An Unkindness of Ravens

by S. E. Smith

  Maisy shook her head. “No. Been watchin’ the place for a couple of days. Until tonight, no one’s come or gone from it, save the cove with the withered arm. Then this other bloke arrived, same injury as the cove what lived there. Ain’t seem him before. Actually, ain’t seen him around anywhere before.”

  The workman nodded solemnly and gave the appearance of taking her words to heart. “Anything else?” he asked when Maisy stopped.

  “Yeah!” the little girl nodded furiously. “I didn’t like him. Lemon drops and gin when ‘e came. Cashew mints and whisky when ‘e left. And ‘e changed height, an’ speed of walking. Slow when he came, fast when he left.” She grinned at the workman’s thoughtful face. “Oh and ‘e left this behind. Made it on the train, with his two good hands!” She held out a carefully folded napkin in the shape of a star. “You want?”

  Words seeming to fail him, the workman took the star, and holding it between his thumb and forefinger – his face pale; his eyebrows nearly invisible - he examined her find.

  “You’ll tell old man Gold?” Suspicion laced Maisy’s every word, like she expected the elderly man before her to take the credit and steal her money.

  “But of course.”

  Maisy thanked him in her politest voice. “You’ll tell him Maisy brung ... brought it? Maisy Dawson.”

  A grin of genuine amusement broke the man’s pallor. “I know who you are Maisy,” he said on a laugh. “You’re the spit of your mum at the same age. I’ll get Niall to drop your guinea round soon as we’ve checked out your information.”

  Maisy’s eyes widened to huge O’s of horror. She knew she should bob a curtsy; beg forgiveness for her rudeness. But flight won the battle over courtesy, making the little girl turn on her heels and run.

  Monday 11th March. The Grapes, Limehouse.

  Jethro didn’t like it when the boss telephoned with orders because it always involved tidying up messes. With bad grace – for he was playing cribbage with an old army buddy who sometimes helped out behind the bar – Jethro left his pub and took a cab to the Boundary Estate.

  Finding the front door of Uriah Spinnaker’s flat locked against the night, he left a companion on lookout and headed to the back of the building. Fortunately, the privy was one of those lean-tos with a roof ideal for climbing on; and being one of those supple sorts, who kept himself fit, it didn’t take Jethro long to shimmy his way to one of the sash windows. Nor did it take very long to open it and sneak into the house.

  A few minutes later, Jethro left the same way, a silent, uncommunicative companion. However, once in the safety of his own manor, having made a quick call to Fournier Street, he sent a lad to Scotland Yard with news that made one Sir Charles Carter lose his temper and swear like a navvy.

  From the Casebook of Symington, Earl Byrd. Llong.

  Days in Wales always start in one of two ways: with rain in the air, or with rain in the skies. Today rain hung in the air, hinting and promising a place in our future. Only a fool would head out in such, but I was ready to play the fool.

  Having left my grandfather, a seething mass of indignation, Sampson and I took one of the cars and hightailed it to the pub, only to find ourselves and Deryn the only occupants.

  “Miss Davies and young Danny left early this morning,” he opined over the top of his morning tea.

  “Did she leave a letter, a note, a billet-doux?”

  “Only if you asked,” he answered a little too jovially for my liking. “Most specific. Told me not to give it to you just because you smiled and said bore da.”

  Deryn handed over a pink receipt, and out of habit I raised it to my nose and inhaled Emily’s distinctive Jasmine scent. “Diolch.”

  Mine barkeep took my Welshness as an invitation to conversation. “I liked her, my lord, nicer than the other lady you come here with,” he said, passing me a cup of coffee before bustling into the kitchen to rustle me up my usual.

  Knowing he meant Serena, I decided not to disagree with him. Serena’s temper of late – fuelled no doubt by her pompous excuse for a brother-in-law – meant she couldn’t even speak of Emily with anything remotely resembling politeness. Not until the jewels and the presents reached sufficiency of generosity. Then suddenly it became: “dearest child, poor sweet Emily! So marvellous of you to help her out with her little problem.”

