by T E Kinsey
‘Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. We’re going to take a short break now, but we’ll be back in the jiffiest of jiffies.’
And with that, they put down their instruments and stepped down from the low stage one by one. Just my luck.
The trumpeter disappeared, presumably off to the library, but the others milled about, chatting to each other and accepting the congratulations and admiration of the guests. Roland Richman had been buttonholed by Lady Farley-Stroud. She seemed to be at about the same stage of uninhibited merriment as Lady Hardcastle and from the snippets I could overhear over the chatter she seemed to be bombarding him with comically ill-informed questions about the music couched in girlishly flirtatious language which should have been mortifyingly embarrassing but actually made me warm to her a little. It was good to see that the flame hadn’t gone out.
Sylvia Montgomery sidled up to me. ‘I say, are you the girl I saw in the corridor just now?’
‘I am, madam, yes.’
‘Any luck?’
‘I’m afraid not, madam. I managed to locate the stash but it proved more difficult than I had imagined to liberate more than a glassful for my mistress.’
‘Not to worry, dear. Nelson “remembered” that he has a little scotch tucked away in his things. He’s gone to fetch it.’
I smiled. ‘A generous fellow. He’s the trumpeter?’
‘He is.’
‘He’s very good. You’re all very good. I’m so glad I came.’
‘Then I’m glad you came, too. Thank you. And thank you for trying to see us right. It’s much appreciated.’
She turned away and went back to her friends.
The rest of the evening passed all too quickly and I found myself getting busier as the party slowly wound down. I heard little of the band, but they seemed a little less lively than they had earlier so I didn’t feel I was missing too much.
I did as much of the clearing away as I felt was my proper share, probably a little more if truth be told. Maude had deigned to pitch in but she was working painfully slowly and although it galled me to make things too easy for her, I didn’t want the burden to fall too heavily on the rest of the household. In truth, they were probably used to it, but it gave me a pleasantly self-satisfied feeling to lift some of the load from the junior staff.
By midnight I was dismissed with grateful thanks by Jenkins, who assured me that my assistance wouldn’t be forgotten and that help was always available to me at The Grange if ever I should need it. I shook his hand and asked if perhaps I might take advantage of his kind offer immediately.
‘Obviously Lady Hardcastle isn’t staying at The Grange, but we don’t yet have our own transport. Might I trouble Bert for a ride back to the house?’
‘Of course, of course,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’ll have him prepare the motorcar and bring it to the front of the house. He should be ready in ten minutes.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, and went off in search of Lady Hardcastle.
I found her in the ballroom, sitting on a chair in the corner and surrounded once more by Miss Clarissa’s young friends, including the handsome Nepalese man, as though by a circle of adoring acolytes. I could hear the familiar end of one of her favourite anecdotes about her adventures in China and was gratified to hear that my own part in it had not been diminished by the repeated retellings. I waited until we were safely concealed in the ox cart and heading for the Burmese border before discreetly signalling that I wished to speak to her.
‘Well, my lovely darlings,’ she said, ‘I fear the time has come for dear old Aunt Emily to make her grand exit. My maid – you remember her from the story? She’s the chap that broke that ruffian’s nose. My maid seems to require my attention. If I know her at all well, she’ll have arranged transport home. She’s an absolute poppet like that. It’s been wonderful to meet you all.’ She rose unsteadily to her feet, saying her goodbyes to the excitable youngsters. The Nepalese emissary kissed her hand with elegant courtesy and expressed his desire to hear more of her adventures.
She smiled. ‘Thank you, Mr Verma, it’s been a pleasure to meet you. Now then, the rest of you, do have fun, and if you absolutely must get up to wickedness, do please try not to make too much noise; it alarms the old folk.’
With that she left them and walked over to me with exaggerated care. She suddenly remembered that she was still holding a brandy bottle in her hand and turned to give it back to Miss Clarissa.
‘Thank you so much for finding this, my dear,’ she slurred. ‘It’s just the medicine Aunt Emily needed.’
