by Caron Allan
‘How do the robbers know when the dinner party is on?’
Maple stared at Hardy then at the board, gulping his tea. ‘Bleeding heck, how did we miss that? Well, they must get tipped off.’
Hardy nodded. ‘Exactly. It doesn’t make sense for them to just watch large houses on the off-chance. So clearly someone is passing information on to them. Most likely a servant, I should think.’
‘That’s a bit much. It could just as easily be one of your lot, the toffs,’ Maple pointed out. ‘Maybe they just wait till they get an invite.’
‘They’d hardly betray their friends and family. Or risk losing their own valuables.’
‘Think about it, Bill, the staff are the ones in danger, really. Think of the footman who got coshed. The staff are the ones in the firing line, trying to help, trying to protect the families they work for. Plus, they’re not likely to know the value of the stuff that’s taken.’
‘Hmm. You could be right. Though I think a lot of the staff would know if something was valuable or not. But I suppose one of the guests would be in a better position to know who might be invited to one of these get-togethers and what valuables they might be likely to have on them.’
‘Remember Mrs Gossington’s pearls—they didn’t take those, she said they must of known they was paste,’ Maple said.
‘Yes. Yes, very true. Outside of her own home, that would probably only be known to her intimate friends. And if you think about it, a guest could quite easily pretend to give up their valuables then get them back later when the spoils are divided up. And, a guest would know the layout of the house, and possibly what other valuables might be in the residence.’
‘And, they’d know what staff there was, and where the telephones was, and the best way to get in and out.’
They stood in silence for several minutes, deep in thought. Finally, Hardy said, ‘Did anyone else say they saw a tattoo on the arm of one of the robbers?’
‘No, mate. Shame, that. Could have been useful. I’ve asked around. None of the official tattooists have seen anything like it, or so they say, though I’ll admit our description is a little hazy. But interestingly enough, one of them did say it sounded like a prison tattoo. One of the sort that the inmates do themselves.’
‘Really? Interesting. See if you can find out more about that, it sounds promising. If one of our robbers has got previous form, we might be able to find out about known associates, and get the rest of the gang from that.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘And I’m going to make a list of the guests who attended the parties, and see if any of them crop up more than once.’
‘Don’t forget to check the ones who were invited but didn’t turn up, Bill, it could be they thought they’d stay well clear. Might pretend to be under the weather or have another engagement.’
‘Excellent point, Frank.’
‘How is Miss Manderson? Janet was saying she got attacked?’
‘Yes, she was mugged last night. Someone snatched her bag, and knocked her down. She’s got a nasty bump and a mild concussion. Which reminds me, I must send her a card, and perhaps some flowers.’
‘I hear she was all over you like a rash.’
Hardy blushed but said simply, ‘You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.’
‘Apparently she told her mother she’d called you Darling.’
‘Shut up.’ Hardy smiled into his cup. ‘She was fainting.’
They finished their tea in the companionable silence of a well-working partnership.
Mrs Carmichael rang indecently early to summon Dottie to a rehearsal. Dottie explained about the mugging and her injuries, asking for some time off to recover. Slightly put out, Mrs Carmichael rearranged the appointment the following Tuesday.
‘Can you be at the warehouse for three, ducks? We just need to try a few things on, get the order right, and so on. Then I could do with a word after, if you’ll give me a few minutes. Plus, I’ve got another proposition for you from Cecil Greenwood, that film producer. He’s promising you a tidy sum too. Says they were ever so impressed with you.’
Dottie agreed to be at the warehouse on time, but refused to be drawn either way about the rest. Her instinct was to turn down the film producer, no matter how much he was planning on offering her. It just couldn’t compensate her for the tedium of waiting around for days on end. Her head was pounding and her whole body seemed to ache from the abrupt contact with the pavement the previous evening, but she hoped she would be feeling better by the time Tuesday came around and she had to go in to work.
Flora arrived at nine o’clock with flowers and fruit, only to find Dottie sitting at the dining table eating bacon, eggs and toast as if nothing had happened.
