Amanda Cadabra and The Cellar of Secrets

by Holly Bell

  He looked at her questioningly.

  ‘That is ...?’ he prompted gently.

  ‘Oh!’ Abruptly and irrelevantly her mind had made a connection … she blushed … Tall, fair and handsome … oh, surely not!

  ‘Did you cross …?’ she began. But, of course, he had. He’d crossed the Tamar River. Honestly! No wonder Aunt Amelia was so amused …. Tall and handsome … was he? …. She’d never looked at him as a man before. She thought of him more an irritant on legs, who could be good company on occasion, when he wasn’t turning up when he wasn’t wanted or asking a lot of probing questions.

  Trelawney noticed the blush and was aware that her eyes were travelling around his face, and taking in his appearance … what on earth?

  He had, Amanda reflected, come to the funerals to pay his respects, and he’d brought flowers that time. And actually, he’d been kind, giving her his card and personal number in case she needed him. They’d got on pretty well, and he had come all this way to tell her … something. But then she hadn’t liked the way he’d asked her for an explanation that day; the day he came to tell her about the stuff on the road. It was as though he suspected the Cadabras of involvement. Well! Granny and Grandpa were beyond his reach, and how could she, a three-year-old at the time, be implicated?

  Nevertheless … well. she supposed he was … to do him justice … yes … but really! Tall, fair and handsome and it turns out to be only the inspector. Just my luck!

  ‘Did I cross …?’

  ‘Never mind. It’s nothing,’ she said, recalling herself.

  ‘You were saying,’ Trelawney reminded Amanda, ‘that all you could remember and then, “That is, dot dot dot”.’

  ‘Yes … well … I had a flashback and then a dream … a few days ago. I think from before I was three … at the family home … I mean the ancestral home.’

  ‘Yes, me too.’

  ‘Really? OK,’ Amanda said, warily. ‘Maybe if you tell me about yours first.’

  ‘Of course. If you’d prefer.’ He took a breath.

  Amanda started him off. ‘You were back in the family house.’

  ‘It was a mansion, old, large rooms, a wooden floor. My feet make a sound on the flooring when I walk. I’m closer to the ground. As a child would be. I can smell something. My father’s there. He’s nervous. He’s with an old, grand lady and some other men in black suits. They keep asking my father about me. I hear bits of conversation. A name keeps cropping up … It sounds like a spring, bouncing or a coil.’

  She nodded encouragingly, and Trelawney continued.

  ‘Last night I had another dream, the same scene, and then I was in the Arctic, I think …. ice and snow everywhere …. then a fire was raging all around me and then … and then I saw an old-fashioned penny with Queen Victoria’s head on it, then it changed to the Georges, then Elizabeth II, then it became a silver denarius, I think, with the head of Caesar on it.’ He stopped. ‘And then I woke up,’ he ended.

  ‘That’s strange.’

  ‘I know,’ agreed Trelawney.

  ‘I mean, that’s strange because, in my dream, I was being held like a child, I think, by a woman who was showing me a portrait ….’

  Suddenly Amanda was back there …. The pub disappeared, and she was in a long gallery. The woman, clad in black, directed Amanda’s attention, with a long, sharp-nailed, gnarled finger, towards the painting in front of them.

  ‘These are not the very oldest portraits, but they might frighten you,’ said the woman, with a touch of scorn. ‘This is Branked Cardiubarn. He fell from the East turret. Sadly missed,’ she commented in a mimicry of regret.

  Amanda was carried to the next picture. ‘But succeeded by his wife who married Casworan Flamgoyne ... shortly after which she drowned in the moat. Much regretted.’

  She didn’t sound sorry, to the ears of Amanda. They had moved on.

  ‘Casworan Flamgoyne-Cardiubarn was one of the few who insisted on adding his family name to his new surname … until the portcullis came down unexpectedly. Unfortunate,’ said the old woman with relish.

  ‘We’ll skip these. I wouldn’t want to tire you. Your grandmother makes such a fuss,’ said the woman bitterly. She put Amanda on the floor and led her past several more painted faces.

  They halted. Amanda was picked up again.

