“Inspector,” said Frances, “if you don’t mind.”
He stopped and turned around, raising an eyebrow at Lady Marmalade. He wasn’t the happiest to be entertaining her inquiries.
“Has the coroner determined what kind of gun was used to kill Mr. Forsyth.”
“He has, it was a Webley revolver just like the two we found in Garrett’s and Jack’s car.”
“And from what I understand, that’s quite a common revolver in England is it not?”
“Yes, I’d say it was.”
You could tell Gibbard was getting impatient.
“What are you after, Lady Marmalade?”
His voice was testy and his tone sharp as if she’d just given him a lemon to suck on.
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I’d be most grateful if you’d find out if Gerald Forsyth and Dr. Luther Garnet own any revolvers of the same kind.”
Inspector Gibbard sighed and rolled his eyes.
“If you insist.”
“I do, Inspector, yes I do.”
“Very well, but the case is as good as closed. Everybody knows Garrett held no love for his father. He’s as guilty as the Cheshire cat’s grin.”
“If you say so, Inspector.”
“I do.”
He turned and walked out after his constable and Garrett. Though he left with shoulders slumping more than usual. Lady Marmalade had a way of weighing him down with fool’s errands. Or so he thought.
Agnus came in carrying a tray of scones, whipped cream, strawberries and tea. She lay it down in front of Lady Marmalade and Frances. Meredith moved over to the couch where Garrett had just sat. It was still warm from his body.
“Sorry it’s late, my Lady. I didn’t want to interrupt the inspector.”
“Not at all. Thank you for bringing it.”
Agnus offered a small curtsey and turned to walk out again.
“Agnus,” said Frances.
Agnus stopped and turned around to look at Lady Marmalade.
“Yes, my Lady.”
Frances looked up at her and smiled.
“Please let James know that I’ll be making sure you and he are both paid your wages owing.”
“Thank you, my Lady, but that’s not necessary. It’s not your concern.”
“I know Agnus, but you should be paid for the work you’ve done.”
Agnus curtsied again and offered her thanks. She also offered Lady Marmalade one of the biggest smiles Frances had seen in quite some time during these trying events. And she walked out with what might even have been a skip in her step.
Not wanting to be rude. Lady Marmalade and Florence sat for another thirty minutes drinking tea and eating scones. When the clock struck noon, they excused themselves, leaving Meredith to her ghosts and Frances and Florence to their important work.
“We must waste no time, my dear Flo, in getting to Southport. That must be our first order of business,” said Frances as she and Florence walked down the driveway towards Florence’s home.
TWENTY
Chapter 20
SOUTHPORT might be south of the Lake District, but the journey there and the small sleepy town itself still offer some of the best scenery in England. At least that’s how Lady Marmalade thought of it. But then old Blighty had always held a wonder and beauty to her that she had not seen bettered anywhere else in her wide travels.
And as they headed towards Southport in Florence’s red Alvis Speed 25. On either side of the engine were two spare wheels in red covers, their silver spokes blinking like jewels in the sun. The roof was down and Frances had her scarf round her neck. It wasn’t warm, but now that the sun had burned through the veil of gray clouds Frances was warm enough with the exhilaration of the wind through her hair.
The two of them grinning in the car like a couple of school girls as Florence drove, edging the Alvis up to sixty miles an hour on the thin English country roads. Traffic was light and the car was low to the ground and the green and brown countryside blurred past like wet smeared paint.
“You know,” said Florence, yelling above the whistling wind, “they say this car can get up to one hundred miles an hour. Though I’ve never had the courage to push it past sixty five. Do you want to give it a go?”
Frances looked over at her friend and grinned, nodding.
“Why not, we’re on a straight road without any traffic. But don’t you dare tell Eric.”
Florence laughed.
“Not a word.”
She dropped the Alvis into third gear and the car gave a throaty roar as it leapt to life like a sleek leopard. She was soon at a little over seventy miles an hour with the car starting to get angry under the third gear. She changed to fourth and watched the needle edge up slowly but surely. It wasn't long before she was seventy five and then eighty.
