Belchester Box Set

by Andrea Frazer

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ he said, espying her prone figure. ‘I thought the door was unconscionably heavy. Are you all right? What’s been going on in here? It sounded like you were being murdered.’

  ‘I merely reacted to your screaming,’ she declared, with as much dignity as she could muster, being helped from the floor in her nightshirt by Hugo’s gallant efforts.

  ‘But what was all that banging and bumping I heard?’ he enquired, not understanding why there had been such a rumpus from the adjoining room, and why his friend was holding a brass poker in such a threatening manner. ‘Don’t hit me, please.’

  Lady A returned the poker to its usual position, sat down in a fireside chair, and indicated Hugo to follow her lead and take a seat. ‘I heard your screams, grabbed the poker in case you were in mortal peril, then threw myself at the adjoining door to come to your rescue. Unfortunately, I must have unthinkingly slipped the bolt when you went to bed – boing-ed off the dratted thing like a ricocheting missile, and then got into a terrible tangle with my nightshirt and the poker. That’s all.

  ‘Then you barged in and pushed me along as if I were a mop with which you were washing the floor. Just look at the state of my nightshirt! Really, these flagstones are a disgrace. I shall complain to housekeeping in the morning. Someone is being lax in their duties in this establishment, and I will not stand for it; even if I do know how a mop feels, being pushed around with no will of its own.

  ‘So, why were you making all that fuss in the first place? The noise was enough to waken the dead.’

  ‘I think it actually did, Manda. I had a terrible time trying to get off. The first time I dozed off, I woke, practically mummified in the sheets, then, when I’d sorted that out and remade the bed, I managed, at last, to go to sleep. But it wasn’t for long.

  ‘I felt something vile hovering over me, and when I opened my eyes, there she was again – that awful woman with the black veil, and I just started to wail like a banshee. Honestly, I couldn’t help myself. Then, of course, I heard noises that I thought were you being attacked, and it seemed like someone had sussed what we were up to, and was determined to wipe out both of us, before we found out any more. Shall I pour us a brandy to settle our nerves?’

  ‘I should think so!’ agreed Lady A vehemently, as she slid into a dressing gown, modesty insisting that she should not be in a bedchamber in the presence of a man – even if it was only Hugo – dressed in just her nightgown.

  They had barely settled to sip their nightcap that was nearly a ‘morning-cap’ when there were noises from beyond the window. It sounded exactly like the jingling of bottles on a milk float, but no milk float would come out to this isolated dwelling.

  As Hugo rose to investigate, Lady Amanda grabbed him by the tail of his nightshirt and insisted, ‘No, Hugo! Not with the lights on! Let’s turn them out, then we can peek through the curtains, and they won’t know that we’re watching, whatever is going on out there.’

  Hugo realised the logic of this, and extinguished the lights, before they approached the draughty regions of the window. There was a low whistle as the wind entered through the ill-fitting frame, and made the room several feet away from it as icy as right next to it.

  The castle being situated so far north, there was already a dim light in the sky; certainly enough for them to distinguish what was going on down below on the frontage. There might not be a milk float down there, but there was some sort of cart, filled with boxes that rattled and jingled every time one of them was lifted from its rear. Just beyond the intimidating entrance doors, a small door had been opened in the wall, and men could be seen transporting said boxes through this door, and disappearing slowly into the ground.

  ‘It must be an entrance to the cellars-cum-dungeons,’ Lady Amanda breathed in Hugo’s ear, then added, ‘and I don’t think that’s milk they’re delivering, either. That’s a hooch float we can see down there. They’re transferring what they have manufactured in the hut that Beauchamp discovered, and they’re making sure that nothing is discovered there, when the police return. They’re stashing it in the cellar, and I bet there’s some sort of concealed entrance down there where they think they can stash it, undetected.’

  ‘What shall we do?’ Hugo breathed into her ear, tickling her with his night-time wayward mop of white hair. Such close proximity between them had not prevailed since they had danced together in times that seemed a lifetime away, and they both slipped apart, ending up at opposite ends of the window, without a word being said.

