by Celina Grace
I thought of the play that I’d finally finished, the manuscript locked away in the suitcase on my wardrobe. Would I ever have the courage to send it off to anyone – a director, or a producer, or even an actor? What was Verity doing, saying I was brave? Was she mad? I was the scarediest cat I knew.
I thought all of that in a second but all I said was, “Well, I hope you’re right, V. But we’ll still be friends, won’t we?” Sudden terror gripped me by the throat. “Won’t we?”
Verity took my hand. “Of course we will, you noodle. That’s not in question.” I clasped her hand in mine, more relieved than I could say.
On impulse, I decided to share my secret. “V…do you remember, I told you I was writing a play? You probably don’t remember.”
Verity looked at me in amazement. “Of course I do. I could hear you sometimes, bashing away on that old typewriter of Dorothy’s. And you mean to say you’ve finished it? Oh, congratulations, Joanie! That’s marvellous.”
Of course, now that it was out there, I felt like dismissing it as nothing. “It’s silly really, I’m sure it’s no good at all—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course it’ll be good. You always had a way with words.” I half-shrugged, pleased but embarrassed. “Anyway, more importantly, what are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know,” I said, honestly. “I really don’t know.”
“Where is it? In your room?”
Where else would it be? I nodded. “I keep it in the suitcase on top of my wardrobe.”
“You should send it off to a producer. Tommy might know just the chap. Oh, Joan, please do that. I’m sure you could find someone who was interested.”
Now I felt more than embarrassment – I felt extreme reluctance. The thought of anyone else reading my words and judging them almost made me break out in a cold sweat, despite the warm sunshine. “Oh no, V – no, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t—”
“You must, Joan. Go on. Be brave.”
“I can’t,” I said, with more finality. “Perhaps one day. But not right now. I just can’t.”
Verity looked stubborn, as if she’d like to say more. But I shook my head at her, smiling but in a definite this conversation is over way. She set her mouth but shut up.
We sat in slightly uncomfortable silence for a moment or two.
Verity tipped her face back to the sun. “Well, you can do what you think best Joan. But I tell you, I’m not going to be a lady’s maid for the rest of my life. I want more. And I can’t have more if – if I keep getting caught up in murder. It’s too dangerous.”
I was silent. I knew what she was saying was true. It was just that I didn’t feel like that myself. Oh, of course, I knew that there was danger, but I never felt as if I would be affected by it. Perhaps that was royally foolish of me, given the near misses I’d had in the past. I thought of Merisham Lodge and what had happened in the kitchen there and my hand flew to my throat before I could think about stopping it.
Verity gave me a keen look. “I know you know what I mean.”
I sighed. “I do. It’s just – oh…I can’t describe it. It’s almost as if…as if this is what I’m meant to do. I mean, if fate hadn’t meant me to do this, why do I keep getting mixed up in all these strange happenings?”
Now Verity did grin. “Don’t ask me, Joanie. You’re just a magnet for murder!”
That struck both of us as funny, God knows why, but we laughed. When our giggles tapered off, we were silent again for a long moment, watching the splash and sparkle of the river.
“Come on,” Verity said eventually. “Let’s have our picnic.”
I found myself to be quite hungry, which was surprising given that I’d not long had lunch. It must have been the fresh air. We set to with a will and the rest of the afternoon passed in pleasant conversation and a stroll along the riverbank. Thoughts of murder and mayhem may have been on our minds, but they weren’t mentioned again.
Chapter Fifteen
I rose the next morning in a thoughtful mood. As I washed and pinned up my hair under my cap, and tried to make myself look semi-respectable (not always an easy task), I was thinking about what Verity and I had talked about the day before. I should have been looking back on our sunny afternoon with pleasure, and I was, but it was tinged with disquiet. I hadn’t realised Verity felt that way about our – well, it was hard to know how to term them. Our pursuit of justice? Our crime-fighting escapades?
The last was so ridiculous that it made me laugh, even as I pulled on my shoes, washed my hands and walked downstairs to the kitchen. Put it out of your mind, Joan. I had a busy day ahead of me, with no time to waste on what the future might hold. It was another beautiful day, golden and sunny, the tightly curled buds on the trees now unfolding and the spring flowers out in all their delicate, colourful finery.
I was hard at work, trying to assemble a tricky bouillabaisse for the dinner that evening when a shadow fell over the kitchen door. Concentrating on what I was doing, I scarcely noticed until a deep, masculine voice, a well-remembered voice, said something, and I looked up and gasped, a fish-head falling from my fingers.
“Good morning, Miss Hart,” Inspector Marks said, smiling. He was just as handsome and dapper as I remembered, his black hair and moustache neatly trimmed, a trilby set square on his head. His suit looked to be a rather better one than I remembered him wearing before. Mind you, I was so taken aback, he could have come in wearing a Scotsman’s kilt and it wouldn’t have thrown me more.
I gaped like a goldfish for a good few seconds too long before reason returned and I straightened up sharply, wiping my fishy hand on my apron. My second thought, after the first shock of seeing him, was that he would have had to come and see me while I was making fish stew. The kitchen and everything in it, including me, stank of fish. Instinctively, my hands went up to my hair, checking for wisps before I forced them down again, not wanting to make matters worse.
