The Burning Issue of the Day Page 12

  She set off at a slow, careful pace with me clutching at the neatly tied bow that held her apron in place. After a good few yards of pitch-black shuffling and a couple of cobweb-bestrewn corners, the tiny passageway seemed to grow a little lighter and filled with the distorted babble of a party. As Maude bobbed about in front of me, I caught glimpses of a grille of some sort, set in a wall a few feet ahead.

  We stopped, and I was just able to make out Maude, silhouetted against the dim light from the grille, putting her finger to her lips. She gently took hold of my wrist and pulled me towards the wall.

  Once I was close enough, I could make out that the grille was one of the many metal plates I had seen on the walls on previous visits to The Grange. They were drilled with an ornately decorative pattern of holes and I had presumed them to be part of some manner of ventilation system. Perhaps elsewhere in the house, they were, but this one had another purpose. I pressed my face closer and peered through one of the tiny holes. I was looking into the Tudor hall at the heart of the eclectically designed house. I’d heard of Tudor householders building secret rooms from which they could spy on their guests, but I’d never actually seen one. Until now. I was able to see and hear everything that was going on in what had been the original house’s great hall but which the Farley-Strouds referred to as ‘the ballroom’.

  The music, I could now see, was provided by a string quartet – four elderly gentlemen scraping away with reasonable proficiency at what sounded to me like Beethoven. People stood in small huddles, conversational islands around which flowed trays of canapés and drinks borne by the liveried supply ships of the footmen and junior maids. The huddle nearest our ‘air vent’ was discussing the General Election and was drifting on to the subject of women’s suffrage. A man with his back to the wall was speaking.

  ‘. . . should never be given the vote, of course. They know nothing of commerce and industry, for one thing. How could a woman be expected to make a pragmatic, informed decision about international trade, or the laws governing the running of our factories? They’re too emotional, for another. Too swayed by sentiment. Too easily persuaded to another’s point of view. They simply don’t have the temperament for the important decisions the electorate has to make. And heavens forfend we should ever let them take seats in Parliament. The country would collapse.’

  There were solemn murmurs of agreement from the rest of the group. Eternal truths, it would appear, had been given voice.

  ‘And what about their hats?’ slurred an extremely upper-class voice whose owner I couldn’t see.

  The group laughed, but more in confusion than amusement.

  ‘What the devil do you mean, Jimmy?’ asked the first voice.

  ‘Well, you know,’ continued the drunk. ‘They wear those huge hats nowadays. Bally enormous things. Imagine two ladies in monumental hats sitting in front of a tiny chap in the House. How would the poor little fellow ever make himself known to the Speaker?’

  This time the group guffawed.

  ‘Well done, James, lad,’ said a third man. ‘Knew we could count on you to cut straight to the heart of the matter. Big hats.’ He laughed again. ‘Wait till I tell the chaps at the League. Actually, we’ve a meeting coming up. Tuesday evening. You should come along and tell them yourself. We could do with your brand of insightful wit. Some of the chaps are a mite too earnest for my taste. Especially that bloody chap with the coffee shops. What’s his name? Gives me the pip, that one.’

  ‘Sorry, old horse, no can do,’ said the one who seemed to be called Jimmy. ‘Cards.’

  The third man laughed. ‘Still playing, eh? Getting any better at it?’

  ‘I’m a dashed good player, I’ll have you know. Just having a run of bad luck, is all. I say, I don’t suppose you could lend a chap a few quid?’

  They all laughed at this.

  ‘Why don’t you tap your old man for it?’ asked the first voice. ‘Surely the earl can spare you a few quid.’

  ‘Pater’s threatening to cut me off as it is,’ said Jimmy forlornly. ‘I’m robbing Peter to pay Paul just to keep afloat. If the gaffer gets wind of how much I already owe, I’ll be out on my ear without so much as a brass farthing to my name. Fifty would do it. I’ve backed a dead cert at the end of the month – I’ll be quids in. I can settle up with some other chaps and you’ll have your money back in no time.’

  ‘Fifty pounds?’ laughed the man. ‘Too rich for my blood. School fees due, tailor to be paid – you know how it goes.’

  ‘Do think about it,’ said Jimmy. ‘If you change your mind, you know where I am.’

  He seemed to have walked away because the others immediately began talking about him.

  ‘Do you think you think I should, though?’ asked the first voice. ‘It might be handy having the son of an earl in my debt.’

  ‘Don’t even consider it,’ said the anti-suffrage man. ‘I know one or two of the chaps he plays cards with and you’d get a better return flushing your money down the drain. At least there’s a chance you might be able to get it back at the sewage works.’

  There was more laughter and the conversation returned to mundane matters.

  We stayed in our secret listening room for another quarter of an hour before Maude indicated that we should head back.

  ‘And how was your evening?’ asked Lady Hardcastle as I helped her into the little motor car at one in the morning.

  ‘Oh, you know,’ I said. ‘The usual. I had tea with Maude Denton.’

