by Hugh Canham
‘No. Looking at you and hearing about your disturbed night, I think you should take at least a day off.’
‘That’s very kind.’
‘And I shall refrain from having a cigar here after we’ve finished. I think it’s soon time you went home to bed – I’ll put you in a taxi.’
As they stood on the pavement and the taxi drew up, Hector squashed a note for the fare into Lucasta’s hand and kissed her on the cheek.
‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ she said, and scrambled into the taxi.
Looking at her bottom and legs as they disappeared and as she banged the door closed, Hector said to himself, ‘Oh dear – I’m having lustful thoughts about her now. Never really had those before!’
8
September/October 1970
Some months had passed and summer was drifting into autumn. It had taken much longer than expected to get Lucasta installed in the housekeeper’s flat. Complete renovation of the antiquated kitchen and bathroom, which Lucasta had made it clear she would very much like, had taken some weeks and there had been the usual delays over furniture arriving and the laying of carpets. However, when she finally moved in, Lucasta had pronounced herself delighted and Hector took one last look around the flat with its alterations, sparkling paint and new furniture, carpets and curtains, all of which he’d paid for, and resolved not to enter it again unless invited.
Lucasta continued to sort through Hector’s father’s ‘reading’ books and she also took it upon herself to order all the necessary text books, law reports and supplements to bring his law library up to date and compile a proper index of everything.
Jolly was a little sulky at first, but Hector bought him an electric typewriter to replace his old manual one, and this had the desired effect of appeasing him. He seemed very pleased with the machine, although at first he had great difficulty in remembering not to hit the keys too hard!
Hector had little success in attracting new clients, but two substantial landowners whom he had looked after at his Lincoln’s Inn firm insisted they wanted to transfer their work to him, and some of his father’s old clients came to him with various problems they wanted his help with. He was very pleased to be able to see Lucasta every day, although they were now a little formal with one another. If he saw her going out in the evening he never enquired where she was going, although he did wish he was going with her rather than to his club yet again. He was very relieved, however, that he never saw any men going up the stairs to her flat. But his real regret was that, despite his advertisements, no new opportunities to investigate art thefts presented themselves.
However, one day in October he was contacted by the director of one of the esteemed organisations that look after the nation’s treasures – castles, country houses and so on.
‘I’ve been asked,’ Hector said casually to Lucasta, ‘to go and investigate a strange incident at what I understand is a really lovely country house. It’s a fifteenth-century moated and crenellated hall. Part of the house is in the care of a trust, but the family still live in the other part.’
‘What sort of strange incident?’ asked Lucasta.
‘Most unusual. It appears that a youth who was visiting the trust part of the property grabbed a very valuable small statue. This set off an alarm, but the youth ran into the private part of the house, and after being chased along sundry corridors, locked himself into a small turret room on the first floor, overlooking the moat. When the door of the room was eventually broken down, the young man was sitting in an armchair grinning. There was no trace of the statue, although the room was thoroughly searched, as was the route he took to get there. The youth has been taken into custody, but refuses to say anything. He does not appear to have had an accomplice. The police can only surmise that he threw the statue out of the window into the moat which surrounds the property.’
‘Well, that must be what he did if they can’t find the statue anywhere else!’
‘Exactly. But why would he do it?’ asked Hector. ‘Vandalism?’
‘Presumably he thinks in due course he can retrieve it from the moat.’
‘Just what I thought, but apparently the owners of the house say that the moat has six feet of water in it and a great depth of slime and mud at the bottom and the statue would have sunk into that.’
‘I see. So it would be very difficult to retrieve!’
‘Yes, very.’
‘But I take it the statue is very valuable and presumably, like all these things, uninsured, so it would be worth the trust’s while to drain the moat to look for the statue,’ said Lucasta brightly.
‘Yes, but apparently it’s extremely expensive to drain the moat. It means pumping the water out onto the fields nearby. And then there’s the question of delving into the mud to find the statue, which is only about nine inches high. They don’t want to go to all that trouble unless they’re sure it’s in a particular part of the moat, or indeed that it’s in the moat at all!’
‘Have they thought of getting frogmen to look for it?’
‘I think the idea has been considered but thought impracticable. The trust, I’m delighted to say, heard of my name from the Duchess of Mercia, who is on the board of governors, and before going to all the expense of draining the moat and so on, they have asked me to investigate. It must be good news for me to have the trust as a client!’
‘Well, I’m pleased for you!’
‘Look, I don’t want you to do anything, but I wondered if you would like a short break away. We could put up at a local hotel, in separate rooms of course, and you could look at the house and explore the countryside while I do the investigation.’
‘Well, that might be quite nice. Where is the house?’
‘In Norfolk.’
‘Oh God, no!’
‘But at the other extreme side of the county from the Broads. Very nice countryside. I went shooting there once. So no talk about going back to Grimes’ pub to retrieve your jumper or whatever. It’s probably at the bottom of the river by now anyhow.’