Florence’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel and Frances' eyes were streaming from the wind. Frances was also holding onto the top of the door for dear life with her left hand.
As they got to ninety, Florence started to get worried. She eased off the accelerator and let the Alvis come steadily back down to fifty.
“Almost,” she said.
“You had me terrified. I swear I think my heart is in my throat. Absolutely exhilarating. This is such a wonderful car, Florence, I must have Eric get me one.”
“Nonsense, you’re not as much as a daredevil as I am.”
“True, but it was fun.”
“I lost my nerve at ninety,” said Florence, looking over at Frances as tears started drying down her cheeks.
Frances reached into her handbag and took out two tissues. She offered one to Florence and they both dabbed their eyes dry. Although there were no speed restrictions on these roads leading into Southport, Florence had enough of high speed and the remainder of the journey they took at the relatively leisurely speed of fifty miles per hour.
It was more relaxing at that speed, and Frances could enjoy her English scenery and the rolling hills and greenery of these fair isles. As they got closer to Southport the sun was bobbing and weaving in and out of the clouds like Joe Louis. It had not yet won its bout for the day. Southport was a mix of sun and clouds and you could feel the difference in temperature as soon as the sun disappeared behind a bruising cloud.
King Street wasn’t far from the coast, but it wasn’t considered a desirable part of Southport for holidayers. It was a stretch of street that held a mix of business with heaping red bricked flats on top of them. Florence found a place to park just outside along the street. It was a quiet day on King Street.
The holidayers hadn’t arrived yet, it was too early, and the residents were mostly at work. Frances and Florence got out of the car and inhaled the fresh salty Irish Sea air. Then they walked across the street to the main entrance. Inside the building they found number twenty-one with the name Lottie Daubney on it.
“I hope she’s in, Flo, I hadn’t considered that before we left.”
“Well, it is Good Friday tomorrow, she might have taken extended leave from work.”
The two of them climbed the flight of steps to the first floor. The building was clean and well kept. Though the hallways were dim and the carpet on them wearing thin in places. They found number twenty-one. It was a white door, like all the others.
“Here goes something, I hope,” said Frances as she knocked politely on the door three times.
“What do you expect she’s like?” asked Florence.
“Not a clue. I wouldn’t have expected Garrett to have been born of Ginnie and Jack. Where he got his looks from I have no idea.”
Florence chuckled and nodded in agreement.
“Who is it?” came the polite and upbeat voice from behind the door.
“It’s Frances Marmalade and Florence Hudnall, we’re here as friends of Garrett Forsyth.”
“Just a minute, please,” said the young female voice on the other end.
“Why didn’t you use your title?” whispered Florence.
Lady Marmalade s
hrugged.
“You’ve seen this place, these are good honest, working people and I don’t want to put on any airs and put the poor dear out. She’s probably been through a lot the last day or so.”
The door opened and behind it stood a tall young woman in her early twenties. She stood eye to eye with Florence. She had long blonde hair, not natural, that fell just below her shoulders in slow heavy curls. She was as pretty as her half-brother Garrett was handsome. She had a full mouth painted with red lipstick and bright blue eyes. She was well manicured and had taken up the recent fashionable habit of plucking her eyebrows.
“Is everything alright with Garrett?” she asked, not quite letting them in right away.
“Well, that’s what we’d like to talk to you about, dear, if you don’t mind,” said Frances.
Lottie looked down at Frances absentmindedly for a moment.
“Oh yes, sorry, please come in.”
Her voice had class to it, but every so often it cracked and the slightest hint of her Cockney would come through which she quickly shoved back down her throat. Frances and Florence walked in and waited in the hallway as she closed the door behind them.
“Please come this way,” said Lottie as she led them into the living room which was one big room that also held a small dining room table at one end and a galley kitchen just off of it.
