‘Because I’m leaving here too tomorrow. I must get away as quickly as possible. I finished up my novel today and my agent, Bernie Sharp, is coming tomorrow morning at eight to collect both me and the manuscript. He’s a funny fish but he’s the best in town: always got a nose for what sells. He’s always early too, bless him. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting. He’s taking me back to London. I must speak to you before then.’
‘Did I hear you say you were leaving tomorrow, Ianthe?’ asked Lady Eve, lighting up another pink cigarette. Violet was busy pouring generous measures of drink into the tumblers. She was slightly calmer now, the alcohol having taken the edge off her previous mood. She smiled over at Ianthe:
‘So you’ve finished your novel at last? How exciting for you. What’s it called?’
Ianthe laughed breezily, her cares of a minute ago seemingly set to one side. ‘It’s called The Tomb of the Honey Bee,’ she said casually.
‘It’s a murder mystery, set in a stately home in the Cotswolds. Very much like here, in fact.’ Ianthe threw Roderick and Eve a watchful look. Their faces drained of all colour.
‘What a strange name for a book!’ said Eve, recovering her poise. ‘It sounds positively macabre. I for one won’t be buying it, I’m afraid. I never liked murder mysteries. And certainly not one based on all of us!’
‘Well, never mind, Lady Boynton. I’d like to thank you anyway for having me here to stay these last few months. It was absolutely invaluable to my research. I’d have loved to have thanked Alaric too, in person. Especially given what he taught me about bees and bee-keeping in such a short space of time. The main character in the book is based on him actually. Alaric was such a sport: letting me trail around after him for days on end to source my material.’
Ianthe took a glass of whisky and swilled it around carelessly. She seemed lost in another world. ‘I hope Alaric gets to read the book,’ Ianthe said, very softly.
‘I dedicated it to him, incidentally.’
****
Later, up in her room, Posie took a few moments of blessed peace and quiet to sit on her bed and reflect on the day. In truth, she felt stumped. Stumped and overwhelmed. Her famous gut instinct seemed to be distinctly off-radar and she had no sense as to which way she should be turning next. It was all so very difficult: she was looking for a murderer without knowing if there had been a murder, and the suspects so far had all come to nothing.
Everything was topsy-turvy.
Posie held Alaric’s bee coin in her hands, turning it over and over. She was putting a great deal of faith in it, she knew. Would Binkie Dodds, fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society and old school friend of her dead brother, Richard, really be able to shed any light on what the bee coin might mean?
‘Come in,’ Posie said, coming out of her cloud of worry at the sound of a soft knock at her door.
Lady Violet entered and came across the room, a worried smile playing on her lips. She threw herself into a wicker chair near the writing desk.
‘I say,’ said Posie carefully, ‘are you quite all right, Lady Violet? You seem preoccupied, if you don’t mind my saying so. I hope I’m not stepping out of turn but there was a definite atmosphere at dinner. I know that Alaric going missing isn’t easy for anybody, but I have the definite feeling that my presence here is resented.’
Lady Violet shook her head and exhaled deeply. ‘Take no notice. There’s always an atmosphere in this house. Eve wants to act as if she were born to run the Manor, but she hasn’t a clue how to run the place, or even how to manage the servants. I’ve known the house and staff all my life, so I do it: they respect me. But sometimes I guess I step over the line, then Eve sulks and Roderick feels as if he has to pull rank and shout at me. We argued before dinner about it. I’d leave if I could but where would I go? I don’t even have a tiny flat for myself in London!’
Posie remembered the glamourous magazine article about Lady Violet from earlier, her hopes of setting up a chain of tea-shops, her supreme talent for baking. Those dreams seemed very remote now somehow. She found herself feeling distinctly sorry for the girl. What sort of aristocrat couldn’t even dress up in nice clothes for dinner?
Posie passed the bee coin across to Lady Violet. ‘Know anything about this?’
‘This was Al’s,’ the girl said, a panicky note creeping into her voice. ‘Where did you find it?’
‘It was in the annexe,’ Posie said quickly. She felt a need to protect Major Marchpane’s confidence.