The hotel that Hector had booked himself and Lucasta into near ‘The Moated Grange’, as Lucasta kept referring to it, looked very pleasant from a distance in the spring afternoon sun. It was a country house by a river. However, as they drove past the front of the house, they came to an immense car park screened from the road by a tall hedge of Cupressus leylandii and packed with cars!
‘Good Lord!’ said Hector. ‘The place doesn’t look big enough to take that number of guests!’
But it emerged as they spoke to the woman on the reception desk that the country house itself merely contained one of the dining rooms, a lounge, a bar and a few bedrooms. The bulk of the bedrooms, the conference room and the indoor swimming pool were in a modern building off the car park behind another immense hedge of leylandii. Their bedrooms were, of course, in the new block.
‘I don’t think I like this place very much,’ said Hector surveying his box-like room. ‘Typical of new hotels!’
‘Nor do I,’ said Lucasta, ‘but I shall try to make the best of it as I’m on a holiday treat, as it were. I saw a notice pointing to a swimming pool. I shall go for a swim!’
‘Good Lord, I didn’t know you swam!’
‘Oh yes, every weekend. I always pack a costume just in case. And Hector, please, do stop saying “Good Lord”! If you really don’t like it, no doubt you can find another hotel for tomorrow. I take it you have not packed your swimming things?’
‘Certainly not! I’m going to take a preliminary look at the scene of the crime. It’s only about five miles away.’
‘How did you get on with your investigations?’ asked Lucasta that evening above the din that hit them as they reached the bar through the crowd of besuited young men. It was obviously a business conference and the delegates were all in the bar. They were ‘male to a man’, as Hector remarked to keep his spirits up.
‘Two gin and tonics please, barman. Good Lord, I can hardly hear myself think!’
; ‘It will quieten down in a minute or two, sir,’ said the barman. ‘This lot are going into another room to have dinner.’
‘Thank God for that! How long does this conference go on for?’
‘Another two days, sir. It’s our biggest do of the year. The guv’nor loves it, it’s very profitable!’
‘Of course!’
After about ten minutes, during which Hector stood by the bar and refused to speak to Lucasta, who seemed to think the whole thing very funny, the din was hushed by a clanging bell and the delegates were told that dinner was served. They shuffled out with much laughter and Hector and Lucasta were able to have a second gin and tonic in relative peace, sitting down among the wreckage of glasses and bottles.
‘Well, I repeat, how did you get on?’ asked Lucasta.
‘Ah yes. I’ve had a reconnoitre. I’ll tell you more in the morning. We’re leaving this place – “checking out early”, I believe they call it. Sorry to deprive you of your swimming pool!’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Lucasta. ‘I didn’t enjoy it very much. One of those men on the conference propositioned me!’
‘Good Lord! Well, I expect you look very nice in your swimming suit!’ said Hector, looking thoughtfully at a very bad reproduction of Constable’s Haywain on the wall. ‘What on earth do these chaps say when they do that sort of thing?’
‘Well, just what you said: “You look very nice in your swimsuit”, but “the chap” added, “I’m sure you’d look even nicer in your birthday suit. Fancy showing me?” I just ignored him.’
Next morning, Lucasta tried to disassociate herself from Hector as he explained very bad-temperedly to the receptionist his reasons for wanting to leave early. The proprietor was called and he appeared to be unimpressed by Hector’s complaints and insisted that he should pay for another night as he had booked for three. At this stage, Lucasta left by the front door . . .
Hector joined her by the car after about five minutes looking very red in the face.
‘Do you know what finally clinched it? I told him exactly how you’d been insulted in the swimming pool!’
‘Oh good. Well, that’s settled then. What do we do now?’
‘I’m worried that as it’s Friday we may not find accommodation if we leave it till late, so I suggest we drive to the market town nearby and make enquiries. What we need is a nice quiet hotel.’
A quarter of an hour later, Hector parked the car in the large market square of the town. It was obviously not market day as the square only contained parked cars.
‘Look, I see a Tourist Information Office. I shall make enquiries over there. You stay in the car.’
Ten minutes later he returned.
‘They recommended a very nice little hotel, which I had a look at, and it’ll do us fine. But before we push off, I must have a quick look at the church. They tell me it has a hammer-beam roof. Come on – it’s wonderful apparently!’
Hector then delved into the boot, produced a pair of binoculars and marched across the market square. Lucasta followed as she was getting rather bored sitting in the car.
‘Shouldn’t you be getting on with looking at the Moated Grange?’ she said to Hector as she joined him. He was craning his neck and peering upwards at the roof through his binoculars.
‘It’s a double hammer-beam roof!’ he exclaimed. ‘Look at all those carved angels!’
‘But Hector, shouldn’t you be getting on. . .?’
‘It is somehow refreshing to the mind, after that awful hotel, to find a nice one and then to see this magnificent roof. I have not been able to think clearly up until now!’
‘And I suppose you’ve solved it?’
‘Not quite. But I have a few ideas. Let’s proceed to what you call the Moated Grange. It’s a stunner! You don’t have to do anything, just look at the outside first, and then you’ll be able to see the inside later.’