  Watkins’ drunken opinion was I should let my ladies fight it out, but I reminded him that women – especially those of my acquaintance – rarely fought fair. At that, my Marxist leaning driver, laughing like a pig in heat, offered me odds of 100-1 on Lady Serena being knocked out in the first round.

  Sampson arrived at some point during my conversation with Deryn and I handed him the still folded paper for his perusal. He opened it and nose wrinkling scanned its contents.

  “Well?” I asked

  He shrugged but realising I wanted him to read said note out loud complied with little more than a heartfelt sigh.

  “Sorry, dearest Sym, but I received a telegram from Uncle,” Sampson kept his tone even as he read her missive out loud, and I forced myself to concentrate on the words, not the emotions roiling my stomach like a boat churns water. “He’s found the mysterious Mr Spinnaker. It ain’t pretty by all accounts. Likely CC will swear fit to bursting when he sees the mess.”

  “His Grace isn’t going to like it.” Sampson said when he reached the end of the short and not entirely informative missive

  “Grandfather can go to the devil! Go back to the house, collect our belongings. We’ll head back to Mayfair immediately after the funeral.”

  Sampson sniffed: “And lunch, my lord?”

  “We’ll eat on the train.”

  My valet’s gills flared.

  I waved imperiously. “If that’s not good enough for you, I’ll get Deryn to organise a packed lunch!”

  Sampson’s shoulders set into a line, harder than his eyebrows. I was in trouble. Doubly so by the time the salute arrived. “It won’t be the same, my lord.”

  I decided to push it, see whether my ever so proper valet would fall into the trap I was about to set. “You can always leave my employ, stay here with Grandfather.”

  I think Sampson gave me some culinary advice. Something to do with boiling a backside, if I heard him aright. But I must have been mistaken. Sampson was too polite to steal a line belonging to Emily.

  With Sampson gone, Deryn and I wandered to the church for Lilian’s funeral. It was a dreary affair. A single tear escaped down Carillon’s otherwise dry cheeks as her body was committed to a loving God, and I took this to mean the reverend’s emotions were well and truly in check, unlike Deryn, who made no attempt to stop his own tears.

  Given her sister also swelled the ranks of the dearly departed, there was no family to thank the Hughes brothers for their fine funereal services. So I took it upon myself to do the pretty, before turning my attention to the women Lilian called friends.

  Listening to their remembrances, I decided Lilian’s desire to build a new life away from the Bravo scandal had been more than a little successful. To a woman they told me she was a good and honest lady - a pillar of their world.

  Sotto voce, I asked about her relationships with Deryn and the reverend, only to be assured that Lilian wasn’t that kind of a girl!

  “Mind you,” Mrs Evans - who saw herself as an extension of her policeman husband - added, in a voice loud enough to pass as discrete, “her being friendly with both men, caused grief.”

  I pressed for further details and was amused by her suddenly lowered voice, and theatrical glance around the graveyard. “Well Deryn used to do a deal on communion wine. That stopped when Lilian made it clear she preferred the vicar. Suppose it was the only way he could get a bit of revenge.”

  I left Mrs Price ‘the post’ ‘til last. It was a deliberate move on my part; one that would signal a move away from funeral duty to investigative pleasure especially as she was a woman of great beauty: at least to my eyes, reminding me of a robin with her skittish li
ttle movements and sharp grey-green eyes.

  “I thought to ask you for a tour of the church!” I said as I took her arm and placed it in the crook of my own.

  “My husband’ll be a better guide,” she replied, “being as he’s churchwarden.”

  I leaned in, “Perhaps, but you’re the woman for me.” A blush crept into her cheeks as did the pride at being singled out for such attention. She was a superb guide, showing me where everything was kept, including the small silver-looking communion cup: hidden in plain sight in an unlocked cupboard, under the sink in the vestry.

  “I see the woman who found the body’s not here.” Mrs Price said as our tour reached its conclusion. There was a hint of sadness in the tone, coupled with the ever present curiosity women of my acquaintance arouse in women, who consider themselves proper and refined.

  “Alas, no. Miss Davies’ uncle – an old friend of Mrs Poulter’s late sister Florence – is not a well man.” I lowered my tone as if taking the postmistress into my confidences. “Coughing up blood, doncha know? His doctor’s in constant contact. Sent word last night the old boy’s taken a turn for the worse. Miss Davies left early this morning.”