“Inspector Marks,” I said eventually, trying to regain my composure. “What a surprise.”
The inspector looked surprised himself. “You didn’t realise I was coming?”
Would I look like this if I had? was what I didn’t say. I shook my head. “No, I—” Belatedly, I remembered Verity telling me to expect a surprise. And giggling while she said it. The little minx. She knew some of my feelings about the inspector although not the innermost, secret workings of my heart. Cheeks burning, I tried to pull myself together. “No, I didn’t know at all. It’s – it’s a pleasure to see you, sir.”
I had almost forgotten Ethel was in the room. I caught sight of her, goggling like a little child at a Punch and Judy show and almost giggled myself. “Could I make you a cup of tea or something, sir?”
“Yes please, Miss Hart.” Had he forgotten that he’d once called me Joan? I felt a thump of the heart but smiled bravely. “In fact, I’d like us to sit down and have a – a conference, I suppose you’d call it. Would that be possible?”
My heart began to thump even louder. “Yes. Yes of course. Ethel—” I struggled momentarily with my conscience in leaving my inexperienced kitchen maid to the difficult dish I was in the middle of making and then threw caution to the wind. “Ethel, could you carry on with what I was doing here? It’s quite easy—” God forgive me. “Well, fairly easy. Just consult the recipe book and do your best. I won’t be long.”
Would I? I had a pretty shrewd idea of what Inspector Marks wanted to ask me, although I could have been wrong. Ethel was still looking at the inspector with her mouth hanging open. Resisting the temptation to close it with my finger, I tapped the relevant page of the recipe book and took off my apron.
Inspector Marks came a little closer as I was washing my hands at the sink. “Is there somewhere we can talk privately, Miss Hart?”
He was near enough for me to smell his co
logne. I felt my face heat up again. Unfortunately, he was probably near enough to smell the eau de haddock on me. What I would have given for one of Dorothy’s expensive French perfumes right then… “There’s a small sun terrace outside,” I said. “It’s a lovely morning and we shouldn’t be—” I stopped abruptly, aware of Ethel listening to every word. I had been going to say we shouldn’t be overheard.
“Ethel, could you bring us some tea please?” I asked with an encouraging smile. Then, quaking a little, I led Inspector Marks outside and round to the terrace.
When we sat facing one another on separate wooden benches, I was struck afresh by how unreal the whole situation seemed. Was this really Inspector Marks sitting opposite me? I blinked a few times in the bright sunlight, wondering if I were dreaming.
“Well, Miss Hart,” said the inspector, smiling. “Here we are again.”
I shook myself back to reality. “It’s very nice to see you, sir.” The second I said it, I wondered whether I’d been too bold. But it really was very nice to see him.
We regarded each other for a moment longer. “Here you are again, mixed up in murder,” Inspector Marks said eventually.
“It’s not as if I planned it,” I said, indignation making my voice rise.
The inspector grinned, teeth flashing white under his black moustache. “No, you just seem to have a kind of…genius for getting yourself into these situations.” He rasped a hand along his jaw for a moment, considering. “A flair, perhaps.”
I wasn’t sure whether to feel complimented or insulted. Just as I was wondering what to say, the inspector suddenly became brisk. “Anyway, Miss Hart, I need your help.”
I sat up myself. “I’ll help in any way I can, sir.”
“I knew I could rely on you.”
He began to say something else and then, at the chime of crockery and Ethel’s heavy footsteps behind us, obviously decided against it. I took the tray from Ethel’s hands and gave her a grateful but dismissive smile.
Once she was out of earshot, I sat back down and poured the tea, looking (I hoped) alertly at Inspector Marks. What was his Christian name? It had never occurred to me before to wonder but now I wanted to know. I didn’t see how I could be quite so bold as to ask him, though.
“Joan, you probably know that the police are now treating the death of Mrs Ashford as murder.”
“Yes.” I handed him a cup. There was obviously more to come.
“Thank you. Obviously, I can’t share everything I know with you but one particular fact is about to become common knowledge.”
“Was it arsenic poisoning that she died of, sir?”
Inspector Marks took a sip of tea. “Well, unfortunately it’s impossible to say whether she died from poisoning or from a head injury. The dose of arsenic she was given was…shall we say, fairly unlikely to have caused the death of a young, healthy person, but Mrs Ashford was old and frail. Unless one is a trained chemist, it’s not an exact science anyway – I mean, working out what would be a lethal dose.”
We were still sitting in bright sunlight but the light seemed to dim a little. I looked at the shimmering brown surface of my teacup and repressed a shudder.
Inspector Marks went on. “Now, again, the head injury could have been accidental. The attending doctor was at first completely convinced that she’d had a fall.”
“Yes, he did think that. So did I, at first, when I saw her body. I thought she’d got up out of bed for whatever reason, tripped and fallen onto the hearthstone.”
“You saw the body? Oh yes, of course you did. You were the one who told PC Palmer it had been moved.”
Honesty compelled me to answer. “Well, I didn’t know that for certain but…it seemed odd. I just had an odd feeling that something wasn’t quite right.”
