trotman has fixed you the perfect chaser. Two rounds of bacon sandwiches to restore your electrolytes.’ Clifford continued doing something unbearably loud on the other side of the room.
/>   Mrs Butters appeared just then with a large tray, bearing the promised bacon butties, a large jug of water and two white tablets.

  The women exchanged a sympathetic grimace before Mrs Butters left the room.

  Swallowing the tablets, Eleanor offered Clifford a seat. ‘I do declare, Clifford, I already feel a tad brighter. Maybe it is a miracle cure. Anyway, I’m dying to hear your news. I trust by your uncharacteristically public exuberance your contact proved his worth?’

  Clifford nodded. ‘Indeed. I have gleaned two significant facts from him.’

  Eleanor mumbled incoherent encouragement for him to continue through a mouthful of salty, crisp bacon and soft, white bread.

  ‘Are you familiar with the Second Chance Programme?’ Clifford poured her a weak black tea, which she accepted with a smile, still munching.

  ‘Sounds vaguely familiar, what is it?’

  ‘Well, Mr Cornell was a Second Chancer. Second Chancers are, as one might deduce from the name, persons with a criminal past who are offered the chance to reintegrate back into society after being released from prison. Ex-cons,’ he added for clarity. ‘Ostensibly, the programme seeks to aid people with a minor criminal background. Interestingly, our Mr Cornell completed five years for armed robbery.’

  Eleanor frowned. ‘Hardly a minor offence, Clifford?’

  ‘Indeed. It seems that he was nonetheless accepted readily into the programme. It could just be that someone saw that Mr Cornell was genuinely trying to go straight and bent the rules. Or…’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘Or someone wanted Mr Cornell where they could use him.’

  The greasy bacon Eleanor had just finished devouring muted her low whistle somewhat. She wiped her mouth. ‘What about the item we found at the quarry?’

  ‘Yes. It seemed judicious to leave the item where it was for the moment. However, I also had a contact run a few checks on the smaller item you found next to it.’