  ‘This is Massen Cardiubarn who was sucked into a bog on Dartmoor. He would go travelling,’ she smirked. ‘Being already a widower he was succeeded by his daughter Cryda.’ They advanced a few paces. ‘This is she. Cryda Cardiubarn had the good sense to keep to her mother’s surname. But she went down in a boating accident on the Dozmary Pool. Boats. What can I say?’ She shrugged her black shoulders idly.

  The old woman walked on, continuing, ‘Cryda was followed by her sister, Eselda, over here. She carelessly fell down the stairs one night, leaving only a grief-stricken grandson.’

  With a side-step or two, they arrived at ‘Treeve Cardiubarn. He accidentally consumed wolf’s bane at a family party, leaving a hole in the life of his devoted daughter.’

  She hitched up Amanda, ‘My word you’re heavy. What does Senara feed you! His daughter hangs here. She was the other member of the family to join her mother’s name to ours: Gonetta Flamgoyne-Cardiubarn. She mistook a punnet of cuckoo pint for red currents – alas ….

  ‘Her daughter Lamorna was more careful about what she ate, until a loose stone from the battlements fell on her and her husband. Deeply mourned by their sole surviving daughter, Jowanet. You can’t be too careful,’ she said with a chilling smile.

  Amanda was put back on her feet.

  ‘Now that’s quite enough of a treat for you for one day. And your grandmother will be here soon to take you away.’

  ‘Amanda … Miss Cadabra.’

  ‘Hm?’ She had returned to The Sinner’s Rue.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Trelawney, with concern. ‘I lost you for a moment there.’

  ‘What? Oh … it happened again ... suddenly I was back there .… She was taking me from portrait to portrait. Actually, it was funny! Like something out of Kind Hearts and Coronets! You know? Dennis Price bumping off all of the relatives that stood between him and the succession to the — ’

  ‘And they’re all played by Alec Guinness,’ he added, with a grin. ‘Oh yes, that’s a classic.’

  ‘You know that film?’ Amanda asked, with distracted delight.

  ‘Of course. I don’t spend all of my time pursuing the Cause of Justice and righting wrongs.’

  The atmosphere had lightened, and Amanda’s head was clearing.

  ‘So …?’ asked Trelawney.

  ‘Well, there was a name ... oh no, it’s gone! … it’s …. Wait.’

  ‘Ice and snow?’ he prompted with images from his dream that might connect. ‘Arctic? Antarctic? Scott?’

  She shook her head. ‘The money ....’

  ‘King? Queen? Monarch?’

  ‘What do they have in common?’ asked Amanda.

  ‘They’re all rulers?’

  ‘I’ve got it! Coins,’ said Amanda.

  ‘Right. Coin something? Doesn’t sound very Cornish to me,’ responded Trelawney doubtfully.

  ‘Fire,’ continued Amanda.

  ‘Hot,’ replied Trelawney.

  ‘Flame ….’

  ‘Flame. That rings a bell. Yes, close,’ he said.

  ‘Coin flame …,’ Amanda suggested.

  ‘Flame coin.’

  ‘Flamcoin,’ she said excitedly.

  ‘Flamgoyne!’ Trelawney exclaimed.

  ‘Yes!’ answered Amanda. ‘Good. OK, Flamgoyne. Now. What about the ice and snow?’

  ‘Poles,’ he said.

  ‘Polflamgoyne?’ she tried.

  ‘No,’ he corrected. ‘They were the Polgoynes.’

  ‘Then they became the Flamgoynes?’

  ‘Yes,’ confirmed Trelawney, ‘and they sometimes married the Car —’

&nb
sp; ‘You’re a Flamgoyne?’ asked Amanda, aghast.

  ‘You’re a Cardiubarn!’ retorted Thomas.

  ‘No, I’m not!’ they uttered simultaneously, with playground vehemence, leaning towards one another across the table.

  ‘I’m a Cadabra!’

  ‘I’m a Trelawney.’

  They suddenly caught themselves, leaned back, embarrassed, Amanda half smiled, and Trelawney chuckled.

  ‘So you are,’ he agreed.

  ‘So you are,’ she echoed.