  The postmistress became all concern. Her hands twitched gently around her black bible, and she grew softer both in appearance and voice. “Ahh indeed. A sad time for the young lady.”

  I nodded. “He is a tenacious old crow,” I dropped Gold’s Impereye nickname into the conversation; but it drew no response from the older lady. “Knowing him though, he’ll pull through.”

  She nodded sympathetically, and the lines around her eyes deepened into true crow’s feet.

  “Did you know Mrs Poulter well?” I asked

  “Ever since she came to the village in 85, we’ve been close. Not that she ever gave much away. Used to think she was alone in the world. Then she’d get a letter and let Frank keep the stamp. Or a pair of boots would arrive from London, and she would leave Ty Hir and gossip with the best of us before returning home. Once or twice she let drop she’d been a raven like me.”

  “Raven?” I feigned ignorance; glad when my ploy worked, and Mrs Price twittered her fingers against my hand in mock chastisement.

  “Oh cariad, surely you remember? You called us that the first time - after your Mama and Papa ...” She turned away, as though afraid of stirring up painful memories.

  I paused and gave my parents remembrance. Her bright smile. His ever-tousled hair. My parents’ death, on our way back from South Africa, was an occurrence not a hang-up. I rarely thought of them, except with the vague kind of pleasure you have for distant things.

  “On account of our uniforms,” Mrs Price continued after a suitable pause for her own mourning of my sire and his wife. “Black - ‘cept that bit of white lace we wore at the neck.”

  I nodded my agreement and was about to change the subject to other, more weighty things when Mrs Price ploughed on. “Turns out Lilian worked in the same neck of the woods as someone Carillon knew. Not that she knew it, not till the night of the row with the vicar.” The postmistress lowered her voice. “I was walking the dog. Saw her enter the pub. Could tell she was in a right snit. Couldn’t hear much. Snatches mostly.”

  “Do you remember anything?”

  Mrs Price scrunched her face. “Yes,” she said eventually. “I heard her tell Deryn the rector was as big a bastard as Langley. He hit people too. Or so she said.”

  “The vicar’s violent, then?” I was unable to keep the incredulity out of my voice. The man was pompous certainly, but violent? That didn’t sit right.

  A similar confusion crossed my companion’s face. “Not as a rule,” she admitted, “but he didn’t like other men sniffing ‘round her skirts. Got terribly possessive. An old girlfriend, or sister, or some-such. Bit of a hussy, by all accounts. Got herself pregnant and ran off with someone unsuitable. He’s tolerant of most things, like a vicar should be, but adultery always brings the out the worst in him.” Mrs Price gave me a hard look as only someone who knew me from childhood could, and it stirred something in the shadows of memory that banished not only my ever-present scorpions but a morsel of importance.

  “Jewish?” I asked remembering Emily’s earlier run in with the rector.

  “Might have been. Apart from Sunday’s I don’t really listen to him!” she said in a way that was designed to shut down, rather than encourage, further conversation.

  I took her hint, and contented myself with a tour of the graveyard; remembering as I did so, Emily’s proposition, my initial reaction and subsequent acquiescence to her plan. A plan my cousin wasn’t going to like. However, now wasn’t the time to become maudlin for the future.

  Back at the church gate, my elephant of memory still deserting me, I bowed to the inevitable and asked the stupid question. “Mrs Price - you called yourselves ravens, but I don’t remember a Price at the Hall.” I smiled my confusion: “Were you married when you worked for Grandfather?”

  Her corresponding laughter was loud and full of merriment. “Lordy no!” She chortled. “I was one of the tweenies. Maggie, my lord,” she admitted, as I – a slow soul – made the connection and enveloped her in a big bear hug.

  “For all the biscuits and the cakes, you sneaked past cook!” I declared, and the remaining matrons smiled indulgently, prepared to overlook any and all of my many faults - for that random act of kindness.

  We reminisced, Mrs Price and I, for a few more minutes before she departed with a tear in her eye and a promise to send her Frank’s stamp collection down to us in London, “If that’s important, my lord?”