  ‘Meeting, tomorrow morning,’ hissed Lady A, ‘and not a word of this to Glenister. I don’t want him plodding his size fourteens all over the place, and giving the game away that someone’s on to them.’

  ‘What about my ghost?’ asked Hugo, peeved that his experience had been relegated to the bottom of the division, in the light of this new occurrence.

  ‘Indigestion!’ was the only reply he got, before Lady A stumped over to her bed, slipped off her dressing gown, and got in, pulling the covers over her. ‘Draw the curtains when you leave, Hugo. I don’t want to see you again until the morning. And if you get any other visits from wandering females, kindly instruct them to get a mop and bucket and do something about these filthy flagstones and at least be of some use, instead of just frightening the bejeezus out of you, and disturbing my rest.’

  Chapter Seven

  The auspices for the next morning were not good, with so much sleep lost, and then the unwelcome serenade by the new piper, who excelled himself, and made a noise like half a dozen cats caught in a giant bicycle, but Beauchamp came up trumps, as usual.

  Although he did not know of their wee small hours disturbances, he wanted to show his appreciation for the care and concern he had been shown the day before, after his awful experience in the snowy forest, and had raided the kitchen to the tune of one frying pan, a stick of lard, four eggs, numerous rashers of bacon, two tomatoes, and a hunk of uncut bread.

  These he transported into the little room beside Lady A’s room, from which he produced cocktails and afternoon tea, and treated them to breakfast in bed, which went a considerable way to reining in their grumpy moods, and getting them off to a good start to the day. Above all, it was such a treat to get tea that tasted of something other than dishwater.

  He had actually been heard singing, as he prepared the food, and Lady A immediately identified the song as a very old one: ‘If I were the only boy in the world …’ warbled tunefully into her room, startling her beyond comprehension. She had never known Beauchamp to sing, as long as she had known him, and that seemed to have been forever.

  When she ran into Enid, she found out that the police had already arrived, along with a team of photographers and evidence gatherers, and that the giant human kebab had been removed from public view. That was a relief. She still could not get out of her mind the vision of the poor man speared through like a pig ready for the fire pit. Even the adventures of the night before had not wiped it out, and it had haunted her dreams during what little sleep she had managed to get.

  ‘… and I couldn’t help but laugh afterwards. It was so incongruous,’ she heard Enid conclude, and had to apologise.

  ‘I’m sorry, Enid, but I was miles away, wondering what Siobhan will do now. Of course, this is her ancestral home, so I suppose she’ll just try to keep things going the way she always remembered them. After all, the castle has come down through her family and not Cardew’s.’

  ‘I was just telling you how unlikely it was to see Beauchamp in a bobble hat, yesterday. I’ve only ever seen him in his chauffeur’s cap or his ‘going into Belchester’ bowler. If he hadn’t been in such a bad way when he got back here, I don’t think I could have stopped myself from laughing."

  ‘Good grief! I was so taken up with what I had just seen and wanted investigated, that I didn’t even notice. We must get him to put it on again, so I can enjoy the experience thoroughly. What colour was it?’ she asked, inconsequentially.

  ‘Blue and w
hite, with a little red in the bobble,’ replied Enid, who would never forget the sight.

  ‘That’s Beauchamp – patriotic as ever.’

  Their conversation was interrupted at that moment, as Evelyn Awlle came squawking down the main staircase, her hands in the air, and a look of total despair on her face. ‘Whatever’s the matter, Evelyn? You look in a rare old state,’ asked Lady Amanda.

  ‘It’s the mistress, your ladyship. I left her a little late this morning after what happened yesterday an’ all, but when I took some tea up to her room, she wasnae there, and her bed had nae been slept in. I don’t have any idea what could have happened to her, but I’m afraid for her life, after what happened to the master yesterday.’