Frances and Florence sat down in two seater couch covered at the back with a crocheted blanket. Lottie sat down opposite them in a well worn cushioned chair with worn wooden armrests.
“That blanket was from my grandmother,” said Lottie pointing to the blanket that Frances and Florence were sitting against.
“It’s lovely, dear,” said Frances. “Just to be certain, you are Lottie Daubney aren’t you?”
Lottie got up from her chair and came over to them and offered them each a delicate hand which they shook. Her hand was small and slender for her height and seemed as fragile as a bird and as warm.
“Silly me, when you said you were friend’s of Garrett’s I quite forgot my manners. Yes, I am Lottie Daubney.”
“Nice to meet you,” said Frances, “I’m Frances Marmalade and this is my friend Florence Hudnall.”
“Marmalade like the jam we put on our toast?” said Lottie, a little awkwardly.
“One and the same,” said Frances. “Florence and I just made a batch of marmalade. We should have brought one, perhaps next time.”
Lottie hadn’t sat down again. She was wearing a white dress that fell below her knees, red high-heeled shoes the color of her lipstick and a red and white polka dot blouse.
“I should offer you some tea, would you like some?”
“That would be lovely, dear,” said Florence. Frances nodded in agreement.
“Then if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just be a minute. I hope you don’t mind, I don’t mean to be rude, but I hardly ever have visitors.”
She stepped away into the galley kitchen and Lady Marmalade and Florence sat quietly alone to their thoughts. The living room, like much of the flat that Frances had been able to see was sparse. The carpet was a firm weave and a deep red. The walls were white and there were two prints on them. The whole theme was trying, unsuccessfully, to look modern and Art Deco.
On the dark wooden table that stood stolidly like a sentinel next to the chair Lottie had recently sat in, was a wireless and an ashtray. On the lower wooden table in front of the couch where Frances and Florence sat was a single glass ashtray, the twin to the one next to the wireless, and a small rectangular crocheted cloth that covered about half of its face.
It didn’t take Lottie long to bring out a painted white wooden tray that held a teapot, small milk jug, a bowl of sugar cubes, a plate with three lemon wedges and three teacups. The teacups held an assortment of blue, pink and yellow flowers on both the cup and saucer. Lottie placed the tray on the table in front of Frances and Florence.
“I don’t know how you like your tea so I brought out everything.”
She smiled broadly at Frances and Frances couldn’t help but feel some compassion for the young woman.
“Should I make some sandwiches?” Lottie asked, looking at both Frances and Florence.
“No thank you, dear, I think we’re quite alright.”
Lottie nodded her head and her wavy hair, heavy with bouncing curls towards the end swayed slightly. She went and sat down.
“We should probably let the tea steep a minute or two more,” she said.
“Good idea,” said Frances.
Lottie looked a little nervous. She fiddled with her fingers in her lap and looked up at Frances and smiled a smile as weak at the tea might have been to that point.
“Is Garrett okay?” she asked at last.
“No, I’m afraid he isn’t, my dear, and that’s why we’ve come to speak with you.”
“What’s happened?”
“Well, you might well know what’s happened, Lottie, and it’s a very serious matter,” said Frances.
Lottie looked down at her hands and wrung them white, as if she could wring out the memories from last night.
“Oh bother,” she said. “Garrett had nothing to do with it.”
“I’d like to believe so, but the police have arrested him and I’m trying to help find out what his actual role was.”
Lottie looked up at Frances and stared at her for a while, then feeling self conscious she let her eyes fall onto the ceramic teapot.
“Am I in trouble?” she asked.
“Garrett doesn’t think so.”
Lottie looked back up at Frances and tried on a brave smile, though it wasn’t as sticky as she might have liked. It kept slipping off and she had to put it back on a couple more times before it stuck.
“I think I know you,” she said. “Weren’t you in the papers a while back for having solved that horrible murder of Lady Bromson?”
Lady Marmalade smiled and nodded her head just a bit.