‘Do you know anything about it, Lady Violet? What it means? What those words mean on the back, for instance?’
Violet turned the coin, then shook her head miserably. She passed it back, looking worried. ‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, looking like she was on the verge of tears. ‘I never was much good at clever things. Alaric was the boffin of the family. Are they Latin words? Do you think they’re important?’
Posie patted the girl on the arm. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find out. I have a friend in London, a coin expert in fact, who can help me. I’m going to meet him on Friday. I think this coin might be important.’
‘So you’re going? You’re leaving? I would have thought you needed more time here?’ Lady Violet sounded almost desperate, a note of rising panic in her voice.
‘Yes, of course I’m leaving,’ Posie said kindly. ‘But I’ll still be here for the whole day tomorrow.’
‘Do you want me to come back to London with you? To meet the coin expert?’
Posie smiled. ‘I don’t think that’s necessary, but I’ll let you know what I find out. I’ll update you all the way along.’
Just before getting into bed, still clutching the bee coin, Posie was staring absent-mindedly out of the window at the dark lawn under its cover of a patchy moon, when she was startled to see a loping black shadow crossing the grass, ringing around the formal gardens and then moving away again in the direction of the burnt flower fields and towards Alaric’s annexe.
Then she heard a lonely, heart-rending noise. A plaintive howling, over and over again. It was Bikram the dog, mourning his missing master.
Ironic, Posie knew, but in that moment she realised that the one soul who could probably tell her just what had really happened to Alaric Boynton-Dale was not a human. If only Bikram could talk, she thought to herself grimly before turning out the light.
That would make her job a whole lot easier.
****
Six
It was strange, Posie thought later, the odd things you noticed at a time of real crisis. She said as much to Inspector Lovelace, when he was taking her formal statement in Lord Roderick’s study the very next day.
Shortly before six-thirty in the morning, bleary-eyed and hardly at her best, she had knocked on Ianthe’s bedroom door. The dawn had been spectacular, and it was almost as bright as day outside. On the corridor and in the very depths of the house all was still. The heavy oak door to Ianthe’s room was slightly ajar, and Posie pushed it wider, calling softly so as not to wake anyone else who might still be sleeping nearby.
‘Ianthe? Are you here?’
She had stepped tentatively inside. The curtains were flung wide open and the room was filled with golden morning light. The room was a mirror-image to her own, and seemed strangely familiar as a result.
But the details were all different, and they would remain etched in her mind for hours, if not for days afterwards: a glass bowl of sweet peas, just past their best, placed on the wash-stand, filling the room with scent; a pile of monogrammed Louis Vuitton suitcases stacked ready to be collected; a sleek black Underwood Number 5 typewriter sitting in its case on the desk, next to a neatly stacked typewritten manuscript.
It was the room of a guest at the very end of her stay.
And then Posie had caught sight of Ianthe, still in bed, tucked neatly under the red silk coverlet, a hand placed under her tousled fair head. She had known immediately something was wrong.
Pulse racing, she darted across the room and shook Ianthe vigorou
sly by the shoulders. But Posie was aware that her every movement was futile. Ianthe was dead, her face grey and pallid, a faint black flush spreading underneath the freckles.
Posie shuddered in the rising heat.
Although not a doctor, Posie’s old medical knowledge kicked in from her time on the ambulances, and she estimated that Ianthe had been dead already for several hours, judging by the state of rigor mortis. Heart hammering, Posie sunk down on a chair next to the bed, trying to think clearly while holding back a wave of panic and fear. Her gut feeling was that this was murder, pure and simple, and that Ianthe had been silenced deliberately. What was it that Ianthe had wanted to tell Posie which was so important that it had cost her her life?
Or could this just be a terrible coincidence? Ianthe’s grey face was calm; she looked like she was sleeping. There was certainly no sign of a struggle, or of a shot or a stab-wound. Posie’s eyes scanned the details nearby: an alarm clock, its alarm set efficiently for six-fifteen; a glass tumbler with an inch or so of water left in it; a small golden tin filled with white powder – a sleeping draught perhaps? Nothing out of the ordinary.