  Others, having heard the cries of distress of Siobhan’s lady’s maid, were gathering in the hall at the foot of the stairs to see what was occurring, and Lady A immediately took charge of things. ‘Can someone get Inspector Glenister? It would seem that Siobhan has disappeared, maybe as long ago as last night, and poor Evelyn here is concerned for her safety.

  ‘Now, it could just be that she used another room, as she was so upset at what had happened to Cardew. That has to be checked out first, so if someone would kindly fetch the inspector, he can organise a search of the castle, before we cast our worries any further afield.’

  By the time Glenister arrived, it seemed that the whole of the household had assembled in the great entrance hall, staff included, and it didn’t take long to explain to him what the problem was. He rounded up his men, and they were allocated different floors and wings to search.

  He then took Lady A to one side and, with an ironic smile, informed her that he hoped that none of her belongings would be found in connection with this most recent body. ‘Otherwise it would have rather a damning implication for yourself, would it not, your ladyship?’

  She gave him a very old-fashioned look, then gathered together Hugo, Enid and Beauchamp, and led them off to the library, where they could talk in privacy. She and Hugo possessed information that the police did not, and she was determined that they would form a plan to uncover all the nefarious doings, before anyone else was hurt.

  It would not only be quicker that way, bureaucracy being what it was, it would also be more fun. She had read rather more Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie books than were good for her in the past, and sometimes she forgot that she was as mortal as Jock Macleod and Sir Cardew had been.

  ‘We have to find some way into where they keep the hooch,’ declared Lady Amanda. ‘We can’t just approach it boldly from the front, as they did last night. We’d be seen immediately. We either find out where there is a key to the inside door and use that, or wait until tonight, and try to get in from the outside, when everyone else is asleep. Enid, it is getting imperative, in this career of sleuthing that we seem to be adopting, that you devote your spare time to knitting us some black or navy-blue balaclava helmets for future use.’

  ‘I’ll ask my mother, but I don’t really have the time to produce four such pieces of headgear at the moment. I do have a life, you know?’ declared Enid more boldly than she had ever addressed Lady Amanda before, and she didn’t even blush.

  ‘I should be most grateful if your mother would oblige. I shall provide everything she needs, plus remuneration for her time, when they are knitted. Thank you, Enid. We shall convene again in my room at nine o’clock tonight, if none of us is successful in locating a key. If, of course, we get our hands on one sooner, I shall round you all up for a little exploration. You and Enid start in the servants’ quarters, Beauchamp, and Hugo and I will try a little desk and bureau exploration.’

  Everyone assented to this plan, and they went their separate ways for now, Enid quietly crooning, ‘The boy I love is up in the gallery …’ Goodness! She and Beauchamp both seemed to be steeped in old music hall songs at the moment, thought Lady A, and wondered whether something about this visit had brought that on.

  Lady Amanda began her search with the big visitors’ book that everyone had signed on arrival, and which was lodged overtly on the big hall table, so that anyone who cared to could have a peek through the names, to see illustrious visitors from the past. It was a prodigious volume going back several decades, rather like a burials register, she thought.

  Heaving back the heavy pages, she certainly saw recognisable names from the political world of the past, along with a few raves from the showbiz grave, when Siobhan’s parents had moved in higher circles than their daughter did today. But this wasn’t getting the baby bathed, so she turned, rather reluctantly, back to the present and considered the entries made by her fellow guests, making a note of the addresses they had given. For some reason, this action seemed important, and she always followed her instincts.

  Hugo had merely hung around while she did this, and when she questioned his inaction, he declared that he’d never been to the castle before, and had no idea of the layout, so he’d have to tag along with her, and let her direct his searching.

  ‘I know there’ll be no chance of getting into Cardew’s study, because that’s where Inspector Glenister will set up his lair, as before. I suggest we go in search of keys. We’ve just got to be careful whom we ask. There are a couple here whom I think are rather dodgy, but I do have a plan.