“Yes, I suppose that was me.”
“It’s such a pleasure to meet you, my Lady, I don’t know what to say. Do I need to curtsey? Let me get some biscuits.”
Frances put her hand up.
“That’s quite alright, my dear, please just call me Frances and let’s do away with the pomp and ceremony.”
Lottie was excited now. She leaned in on the edge of her seat.
“I’ve never met a celebrity before. Nor royalty, nor a real detective.”
Lottie was smiling broadly, perhaps even naively under the circumstances that she found herself in.
“Not royalty, dear, I’m not a member of the royal family. Nobility would be the appropriate term. And if you were curious about formality I’d be called The Most Honorable The Marchioness of Sandown.” Lady Marmalade chuckled. “It’s all quite silly really, and so I usually don’t bother with that formal title and prefer Lady Marmalade to The Lady Marmalade, as if there could even be others.”
Frances smiled, trying to ease the awkwardness she was feeling. Lottie was riveted. “But I’d still much rather you call me Frances.”
“That is quite a mouthful, my Lady...I mean Frances. I’ve never met a Marchioness before. Sounds important.”
Florence was sitting quietly next to Frances, quite bemused by it all.
“Yes, but that’s not why we’re here, Lottie. We need to hear about last night and what happened. You do want to help Garrett, don’t you?”
“Yes, most definitely, he’s been very good to me.”
“Good, then let’s start with tea,” said Frances reaching for the teapot. Lottie shot up out of her chair like a sprinter might from her blocks.
“Please, Frances, that sounds strange to call you by your first name,” said Lottie self-consciously, “let me pour the tea.”
Lottie took the teapot and poured it into the three teacups without spilling a drop of the floral scented rusty colored tea. Frances took a wedge of lemon and squeezed the juice into her tea with her fingers and spoon. A small pip fell in. Frances looked at it
for a moment and fished it out onto the saucer.
“Sorry about that, I suppose I should’ve taken the pips out first,” said Lottie.
Lottie and Florence poured cream and two sugar cubes into each of their teacups and stirred them to the color of salmon.
“When did you know you were related to Garrett?” asked France, coming quickly out of the gates.
Lottie sipped her tea and then looked up at Lady Marmalade.
“It was when I started making inquiries about who my father was.”
“And when was that?”
“I only started to look into about six months ago I think it was.”
“And how long had you known that your father was actually Jack Forsyth?”
Lottie looked off to her right and out the window. You might have imagined her looking out and across the beach to the expansive blue of the Irish Sea. But you’d be wrong. Lottie didn’t live in a flat like that. All the flat looked out onto was a similar complex across the road.
Lottie wasn’t from money. She had a rich father, or she had once had a rich father who had, in the last several years completely ruined his company and everyone along with it. Lottie looked back and looked at Frances, though her stare was vacant, lost in the mists of time.
“I found out not long ago, when I made inquiries regarding my birth certificate. You see, my mother passed when I was born. It was a hard labor on her and I was a big baby. It took me a long time to forgive myself for my mother’s death.”
Lottie paused then and blinked her eyes. They were wet and she dabbed at her left eye with a finger, trying to cauterize the pain. Frances reached into her purse and pulled out another tissue. She offered it to Lottie. Lottie took it with a pained smile.
“Ahh, I wish I’d known my mother better. She was a good hard working woman if a little naive. You see, she thought that Jack was a good man, an upstanding man who would take care of his responsibilities. But alas, she learned the hard way that he was not such a man at all.”
Lottie dabbed at her eyes some more with the tissue. She folded it up and tucked it into her right hand. She took her teacup and sipped more tea.
“You see, Frances, my birth certificate always said that the father was unknown. I suppose, in those days, that was the best a woman could manage. But after I lost her and after all the foster parents and orphanages I’d been through I wanted a real family.”
Lady Marmalade Cozy Murder Mysteries: Box Set (Books 1 - 3) Page 17