I raised an eyebrow, thinking I could have heard a little more of the band if I’d not been off on my own, now seemingly unnecessary, brandy quest. ‘Bert is bringing the car round, my lady.’
‘You, Flo,’ she said, linking arms with me, ‘are an absolute poppet. Have I told you that? I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
I led her to the front door. We passed Sir Hector and Lady Farley-Stroud on the way and she thanked them for a lovely evening, kissing them both on the cheek. I managed to steer her out the front door before she went any further – I once saw her kiss her host, a rather diminutive Earl, on the top of his bald head to the eye-popping alarm of his wife – and poured her into the waiting motor car.
Bert took us home.
I knew Lady Hardcastle wouldn’t even be awake, much less up and about, until quite late the next morning so I’d taken rare advantage of the opportunity for a lie in. Or tried to. By eight o’clock the indolence was too much for me and I’d risen, washed, dressed and gone downstairs looking for things to do.
By half-past nine, there was bread proving beside the range and I was well into the mending when the doorbell rang. I put down my sewing and went to the door.
‘Morning, Miss Armstrong,’ said Constable Hancock as I opened it. ‘Is your mistress at home?’
‘Good morning to you, too, Constable. She’s “at home” in the sense of actually being here, but “at home to callers” I couldn’t say. She was at The Grange last evening and is still lying in.’
‘I know she was, miss. You too, I understands. That’s the reason I’m here, in fact. Would you mind terribly trying to rouse her? I rather needs to speak to her. To you both, in fact.’
‘Of course. Is there something the matter?’
‘There is, miss, but I’d prefer just to go through it the once if that’s not too idle of me.’
‘Not at all, Constable. Please come in, won’t you. You know where the kitchen is? There’s some tea in the pot, do please help yourself and I’ll try to awaken Lady Hardcastle.’
‘Much obliged, miss,’ he said, plodding obediently into the kitchen.
I run upstairs and knocked on the bedroom door. There was no reply but I opened it and went in anyway. She was still fast asleep and it took quite a bit of shaking to awaken her.
‘Oh, Flo, do leave off, there’s a dear. Let poor Emily sleep.’
‘No, my lady, you have to get up. The police are here.’
‘The police?’ she mumbled. ‘What, all of them? Whatever do they want? I hope they wiped their feet.’ Her eyes closed.
I sighed and shook her again. ‘No, my lady, just Constable Hancock. But he needs to speak to us both and I think it has something to do with The Grange.’
‘If it’s about the missing brandy, tell him I’ll buy them a case of the stuff and then invite him to come back tomorrow.’
‘I really don’t think it’s about the brandy, my lady, and I really do think you need to get up. This instant.’
‘Have I ever told you how much of a bully you are, Florence Armstrong?’ she said, groggily. ‘Can’t a girl lie in bed with a hangover once in a while without puritanical maids and officious policemen intruding on her slumbers?’
‘You tell me all the time, my lady. Please get up.’
‘Very well, very well,’ she said, sitting up at last. ‘Tell him I’ll be down presently. Make tea. And eggs. Scramble eggs for me. With toas
t.’
‘Yes, my lady.’
I left her to get up in her own time and returned to the kitchen where I found Constable Hancock sitting at his ease and sipping tea. He made to stand up, slopping his tea slightly as he did so.
‘Please don’t get up, constable,’ I said, waving him back down. ‘Lady Hancock will be just a few moments.’
‘Very good, miss. Thank you.’
I gave him a damp cloth and he dabbed at the tea stain on his jacket as I set about making some breakfast.
‘I’m making some breakfast for Lady Hardcastle, would you like some eggs?’
‘Thank you, miss, yes please. You’re very kind. Is that fresh bread I smells?’
‘It is, but it’s still proving. I was hoping to have it ready for lunch. I have some left over from yesterday that will be perfect for toast, though. I do love to bake my own bread. Do you bake?’
He laughed the heartiest laugh I’d ever heard him give. ‘Me, miss? Bake? You are a caution. Whoever heard of such a thing? No, our ma always used to make her own bread, mind.’
‘Most professional bakers are men, are they not?’ I said, mischievously.