But the niggling doubt wouldn’t go away. She felt out of her depth. In fact, what was needed here was the calm authority of Inspector Lovelace.
Fleeing the room, Posie threw herself down the dark wooden staircase as fast as she could and down into the carpeted empty entrance hall downstairs. She rang the golden dinner gong which hung near the door to the Great Hall. Within moments Jenks the Butler emerged. He looked supremely unruffled.
‘Where is the telephone here?’ said Posie as calmly as possible. ‘This is an emergency!’
‘An emergency? What, this early in the morning, Miss? Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. Now WHERE is the telephone? And for goodness’ sake send someone for the local doctor, even if it is too late. There’s a dead body lying upstairs, and I’m quite willing to bet it’s murder!’
****
What followed was chaos. Posie would remember it later as a series of disjointed snapshots.
On being led to the telephone in Lord Roderick’s dark, wood-panelled study, Posie had found it to be dead, its wires cut. Posie took matters into her own hands and started off for the village instead at a brisk half-run, intending to wake the Postmistress so she could use the telephone at the Post Office.
As she rounded the bend in the drive she was suddenly overtaken by Codlington, hurling himself flat out down the drive on a rickety black bike in a state of high excitement, calling out to her importantly that he had been tasked with fetching the local doctor and the local police.
And then she was overtaken again by a nervy Lady Violet at the wheel of her little two-seater, insisting on picking Posie up and giving her a lift to the village to save on time; an acceptance which Posie regretted almost immediately as Violet’s driving was both shaky and erratic and the short journey was punctuated twice by Violet’s urgent need to stop the car to vomit at the roadside, detaining Posie from reaching the Post Office as quickly as if she had gone on foot.
Posie only had one objective in mind – getting a message to Inspector Lovelace at Scotland Yard – he would come, she knew it. He wouldn’t fail her. And he would be able to suss out if there was something fishy going on. She wished wholeheartedly that she had involved the Inspector from the start, that she had told him about the disappearance of Alaric Boynton-Dale. She should never have floated around conducting such a dangerous investigation on her own.
At last she managed to speak to the ever trusty Sergeant Rainbird, who could always be relied upon to be at his desk at Scotland Yard well before seven o’clock in the morning, and he assured her the Inspector would indeed help. Relieved, Posie and Lady Violet set off home again.
But on the way back to Boynton Hall the little two-seater had run into difficulties and Lady Violet had had to park up at a kerb, cursing shakily under her breath as black smoke poured in streams from the engine.
‘Oh, dear!’ Posie had murmured ineffectually, all the while wishing Lady Violet had never been good enough to offer her a lift in the first place. ‘Can I help at all? I could run for someone from the village to tow the car to a garage?’
She had watched Lady Violet, still looking green about the gills and shocked, shake her head ruefully and climb out, hoisting the bonnet up and grabbing at a spanner.
‘It’s just the gasket,’ Violet had muttered from beneath the sleek chrome of the hood. ‘I’ll get it fixed in two little winks… Just let it cool down first.’
And sure enough, after five minutes of prodding they were on their way again.
Back at Boynton Hall Posie found herself ushered into the Library, together with Lady Violet. Jenks the Butler, unruffled as ever, pressed iced coffees into their hands and indicated towards the shabby sofas and the small coffee table where plates of sweet biscuits had been set out. Posie picked up a plate and began munching through the biscuits methodically.
The Library was quite full of people, but horribly silent. Someone had obviously woken the entire household and informed them of Ianthe’s sudden death, and the same cast of characters as were at dinner the previous evening were now gathered together again, gawping on in a baffled silence, uniformly looking as if they had just shoved their clothes on in any old fashion. In fact, Lady Eve Boynton was still wearing her satin dressing gown, its bright ruby red colour draining any natural colour from her unmade face, making her appear positively ghost-like.
The small team of servants were ranged nervously along a far wall, darting guarded looks of fear at each other. Codlington was there too, but, as ever, he was on the periphery of both groups, lurking in a corner, muttering with Lord Roderick.