  ‘I suggest that we ask to borrow the key to that tower room where we were shown that terrible broadsword. In the past, I’ve heard Mama refer to that as the muniment room, as Siobhan did when we discovered the sword was missing. If we can get in there, there should be a lot to sift through. Probably in all those chests that are around the walls. There may even be a key to that cellar door, whether it be inside or out. It’s the sort of thing that might be kept there, locked away, so that there wouldn’t be any unnecessary shenanigans with the staff. Old habits die hard.’

  ‘But Manda, I couldn’t get up those stairs last time I tried, and I certainly haven’t got any fitter since then. In fact, I’m covered in bruises, and ache from head to toe from that blasted skiing fiasco. You really are too trying! You’ll have to do it on your own, or get Beauchamp or Enid to help you.’

  ‘I’ll go and see if I can find Enid. She’s supposed to be my lady’s maid, so I shall say I need her to do some ‘maiding’, right now.’

  She found Enid taking her morning coffee with the other staff, and announced that she had need of her services. Draining her cup, Enid scuttled after her, bursting with curiosity. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked, excitedly. ‘Are we on the hunt?’

  ‘We most definitely are, Enid. Oh, damn, I forgot to ask.’

  ‘Ask what?’

  Sliding back into the kitchen, Lady Amanda put on her most appealing smile (fairly frightening to those who did not know her well) and asked if she could have the key to the room where they had intended to view the sword even as it was being put to such dastardly use. ‘Siobhan said I could borrow it for a few hours, but I didn’t like to disturb her, this morning of all morning, and then I found out she had gone missing, so I’ve come here instead.’ she leered at them. ‘Just for a little research I’m doing, you know?’

  There was no question; she was a guest, and they were staff. Cook handed over the large key without a murmur, dismissing the request as just another loony passion of one of the weird guests who sometimes stayed.

  Having gathered her gang together, Lady Amanda explained what she had done so far, and suggested that they go, forthwith, to said muniment room to see what they could dig up. She hadn’t wanted to chance asking outright for the key to either of the cellar doors, as someone might have been alerted to their intentions, but she felt confident that they would find a copy of at least one of the keys in their target room. And who knew what documents they might come across, perhaps ones referring to nefarious doings hidden from all eyes up there, for who was likely to want to go into such a dead room, were they not being shown the sword?

  Hugo had suggested that he go into the library and start shaking out books, as he was too infirm to reach the
muniment room, and Beauchamp said he had a little errand to run before he joined them. That left just Enid and Lady A, puffing up the stone corkscrew, grasping for dear life at the rope that represented a handrail, and squeaking slightly as they met particularly worn steps.

  It took them so long to get up there that they were still staring at all the old trunks that needed searching, when Beauchamp bounded into the room behind them, a beaming smile on his face – a most unusual occurrence, as he, by nature, wore a poker face, both on and off duty. ‘That didn’t take long, Beauchamp. Any luck?’

  ‘More than you could imagine, your ladyship. I betook myself to the cellar entrance, and the key was actually in the door. It seemed the obvious place to look – handy for anyone engaged in nefarious activities, and perfectly natural for anyone innocent. Why should the key not be in the door? It’s not as if there would be a fortune in fine wines down there, now is it? This is, after all, a dry house, and the most one could expect would be a few bottles of whisky for future Burns’ Nights.

  ‘There’s only a short flight of stairs down, for it’s low-ceilinged down there. Anyway, inside the first cellar, just behind the door and not in one’s sightline, were one just taking a peek inside, were three other keys. One was labelled for ‘outer cellar’, and another, ‘exterior door’. There are, in fact, two chambers on that side of the castle. The third key was just labelled ‘dungeons’, and of the location of those, I am afraid I know nothing, as they certainly don’t lead off from the cellars. I took the lot!’

  ‘Beauchamp, you are worth your weight in rubies. What was in there?’ declared Lady Amanda, still a little out of breath from her climb up to the muniment room. Now, she decided, they might as well go back down. The keys were the main objective, and they could spend a fortnight up here, easily, going through the trunks. She believed that, with possession of the keys, and the addresses she had copied down from the visitors’ book, they had something to work on.