‘I tried to make her stay in bed, but she wouldn’t,’ complained their mother, pouring more tea and passing a cup to Flora.
‘That’s a nasty bruise!’ Flora said with a horrified gasp as she examined her sister’s face. ‘I can’t believe it. I mean, it wasn’t even late at night, and it’s a perfectly respectable neighbourhood. I had literally just said goodbye to Dottie a minute or two earlier!’
‘I wish I knew who it was,’ Dottie said for the twentieth time already that day. ‘I can’t believe it was just an opportunistic mugging.’
‘How could it be anything else?’ her mother asked. Then Dottie realised Mrs Manderson knew nothing of the fabric scrap William Hardy had given her, nor of the suspicions Dottie had voiced to Flora right before the attack. But she thought better of enlightening her now, however, and said nothing, concentrating instead on her food, which she was trying to appear to relish even though the sight and smell of it made her feel sick. Her head was still pounding but if she allowed her mother to think she was less than fully recovered, she’d be bundled back to bed, and it was important for her to get out of the house to have some fresh air and some space to think, and to get some information. She couldn’t bear the thought of staying at home to be fussed over and cossetted.
She finished her tea, dabbed her mouth with a napkin and shoved back her chair abruptly, saying as she did so, ‘Gosh, how late it is already. Do hurry up, Flora!’
Flora, her untasted cup poised before her lips, caught and recognised the quick conspiratorial glance she had known since infancy, and set down her cup, rising and kissing her mother’s cheek with every appearance of dismay. ‘Goodness, yes! If we don’t hurry, we’ll be late!’
‘But where are you going, girls?’ Mrs Manderson turned in her seat to call after them; they were already halfway into the hall.
‘Canterbury,’ Dottie said on the spur of the moment.
‘Can...?’ Flora said in surprise, staring at her sister, changing it to a firmer, more assured tone mid-sentence, ‘...terbury. Yes of course, the cathedral tour. We mustn’t miss the starting time. See you later, Mother, we shouldn’t be late back.’
‘Canterbury? But to go all that way, and in your condition, Florence, dear!’ their mother protested, but the front door banged. They had gone. She was addressing an empty room.
‘Canterbury?’ Flora repeated as she started the car. ‘We’re not actually going all the way to Kent, are we?’
Dottie nodded, pain seared her temple and she grimaced, putting a hand up to gently massage the bruised place. ‘Yes, sorry. It just suddenly came to me. I didn’t know what else to say.’
‘But Canterbury, Dottie. It’s a hell of a distance!’
‘Sorry. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘I suppose not. I hope you know the way.’
‘Um, not really, no. It’s south-east from here, if that helps.’
‘It doesn’t. I’ll stop at the AA tea-room and buy a map. You can pay.’
‘I don’t have my bag. It was stolen last night, if you remember, along with my purse, my compact, my favourite lipstick, my comb, two penny stamps, and one of the handkerchiefs Aunt Sophie sent me for my birthday last year. You know, the ones where she embroidered the monogram herself.’
; ‘How much was in the purse?’
‘Six shillings and a ha’penny.’
‘Hmm, that’s too bad. Well, I’ve only got two pounds in my bag, so I hope to goodness that will do, it should be enough.’
They set off. Ten minutes later Flora repeated plaintively, ‘But Canterbury! Dottie, how could you!’
They had a wonderful time travelling down into Kent. The roads were good, the map reliable—once they’d discovered which way round it was supposed to go—and the sun shone brightly and warmly from a clear blue sky. It was as if Spring had finally arrived. As soon as they left the busy streets of London behind, Dottie began to relax and feel better. All the way down they discussed fashion and planned changes to their wardrobes.
They made a couple of stops along the way, arriving in Canterbury itself in time for lunch. A pocket guidebook purchased at the hotel where they ate, instructed them on the sights of interest, and provided them with directions to the Cathedral museum.
The elderly gentleman who served as guide was zealous in his duty, and Dottie and Flora were both physically and mentally exhausted by the time they said goodbye to him.