The Moated Grange, Lucasta thought, was indeed a stunner. It dated from 1497, the guidebook said. It still stood with its magnificent gatehouse as it must have done for the last five centuries, with its mellow red bricks glowing in the sunshine.
‘First, I want to walk round the left-hand side and show you the window of the room where the youth was caught.’
‘Why have you still got your binoculars round your neck?’
‘I brought them with me for the express purpose of looking for something!’
‘What?’
‘I’m not sure yet, or indeed if it’ll be visible even with these binoculars.’
‘Goodness it’s cold out here! What a biting wind, and it’s only October – it brings tears to the eyes.’
‘Ah, that’s Norfolk for you – nothing between you and the North Pole except sea! Why don’t you run up and down the bank of the moat for a few minutes to get warmed up while I do a detailed reconnaissance with these glasses? Then we’ll go inside the house. You’ll be out of the wind there!’
As they approached the house, they were met in the courtyard by the trust manager whom Hector had met the previous day. He was an eager, bespectacled young man with a badge which said “Manager” pinned to the lapel of his jacket. Hector introduced Lucasta as his assistant, at which she pulled a face.
‘Well, have you any further ideas, Mr Elroy?’ asked the manager.
‘Yes, one or two, but first would you please take me slowly from the place where the statue was stolen down the various corridors to the room where the thief locked himself in? Am I right in surmising that he was a local lad?’
‘Indeed, yes!’
‘Had he been seen visiting the hall several times previously?’
‘We get many visitors, but yes, two of the attendants think they’ve seen him before more than once.’
‘Ah, good!’
They were led by the manager into a very beautiful library on the ground floor.
‘This is the exact spot where the statue stood,’ he said, indicating a small table at the side of the room between bookshelves. ‘And here’s a picture of it. Virgin and child, as you see, probably fifteenth century, Flemish, stone, beautifully carved and painted. The base was attached to a wire alarm. The youth cut through the alarm wire with a pair of wire cutters, but it still thankfully set the alarm off. Now, if you’d like to follow me . . . the thief dashed out of the library and up this narrow flight of winding stairs . . . into this room above, where the man on duty did not realise what had happened. He heard an alarm ringing, but the youth hid the statue under his coat, it seems, and walked through very casually, and then went through the door over there which says “Private” and leads to the part of the house occupied by the family and not open to the public. Unfortunately, the attendant in the library is elderly and lame – we have to rely on volunteers for the job, as you probably know – and it took him about two minutes to follow the youth up the stairs and alert the man on duty in this room, which we call the State Bedroom, as to what had happened. Both immediately gave chase down the private corridor.’
And here he led them down a narrow passage with rooms leading off it on the right-hand side. ‘They apparently heard the thief’s footsteps ahead as he ran along this side of the house and across the rear, and finally they heard the door slam and the key being turned in the turret room.’
‘I see,’ said Hector. ‘He could presumably have dodged into any of the rooms opening off this passage and secreted the statue in them?’
‘He could. There was sufficient lapse of time and it is strange that the attendants heard his footsteps ahead. One would have thought that he would have been too far in front of them for that. But we have searched the three bedrooms and the bathroom off this passageway most thoroughly and can find no trace of the statue. The passage the thief went along at the rear of the house has no rooms off it. It has small lancet windows starting eight feet high up the wall and ends in the turret room. I’ll show you.’
‘I think the reason they could hear the footsteps was because the floors are of stone and he wasn
’t too far in front of them,’ remarked Hector as they walked along the passage at the rear of the house.
‘Ah, you may be right! And here is the turret room where he locked himself in. As you can see, we haven’t mended the door yet.’
Hector and Lucasta looked into the room. Apart from the armchair in which the youth had been found sitting and a table, it was completely empty of furniture, but the walls and ceilings were nicely decorated in the Victorian Gothic style. Hector opened the small window and looked down into the moat.
‘I see nothing significant here,’ he said. ‘Let us retrace our steps.’ And they walked back down the rear corridor. ‘There is no conceivable hiding place here, is there?’
‘None that we can see,’ said the manager.
‘Do you want me to search the bedrooms and the bathroom again for you?’ asked Hector.
‘Well, I think it would be a waste of time. But I will show them to you, of course.’
So they went into each of the three bedrooms and one bathroom. The bedrooms were identically sparsely furnished with an old four-poster bed, a large wardrobe and dressing table and a chest of drawers.
‘For guests of the family, you will gather.’
‘Yes,’ said Hector as he peered out of the window of each one.
He didn’t linger in any of the bedrooms, but the bathroom he apparently found more interesting. It was a vast room with an enormous enamelled bath in the middle of it. It had a large bay window overhanging the moat. The window was glazed with mottled glass and covered with a series of blinds. Hector lifted a blind, opened one of the casements and looked down onto the moat below. Then he peered carefully round the sides of the window and at the window ledge. At one stage he leant out so far that Lucata thought there was some danger of him falling into the moat. However, he managed to pull himself back into the room.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I must go off and think about all this somewhere quietly!’
‘Yes, well, please take your time. We’re not open to visitors today, so you’ll be undisturbed.’
‘Well, what are you going to do now?’ asked Lucasta when they were outside.