  ‘Well, now,’ said Thomas, ‘since there seems to be a history of uneasy alliance between them … do you think it’s possible one of my lot bumped off your lot? Sending them over a cliff would seem to be in keeping with the list of homicides your elderly relative recited to you with visual aids.’

  ‘If they did, then tell me where to send the thank you note!’ replied Amanda.

  He laughed. ‘Could it have been part of a feud? Does that sound familiar?’

  ‘The first portraits were old, I think. The others she showed me were more recent, but she still had an edge to her voice whenever she said the name, Flamgoyne.’

  ‘It’s possible then,’ said Trelawney.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Amanda concurred.

  ‘If you could remember more ... the most recent portraits would have been after the last the woman in your dream told you about.’

  ‘And I suppose they’re still there,’ she remarked.

  ‘Well, … surely you could access them?’ Trelawney suggested tentatively.

  ‘Me?’ she asked, surprised. ‘Why me?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘Know what?’ Amanda asked uneasily.

  ‘What you will inherit if we crack this case and establish cause of death.’

  Amanda was relieved. ‘Oh, some derelict or other.’

  ‘No, Miss Cadabra.’ Should he tell her? If not, all she had to do was look through Senara’s papers. This way he could at least observe her reaction to the news.

  ‘You are the heiress to Cardiubarn Hall.’

  ‘What?’ Amanda’s voice was faint.

  All at once, she saw it. A black stone, brick and metal castle-like structure, its tall, thin turrets a set of spikes piercing the thick, dark, low-hanging cloud above it that stretched out over the leaden lake of the Dozmary Pool. She was seeing it over Granny’s shoulder as she was carried to the car … saw it for the last time … and she was feeling … feeling what …? Something had just happened, … something she couldn’t remember … she needed to remember …. she needed to tell Granny … but ….

  ‘That place?’ Amanda said. All she knew was that it was the last place she wanted to go back to. ‘That’s mine?’

  ‘You are the heiress. They never told you?’ he asked. This was unexpected.

  ‘Good grief, no. Ugh!’

  Her revulsion seemed real enough. ‘Well, it’s boarded up, surrounded by an electrified fence anyway. You wouldn’t have right of entry ... but … if we could prove —’

  ‘No. No. I wouldn’t go back there if you paid me! Anyway, isn’t it enough that we’ve remembered the name and the connection? Can’t you just go and find some Flamgoynes now?’

  ‘Well yes, I do have a trail to follow,’ he agreed. ‘Thank you, Miss Cadabra. You’ve been of great assistance. I hope that it’s helped you too in some way.’

  ‘Yes … yes, I think it has. I’ve remembered what it was my subconscious or whatever wanted me to recall. Hopefully, all the dreams and flashbacks will go away now.’ Amanda looked at him and shook her head. ‘I can’t believe we’re … you know?’

  ‘Connected. Yes, I do know.’

  ‘In the worst possible way!’ she added.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Trelawney countered pacifically, ‘We do have the common ground of having antecedents of whom we’re not very proud, and of being unwilling members of those ….’ He was going to say, ‘clans’, a word Hogarth had used … ‘witch clans’. ‘Dynasties,’ he finished.

  ‘True.’ Amanda smiled. ‘Brother and sister in misery then.’

  ‘Let’s say misfortune rather than misery,’ he offered.

  ‘Yes, that’s much better,’ she said.

  ‘And there’s nothing inherently dreadful about being distant cousins, is there?’

  Amanda shook her head.

  ‘Was there anything else,’ asked Trelawney, ‘that you remember or want to ...?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ she replied emphatically. ‘That’s quite enough for one afternoon.’

  ‘Another drink? And how about out in the sunshine?’

  ‘Yes, blow the cobwebs away.’

  They sipped and chatted about the village, until Trelawney took his leave. He held out his hand.

  ‘Thank you again, Miss Cadabra.’

  ‘You’re welcome, Inspector. Thank you too.’

  ‘I hope it hasn’t been upsetting.’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’

  ‘I’d still like the tour,’ he said on a lighter note.

  ‘Just let me know when. I’ll be here,’ Amanda promised.

  ‘Thank you, I will. And if there’s anything else … you want to talk about or need help with … you know … just call.’