Inspector Marks gave me a wry look. “Well, I know you’ve seen a few bodies, Miss Hart. Not as many as me, but enough.”
I smiled back. “That was why I took some time to mention it to anyone. I thought perhaps my – my past experience was colouring my view here.”
“Not in this instance.” The inspector leaned forward. “Now, take me through exactly what happened.”
“From finding the body?”
“From when you arrived at this house. If you have the time.”
I probably didn’t have the time but, right at that moment, I didn’t care. I could have sat in that sunlit garden, drinking tea with Inspector Marks, all day, and if he wanted to talk of murder and poison and motives for killing, then that was fine with me.
I sat up a little straighter in my chair. “Well, sir, Verity and I – you remember my friend, Miss Hunter – we arrived on the twenty-seventh of March, I think it was the twenty-seventh and we were collected from the station…”
Chapter Sixteen
I couldn’t wait until that evening to talk to Verity alone. When we sat down to dinner, I found her foot under the table, pressed it hard – perhaps harder than necessary – and waited for her to look at me. When she did, I signalled as hard as I could without moving my face that I needed to talk to her immediately.
She got the unspoken message. Verity and I had known each other for so long and had had to communicate without words so often that it sometimes felt as if we could almost read each other’s minds. I could tell, looking at her across the table, that she was feeling both sheepish, a little guilty but also gleefully triumphant and I knew why.
After dinner, I sent Ethel to begin to clear the family dining room and, once Mrs Weston was out of the way, virtually pushed Verity into the scullery.
“You – you cat, you!”
Verity burst out laughing. “I thought you’d appreciate the surprise.”
I couldn’t help but laugh myself. “Honestly, V, you might have given me some warning. I looked like something that had been dragged through a hedge backwards when the inspector arrived.”
That made Verity laugh harder. “It’s not as if he doesn’t know what you do, Joanie. He knows you’re a cook, not a…a policewoman or a – what was the other alter-ego of yours? A journalist?”
I almost blushed to think of some of the folly I’d made up in the past. “Well, I would have still appreciated a bit of warning.”
Verity suppressed her giggles with an effort. “Sorry,” she said with dancing eyes, not sounding it in the slightest.
“Well!” I said, not quite sure of what else to say.
Verity sobered up. “What did he actually want? Dorothy said he wanted to talk to you before he would talk to her. I think she was a bit cross about that.”
I felt a mixture of pride and anxiety. “Well, Dorothy was the one who wrote to him, I suppose. But she wrote to him because of what I knew.”
“I know that. Don’t worry about it, anyway. She’ll get over it.” We both simultaneously became aware of footsteps approaching the kitchen and exchanged a wordless glance.
“Thanks for your help, Verity,” I said loudly, pushing open the scullery door.
“You’re very welcome, Joan,” Verity said, equally clearly. As she passed me, she murmured “My room, when we’re finished.” I nodded in agreement and watched her walk past Mrs Weston and Ethel who were both carrying trays of dirty dishes.
Because I was dying to continue our conversation, of course everything conspired against me. Mrs Weston wanted to discuss the menus for the week, not just the next day, which took ages. She looked rather unwell, pale-faced and hollow-eyed, and once or twice she stopped talking and pressed a hand to her forehead. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her if she was feeling ill but the moment I essayed the most tentative enquiry, she snapped that she was perfectly well and so I held my tongue for the rest of our discussion.
Eventually, once the dishes were washed, the kitchen was tidy and prepared for the morning, Ethel had been dismissed a
nd the back door locked, I made my weary way upstairs. Ethel was in the bathroom, so that gave me the perfect excuse to quietly knock on Verity’s bedroom door and slip inside.
Verity’s room was such a contrast to my own. Originally, it had had the same austere furnishings as mine, but she had added ornaments and hung clothes about and brought in a beautiful spring bouquet of flowers that looked wonderful despite their vase being a chipped earthenware pot. Verity could sew wonderfully well and she’d made a perfectly lovely bedspread for her bed, embroidered all over with little birds and rosebuds and green leaves. It was almost like a lady’s bedroom, and I vowed once more, as I always did after a visit, that I would do something more with my own little room. Why, the only precious thing I had in my room that was mine was my play.
Verity sat brushing her fox-fur hair out in front of the mirror and she caught my eye in the reflection and smiled and turned around, putting down the brush. I flopped down onto her bed, fighting the urge to curl up and go to sleep there.
“Did Dorothy say anything else about Inspector Marks?” I asked. I was curious, of course, but weariness was beginning to tell. I had a fleeting thought that, if I wasn’t quite so fatigued all the time, I would have been able to solve this case by now. Then I grinned at myself. Solve the case! As if I were a real detective or something.
“She said he wanted to know everything she could tell him about everyone. A real run down of the family and the guests.”
“Well, he certainly went to the right person,” I said drily.
Verity giggled. “And she said he wants to talk to you again.”
Tired as I was, I felt a leap of the heart. “Oh,” was all I said, my heart beating faster.
Verity grinned, not fooled by my casual tone. “So, you’d best not cook anything too disgusting tomorrow.”