  I waved that it was and then turned to search for the vicar ... but that worthy was long gone. So, I trudged a lonely path to his house, where luck continued to desert me. A sick parishioner took him from home. His housekeeper told me in a sorrowful tone, she had no idea when he’d be back.

  Rather than waiting, I left a note assuring Carillon that I would be delighted to act as host for a sojourn in London should he care to visit the capital; before returning to the public house in time to discover that absence did not make my valet’s heart fonder.

  Po-faced and sharp of tongue, Sampson took the arranged sandwiches from Deryn with laboured politeness before advising me archly that if we were to catch the 4:15pm from Chester, we better get a wiggle on. Not that he used the word wiggle, I hasten to add. My valet had a politer turn of phrase and a less obvious line of innuendo. He also left the best to last.

  Grandfather sat king-like in the back of the Mercedes. Wrapped against the bitter weather, he greeted Sampson’s return with a warmth I never received, before advising me to “Shut the bloody door; you young fool.”

  I tried to have the last laugh by sitting in the front with the driver. But Sampson ever wise to my tricks, jumped nimbly to the prize, forcing me to sit next to my stony-faced grandsire for the journey to Chester.

  It took an hour for him to break the silence. Stopped outside the entrance to the station, waiting while Sampson and Grandfather’s driver handed over my bags to the porters, his tone was ducal to the extreme. “I wrote His Majesty.”

  I smiled and went for flippancy in response. “I’m sure he’s hanging on your every word.”

  “Told him to rescind his offer to dissolve your marriage.” I counted to ten. Grandfather did not. “I’m not having you free to marry that trollop.”

  I feigned ignorance. “Which trollop would that be, Your Grace? Serena the trollop? Margaret the trollop?” I stopped and appeared to consider the matter. “I suppose, if I divorce Manali the trollop, I could feasibly see my way to remarrying her. But that would be a waste of money, so I can safely say, she’s not the trollop you have in mind.” Shrugging in false confusion, his snort of annoyance told me I’d hit the mark. Under cover of a fatuous smile, I watched Ducal irritation became the frustration of the ages ...

  “You know damned well who I mean!” The windows rattled in the wake of Grandfather’s rage. “That hussy you had the audacity to bring into my home
. I almost believed the pair of you; that it was a mutual love of puzzles that brought you together ... How the hell could Robert vouch for her?” He stopped as if strangled and glared at me.

  Deciding to make things worse, I increased my frivolity. “Ahh, so you refer to the hussy-trollop. Strange. I thought her surname was Davies. “

  Grandfather’s ire would have withered lesser mortals. “That young lady!” he said in clipped tones, “Keep away from her. She’s dangerous.”

  I was not in the mood to be a lesser mortal. Adopting a military face, I addressed him directly. “You were there when we spoke to Clifford. You saw his reaction to her presence; you heard his formality. You know how dangerous she is.” I kept my agreement light, though there was an edge to my voice that brooked no interruption. “However, despite what you’d like to believe – based on the gossip received from your spies in the village – Emily’s not my mistress. I believe her words to me once were that she didn’t intend to live her mother’s life.”

  My piece stated, I frowned at my grandfather, who opened and closed his mouth twice before subsiding, a quiver of impotent anger, into the squabs of the car.

  I suppose at that point I could have ended my involvement in the conversation. But my grandfather needed to understand: I did not dance to his tune. My lips twitched. “Unfortunately, as we’re working together on a case for Salisbury, her chief voucher and my employer, I’m afraid that I’m going to have to disappoint you. I cannot cease my association with the young lady until said case is solved. So ... so ... sorry!”

  I opened the door, pausing on the running board to allow him the penultimate word. “No Byrd you’re not sorry. Not in the slightest.” Grandfather fingered his moustache. “One day you’ll listen to me.”

  I bowed. “And change the habit of a lifetime? I think don’t think so.”

  From Reports. London.

  CC hated death with a passion that tended to make him even more taciturn than normal, which is why, having left Barker to co-ordinate things at the crime scene, he summoned Lamb and headed off to Surrey, and his interview with Spinnaker’s widow.