  ‘I will,’ she agreed. ‘Safe journey.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  As he drove away, Tempest nuzzled against her legs reassuringly.

  That night, Amanda and Trelawney slept soundly. Whatever had been rattling around in the cage of memory had now been released. Released and free to unleash, slowly and quietly, more of its kind.

  .

  Chapter 14

  The Truth About Miss Armstrong-Witworth

  Amanda looked at the blast radius of damage to the room. The noise must have been colossal.

  How come no one had heard it? she wondered

  Or had they heard it but didn’t come?

  Didn’t come because they knew what it was?

  Knew what it was because they had planned it.

  Had they planned that I should find the body?

  Are they watching me now?

  ***

  Former Chief Inspector Michael Hogarth sensed the man long before he saw him, or his neighbour, Alf, mentioned the matter. It was a small seaside village. Strangers in Mornan Bay were noticeable.

  Hogarth thoughtfully went to the kitchen and took out the big bag of Epsom salts that he kept under the sink. He went out of the back door that led to the garden, and slowly began pouring it out in a continuous line, from the right of the door around the back and side of the house to the front. There he left a break for the entrance, and carried on letting the white stream fall from the packet until he heard Alf calling out to him.

  ‘Arter noon, me’ansum.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Alf, how are you doing today?’

  ‘Fine, fine. ‘Ere. You see ‘im?’

  ‘The stranger?’

  ‘No emmet, I censure.’

  ‘I agree, I don’t think he is a tourist.’

  Alf looked at the trail of salt.

  ‘They pestic slugs a-bretherin a, again?’

  ‘It’s the time of year,’ commented Hogarth. ‘This should discourage them from eating the young vegetables.’

  ‘Strange as ow nerry don’t brether me.’

  ‘You’re lucky they leave you alone. Perhaps it’s my compost.’

  ‘Yas, that might be it.’

  ‘Well, best get it done,’ Hogarth said philosophically.

  ‘Leave a to it then. I let a know if I see 'im agen.’

  ‘Yes, if you would. Thanks, Alf.’

  Hogarth finished the job. Then went inside to pack and send a one-word text to his sister:

  Ready

  ***

  Amanda arrived at The Grange expecting to see Miss de Havillande, considering it was Cynthia with whom she’d made the appointment.

  Surprisingly, however, the doo
r was answered by Miss de Havillande’s diminutive bosom friend, Miss Armstrong-Witworth.

  She wore a sun hat decorated in pale lilac wisps of delicate fabric and white artificial tea roses. It matched her ballet-length, light, muslin dress with three-quarter sleeves. She was stripping off her gardening gloves.

  ‘Hello, dear, do come in. Cynthia will be sorry to have missed you but Churchill was feeling the call of nature rather, and I expect dear Cynthia had something urgent she wished to say to Jane. She usually does, as I am sure you know, dear. Shall I call Moffat to help you bring your things from your car?’

  ‘No, that’s all right, Miss Armstrong-Witworth, I can manage.’ Amanda went to the boot of the Astra and came back carrying a light box of cloths.

  ‘Oh, do call me Gwendolen. Come into the dining room. Cynthia told me she had seen you at the site.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what do you make of it all, dear.’

  Amanda was taken aback by the question.

  ‘Well, … it’s a very worthy project.’

  ‘But?’ asked Gwendolen, turning a mildly inquisitive little face up towards Amanda.

  ‘Oh, it’s just maybe not the best possible choice of location.’

  ‘Ah. Lost Madley,’ agreed Gwendolen, nodding.

  Amanda had an idea. ‘Miss Armstrong-Witwor—‘

  ‘Gwendolen. I insist. It makes me feel old you calling me Miss Armstrong-Witworth all the time. And I have a feeling about you and me. I think we’re going to be good friends.’

  Amanda smiled. ‘Gwendolen. Do you remember it, Lost Madley, as it was before it was ….’

  ‘Oh yes. I do. I had a friend there: Violet. It was all rather sad.’

  ‘Was she killed?’

  ‘No. But her young man was. They had just got engaged.’

  ‘Was he killed at the front?’

  ‘No, no, he wasn’t a soldier. He was doing important work though. That I do happen to know.’