But they took their afternoon tea with a sense of a job well done. Dottie had shown their guide her scrap of fabric and he had confirmed what Miss Parsons had told her. Dottie had carefully unpinned the scrap from the hem of her skirt, and was amused to see the elderly gentleman hastily avert his eyes as she did so. His cheeks were a little pink as he took the tiny piece of material from her. Flora was just relieved that the scrap hadn’t been inside the stolen handbag.
It only took a few seconds for him to examine the fabric. He handed it back to Dottie, saying quickly, ‘Come this way, my dear ladies.’ And he bustled away leaving them to hurry after him as best they could through the groups of visitors.
He led them into an anteroom of the Cathedral. Cabinets resembling huge wardrobes covered the two long walls of the room. The guide flung open a pair of doors, and pulled out some very elderly vestments: a couple of chasubles, a cope and an alb.
‘Strictly speaking these all ought to be in a museum. They are extremely old,’ he told them, and to Dottie’s astonishment he invited them to feel the cloth of one of the garments. It felt soft, buttery soft just like Dottie’s tiny piece of cloth. The colour of the second chasuble was quite similar to Dottie’s fabric. The texture too, was just like it, rubbed almost threadbare here and there, with little of the nap still remaining.
‘Your piece is definitely from a similar item,’ he said, ‘It was common for broderers—embroiderers in today’s English—to work on a ground of velvet. This could have been imported from the far east or the middle east, or from southern Europe, then worked on in this country before being sent—well, almost anywhere—all over the world. Of course, with the passage of the long years, the nap—the fluffy surface of the velvet—has more or less worn away, leaving what is in essence a mere framework of the fabric.’
So Miss Parsons had been right. Dottie was thrilled to have this confirmation. But she was still rather reluctant to reveal any more to the elderly gentleman. She certainly didn’t feel able to show him the scrap of paper bearing the words Mantle of God. It was possible William might want her to keep it a complete secret. So she confined herself to asking simply, ‘Could you possibly view this as a Godly Mantle?’
He thought for a second then nodded and smiled. ‘I think you could. The priestly garments were dedicated to God’s work, after all. The whole ceremony of the putting on of such garments was, and indeed still is, an act of sanctification. Think about it, ladies. An apparently ordinary gentleman—one of ‘us’—comes in off the street. He will probably be wearing an ordinary suit, perhaps like mine a little elderly, a bit baggy at the knees, possibly somewhat worn at the elbows. As a priest he won’t have a lovely wife,’ and here he smiled at Flora, ‘to take care of him and make sure his clothes are in good repair. He’s just an ordinary fellow, human, fallible, flawed. He goes into the robing room, or the vestry, or wherever this is taking place, and he puts on these garments, one sacred layer upon another, and all of the best quality and in good repair. And as he does so, he is covering up the human, fallible, sinful self, and taking upon himself the divine perfection of Our Lord. His role is to breach the gap between earth and heaven. Once he is fully robed, he is God’s representative on earth, no longer the down-at-heel chap who walked in off the street. So, yes my dear, the garments have great significance and importance. They are key to the success, after all, of the Church’s rites and ceremonies.’
He directed their eyes to the elaborate embroidery on the back of the chasubles. Scenes from the Bible, from the lives of the saints were emblazoned across the garments, surrounded by flower and star motifs, all done in the neat, delicate stitches Miss Parsons had demonstrated. For Dottie almost the most important thing was the next piece of information he shared with them.
‘The majority of broderers were women, expert, proficient, plying a respectable, and highly valued, guilded profession that paid them well and gave them position in society. Embroidery was a highly-respected career, possibly the only respectable career in those days a single woman could undertake apart from marriage or a convent life of devotion. It was a skill that enabled women to earn wages and support themselves and to receive the patronage of Earls, Kings and Popes.’
‘Popes?’ Dottie asked surprised. ‘But we’re not Catholics, we are under the sovereignty of the King and the Archbishop of Canterbury, aren’t we?’