‘That they are, miss. But most professional bakers are not policemen. Quite aside from it being a woman’s work to bake around the house, I doesn’t have time for no baking shenanigans. Baking.’ He chuckled again. ‘I shall have to tell the sarge about this.’
‘Unless he thinks it such a great idea that he has you baking bread for his breakfast.’
His cheery laughter erupted again.
‘Gracious, you two seem happy,’ croaked Lady Hardcastle from the doorway.
Constable Hancock jumped to his feet. ‘Good morning, m’lady. I’m sorry to call so early.’
‘Nonsense, constable, it’s already...’
‘Ten o’clock, my lady,’ I said, nodding towards the large clock on the kitchen wall.
‘Quite so,’ she said. ‘Plenty late enough to be calling. So what can I do for you, my dear constable?’
‘It seems we only ever meets when there’s bad news, m’lady,’ he said, apologetically. ‘There’s a to-do up at The Grange.’
‘Oh dear,’ she said, accepting the glass of water I’d just poured for her. ‘What sort of to-do?’
‘Seems one of the musicians died, m’lady.’
‘Oh no, how sad. Was he ill? Was it unexpected?’
‘I don’t suppose as how he expected to be clouted round the back of the head with something heavy, no, m’lady.’
She sat down at the table and sipped slowly at her water. ‘Gracious me. Is there anything I can do?’
‘That’s more or less why I’m here, m’lady. Inspector Sunderland has already arrived and asked if I’d come and fetch you both so as how you could give witness statements and such.’
‘Of course, of course.’ She looked more than a little fragile. ‘I don’t suppose,’ she began with unaccustomed tentativeness, ‘you have transport of some sort.’
‘I’ve got my bicycle,’ he said with a wink in my direction.
‘Oh,’ she groaned.
‘Only teasing, m’lady. Sir Hector sent me in his motor car. Bert’s waiting outside.’
‘Oh, thank goodness. You’re a wicked man, Constable Hancock. I think Armstrong is a bad influence on you.’
‘Me, my lady?’ I said, setting out plates on the kitchen table for the impromptu breakfast party. ‘I am a paragon of virtue, I’ll have you know.’
Constable Hancock began to chuckle but looked suddenly embarrassed and busied himself with the teapot and cups I’d just set down in front of him on the table.
‘Relax, Constable,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I think we can safely say by now that you’re among friends.’
He smiled and poured the tea.
We ate hastily together, the conversation turning completely away from the “to-do” at The Grange and focussing instead on more mundane matters of village life. There would be a time for dead trumpeters and head-walloping in due course.
‘Lady Hardcastle,’ said Inspector Sunderland, ‘thank you for coming. I’m sorry to have to summon you so early on the morning after a party, but you can understand the urgency, I’m sure.’
Lady Hardcastle had taken Aspirin as well as sweet tea and her light breakfast, and was already more like her normal self. ‘Please think nothing of it, Inspector. I’m only too pleased to help.’
‘Thank you, my lady. And thank you, too, Miss Armstrong. I gather you were both here last evening.’
‘Yes, Inspector,’ I said. ‘I arrived at The Grange just before four in the afternoon and spent most of my time below stairs until around seven o’clock when the guests started to arrive. Lady Hardcastle and I left together at around half-past midnight.’
‘Seven? Isn’t that rather early for a ball? I thought these things began around ten.’
‘They do, Inspector,’ said Lady Hardcastle, ‘in fashionable society. But out here in the country they prefer an early start and early to bed. To be fair, it was more of a soirée than a ball.’
‘I see,’ he said, clearly still bemused by the antics of the privileged classes. ‘And you, Lady Hardcastle? When did you arrive?’
‘At around a quarter past eight, I should say.’
‘The invitations say “Seven O’Clock”.’
‘They do, Inspector. But, really. Who arrives on time at a party?’ She often played the dizzy socialite when she was unsure of people; she found it kept them a little off guard. Give it a while and she’d be giggling and calling him “darling” and he’d either dismiss her as a fool or be taken in by her warmth and give away far more than he had planned. I’d seen it many times before.