A nervy young police Constable was standing guard near the French windows, sipping an iced coffee through a paper straw, obviously waiting for a higher-ranking replacement to arrive. He kept checking his wristwatch. It was now a quarter to eight.
‘Say, are you keeping us here indefinitely?’ drawled Lady Eve nastily to the Constable. ‘Are we all under arrest?’
‘Eve!’ shouted her father, making the whole room jump. ‘Have some darned manners. A woman is lying dead upstairs! It’s the least we can do in the circumstances to sit and wait awhile.’
Fortunately any further argument was stopped in its tracks by the arrival of two middle-aged men, both of whom obviously fancied themselves as important in their own ways. One introduced himself as Sergeant Plummer, dismissing his lowly coffee-drinking Constable and taking his place over at the French windows, and the other introduced himself as Dr Greaves, the local doctor.
Dr Greaves helped himself to some biscuits, fanned himself with the salmon-coloured death certificate he was clutching and then addressed the room:
‘Natural death, I’m pleased to report.’
Posie stared at the doctor in amazement. Could it be that Ianthe had really just died of natural causes? And if so, what wretchedly unlucky timing! And now she had insisted on dragging Inspector Lovelace and his team up here from London on a fool’s errand, for nothing. Posie groaned softly, imagining the Inspector’s displeasure.
‘Sad thing. Seems Dame Ianthe must have had a very weak heart. She died in her sleep, probably from a heart attack. Untimely. I’ll be submitting this to the Coroner of course, but there should be no need for a Public Inquiry.’
‘So,’ said Sergeant Plummer, clearing his throat importantly. ‘I can’t see as keeping you good people here tethered together will help anyone. No need to detain you. No funny business at all. Apologies for the wait. I’ll be sending the Funeral Director around shortly to sort things out upstairs, and that will be an end to it.’
Just then an unfamiliar, very small bald little man with a marked and unfortunate resemblance to a rat swung through the Library door with a force which quite belied his tiny stature.
‘NO! That will not be an end to it! We have a problem on our hands here! A big problem!’
The man stared
accusingly around the room, taking everyone in. He was immaculately dressed in an extremely loud purple striped suit which even Mr Burns would have thought twice before wearing. In his hands he was clutching a thick wad of cream papers. His eyes bulged with rage. Everyone stared at him in a kind of fascinated horror.
‘Who the very devil are you?’ Lord Roderick asked petulantly, rising to his feet. ‘This isn’t a ruddy hotel, you know. This is a private residence! You can’t just come wandering in here.’
Posie got to her feet and smiled at the ratty little man as best she could in welcome, as obviously no-one else was up to the job.
‘You’re Mr Bernie Sharp, aren’t you? Dame Ianthe’s literary agent? She told me all about you. I’m Miss Parker, a guest in this house. I’m guessing the police and the doctor have kept you up to date with the sad news? I’m so very, very sorry about Ianthe. What a shock for you, and what a tragedy.’
Mr Sharp looked at Posie with a quick look of barely-concealed distrust before turning to the doctor:
‘I heard you, just now, doctor, telling everyone that this was a natural death. But I’m telling you Ianthe was as strong as an ox; no weak heart about her! Tough as old boots, she was. And yes, Miss Parker, I’ll admit this is a HUGE shock to me! I turned up ten minutes ago and went upstairs and found Ianthe lying in bed as dead as a doornail and all manner of people flying around her room filling in paperwork!’
He gave the doctor and the policeman a scathing look.
‘But I’ll tell you what’s upsetting me more than her death. I came down here to pick up her new bestseller – the book which was going to make both of us rich – and what do I find?’
The whole room gaped, incredulous.
‘THE FINAL PAGE OF THE MANUSCRIPT HAS BEEN REMOVED! It’s gone missing!’
‘Gee, was it important?’ said Mr Burns, genuinely interested.
‘I’ll say!’ shouted Bernie Sharp at the top of his voice. ‘It revealed who the murderer was! The whole book and my career are worthless without it! Pointless! I’d go as far as saying Ianthe was killed for it!’
The Tomb of the Honey Bee: A Posie Parker Mystery (The Posie Parker Mystery Series Book 2) Page 7