‘Now, yes. Then, no. These garments were made at a time when Catholicism was our national faith. Henry the Eighth’s terrible Reformation was hundreds of years in the future. Which is why these garments are so elaborate. The later Protestant faith Henry created abhorred all the embellishment that went hand-in-hand with Catholic rites and ceremonies at that time. These kinds of vestments, along with silverware, paintings, murals, rosaries, incense, rites, ceremonies and masses, all were swept away and destroyed, or their destruction was attempted. The abbeys and monasteries were by and large torn down, along with everything—and often everyone—within their walls. And all around the country, loyal Catholics hid as much as they could in the hope of a future return to national favour of their faith.
‘Sadly, some adventurers seized these goods to make their own fortunes—not everything was turned over to the crown to fill the royal coffers and fund Henry’s pursuits, and of course, his wars. Catholics who refused to recant—that is, deny their faith—would be stripped of status, wealth, land, houses, could be and often were, imprisoned, tortured, and many, many of them were executed for treason. They were heralded by those of the Faith as Martyrs. Families were divided, destroyed. These were terrible, turbulent times we are talking about. I’m certain many believers on both sides of the faith-divide thought the Day of Judgement has arrived. As a member of the Ecumenical Movement, I myself am only too thankful that we now live in more tolerant times. Many of my closest friends and colleagues are Catholic priests.’
They thanked him and said goodbye. They paused inside the museum doorway to push a few small coins into the donation box before leaving the place, their moods sober. They had plenty to think about.
‘What a sweet man. A bit behind the times, but sweet,’ Flora said.
‘He was very knowledgeable. Though I’m not sure we’re any more tolerant these days than back in the time of the Reformation. But it was absolutely worth it to come all this way and hear what he had to say,’ Dottie said. ‘I’m sorry I rather sprung it on you. I am jolly grateful to you for bringing me, by the way.’
‘It’s all right, though perhaps I should get my husband to teach you to drive as well, so that after the baby comes, you can drive me around. You could do with a little runabout to get you round town, darling.’
After their tea, they telephoned to their mother and to George to let them know they were on their way home, and then they were on the road again, already both exhausted from the long day, and speaking little un
til they reached the lights of London and home seemed almost within reach. Dottie’s head ached again from her attack, and she massaged her temples to ease the pain. The swelling was a little reduced in size, for which she was thankful. But she was glad they had gone to Canterbury, she felt the knowledge they had gained had been worth it. Besides, the thought of a day in bed being nagged by her mother was enough to make her headache well worth it.
Finally, slowing the car to a halt outside the Mandersons’ home, Flora said, ‘I’m now absolutely certain that Dr Melville must have known what that fabric scrap was. He could hardly be who he is, I realise now, and not know. Could he?’
‘No,’ Dottie agreed in a quiet voice. ‘He knew all right. The man’s an out-and-out bounder. But why did he lie, Flora, that’s what I keep asking myself. Why?’
Chapter Ten
WILLIAM HARDY ARRIVED promptly at the Mandersons’ home on Saturday night. Mrs Manderson herself opened the door to him and ushered him inside, for the night had turned cold and wet, the country once more plunged back into winter. In the hall, Janet received his great-coat. As his hostess chivvied him into the drawing room, Hardy was aware of nerves, but across the room, Dottie looked up from her conversation and smiled at him.
Before he could approach her, however, a dandified young man nearby said in a loud, drawling voice, ‘I say, watch out everyone, it’s the fuzz. Are you here to thwart one of those dinner party robberies, constable?’
Hardy fixed him with a look of ill-disguised contempt. ‘Let us hope nothing like that happens this evening,’ he said.
The dandy guffawed in an affected way, and Hardy wanted to punch him on the chin, what little there was of it. The chinless wonder went to stand very close to Dottie, in what Hardy could hardly help interpreting as a proprietorial manner. He felt as though everyone was staring at him. But Dottie shook off her guardian and came over, saying in a clear voice that reached everyone, ‘I’m so pleased you were able to make it, Inspector.’ She came to take his arm, and drew him with her to the other side of the room.