‘Who indeed, my lady,’ he said stiffly. He’d met her before and was clearly not taken in. ‘Now on the off chance that Constable Hancock has been the soul of discretion and hasn’t already told you all the confidential details of the case, I’d quite like to explain everything to you. You’ve been something of an irritation to us down at Bristol CID over the past few months, not to mention a reckless danger to yourself. But I can’t deny that you have an able mind and it’s obvious that you take some manner of pleasure in solving these little puzzles so I’d rather like to see if you can offer any help on this one, most especially since you were actually here.’
Lady Hardcastle seemed slightly taken aback. The Inspector had always been courteous, if a little stern, in his dealings with us, but neither of us had ever thought that he had anything but contempt for our “meddling” (as one of his superiors had called it).
‘Of course, Inspector,’ she said. ‘It would be a pleasure and an honour to help.’
‘Quite so,’ he said. ‘The facts of the case, then, are that Mr Nelson Holloway, the trumpet player with...’ he consulted his notebook, ‘Roland Richman’s Ragtime Revue – whatever happened to a good old sing-song round the piano, that’s what I’d like to know – Mr Nelson was found in the library this morning at about six o’clock by Dora Kendrick, the housemaid, when she went in to open the shutters and tidy the room which had been used by the band during the evening before. Thinking him still drunk, she went to rouse him but on approaching his recumbent form, she found him “stiff and cold” with a “deathly pallor” and “lying in a pool of blood” whereupon she screamed the house down and has had to be sedated by Dr Fitzsimmons.’
‘Is she all right?’ I asked. I’d not seen an awful lot of Dora the day before, but she seemed like a sweet girl.
‘She’ll be fine,’ said Inspector Sunderland. ‘Not so fine, though, is Mr Holloway. The “pool of blood” was actually a tiny trickle from a small laceration on the back of the scalp, but it was enough to frighten the girl. Dr Fitzsimmons and I are of the opinion that he was struck on the back of the head with some sort of heavy, blunt object which split his scalp causing the bleeding but which also did enough internal damage to the man’s brain to kill him, though not instantly. The doctor suggests that he would have been unconscious a
nd breathing when the assailant left him. Death would have occurred some time later, and he estimates that he actually passed at around four o’clock this morning.’
‘So we’ve no idea when the attack itself actually happened,’ said Lady Hardcastle, thoughtfully. ‘But the intention was probably not murder.’
‘Very good, my lady,’ he said, impressed. ‘No, a murderer would have made certain that he was dead. But as to the time, we might be able to narrow it down a little. We have statements from witnesses that Mr Nelson was last definitely seen alive at ten o’clock when the band took its break.’
‘That’s when I last saw him, too,’ I said. ‘Miss Montgomery – she’s the singer – she said that he’d gone off to the library to fetch his secret supply of scotch.’
‘Oh?’ he said. ‘And why would she tell you that, I wonder? Establishing an alibi, perhaps?’
‘Possibly, Inspector,’ I said. ‘But it all seemed perfectly innocent at the time. I’d met her earlier, she’d been searching the library for booze, and she asked me if I could find some for her. She came over during her break to ask me if I’d managed it.’
‘I see. Why you? Why not one of the household servants?’
‘All servants look alike, Inspector,’ I said, indicating my uniform. ‘How would she know I didn’t work here?’
‘Quite so,’ he said. ‘And you didn’t have any luck with your search, I presume?’
I hesitated.
‘She found me a little brandy, Inspector,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘But the Farley-Strouds had hidden all the good stuff.’
The Inspector laughed. ‘Always the way in these big houses,’ he said. ‘But anyway, that leads me to believe that Mr Nelson was attacked some time between leaving the ballroom at ten and when the band started again at half past. If he’d been able to return, he would have, I reckon.’
‘Did no one try to look for him?’ I asked.
‘Only the band would have known he was missing, miss,’ he said. ‘And once they’d started playing, there wasn’t much they could do about it. They were already a man short so they couldn’t very well spare another to go searching for the trumpeter, even if he was bringing the scotch.’