  ‘And how is Gertie’s “lazy maid”?’

  ‘She was in fine form,’ I said. ‘And knocking back the sherry as though it were about to be rationed.’

  ‘I sometimes think it ought to be, you know. Wretched stuff can’t make up its mind whether it’s wine or brandy. An indecisive drink for vicars and maiden aunts.’

  ‘You can add “ladies’ maids of a certain vintage” to your list. She loves the stuff.’

  I started the Rover’s tiny engine and we set off back down the hill to the village.

  ‘It doesn’t sound like much of an evening,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s because I haven’t told you the best part. Have you heard about the secret rooms that Tudor lords built next to their great halls so they could spy on their guests?’

  ‘I’d heard of them, but I’ve never actually come across one.’

  ‘I have,’ I said. ‘There’s one at The Grange.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ she said. ‘It’s a higgledy-piggledy hotchpotch of a place, mind you, so I oughtn’t to be surprised. Every owner from the seventeenth century onwards seems to have added a bit here and a bit there.’

  ‘Well, it turns out that whoever built the original house had one of these little spying rooms put in, and every subsequent owner has kept it in place. Maude showed me the way in and we had a little listen to what you lot were up to.’

  ‘And what were we up to?’

  ‘Annoyingly, there was a group of very tedious men by the listening grate so we didn’t learn much other than that one chap is something to do with an anti-suffrage group and that someone called Jimmy is rubbish at cards. We got bored rather quickly and went back to top Maude up with more sherry.’

  ‘You poor things. They were quite the most dreadful people there, I’m afraid. At one point I was treated to a lecture from one chap from the Men’s League for Opposing Woman Suffrage on why women shouldn’t be allowed the vote. Something to do with hats, I think. I wasn’t listening terribly attentively. Whatever it was, the chap in question seemed to think it was the most hilarious thing he’d ever heard and went off to tell some more people.’

  ‘We overheard the origins of that little gem,’ I said. ‘The terrible cards player that they were calling “Jimmy” came up with it. The Honourable Jimmy, I should think – someone mentioned something about his being the son of an earl.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I met him, too. James Stamford . . . or something. Son of the Earl of . . . of somewhere beginning with K.
Knutsford, perhaps.’

  This inability to remember names had always struck me as something of a hindrance to someone who had once made her living as one of the Crown’s most valuable intelligence agents. So much so that I had long suspected it to be an affectation. I decided not to challenge her on it, though, but made a mental note that the man’s name was almost certainly not Stamford, nor was his father the Earl of Knutsford. I was sure I’d heard of a Lord Knutsford but he was a viscount and definitely not an earl.

  ‘Did you meet anyone of actual interest?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, you know, the usual crowd,’ she said. ‘I had a hairy moment when I saw Redvers Hinkley on the other side of the room. Luckily, he was deep in a rather serious-looking conversation with the chap with the hat obsession so I don’t think he recognized me. That would have been awkward.’

  ‘You’d have bluffed your way out of it,’ I said confidently.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure I would. But I rather like Lady Summerford – it would be a shame to burn that particular alias. She might come in useful.’

  Despite our heavy coats, we were shivering by the time I parked the Rover in its little shed. We got ourselves back indoors as quickly as we could.

  I made some cocoa and we retired, but not before promises had been extracted from me concerning a long lie-in and breakfast in bed.

  Chapter Eight

  Just as Edna was serving lunch on Sunday, the telephone rang.

  ‘Chipping Bevington two-three,’ I said, after taking the earpiece from its hook on the side of the wooden box that housed the gubbins. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Miss Armstrong? It’s Dinah Caudle here.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Caudle,’ I said. ‘Would you like to speak to Lady Hardcastle?’

  ‘What? No, you’ll do. I have more information from Brookfield’s notebook and I’d like to talk to you both. I’ll be passing through your delightful little village later this afternoon – would it be too much trouble for me to drop in? Say around four?’

  By this time, Lady Hardcastle had emerged from the dining room, expecting the call to be, as it usually was, for her.

  I put my hand over the telephone mouthpiece and quietly said, ‘Caudle has news. Wants to come at four.’

  ‘That will be fine,’ she replied in her normal voice. ‘Invite her for tea.’

  I took my hand from the mouthpiece and said, ‘That will be fine, Miss Caudle. Please stay for tea if you can.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Miss Caudle. ‘And tell her to speak more quietly – I could still hear her even with your hand over the mouthpiece.’

  ‘Right you are,’ I said. ‘We’ll expect you later.’

  I hung up.

  ‘What did she say?’ asked Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘She said you’re a loudmouth,’ I said.

  She harrumphed and we returned to our lunch.

  Once we’d eaten, Lady Hardcastle went back to her study and I helped Miss Jones put a few things together for tea. It was supposed to be her and Edna’s afternoon off, but she insisted on staying and I welcomed her help.

  With that done, there was nothing else needing my attention so I retired to the drawing room to read a book. I must have dozed off, because the next thing I heard was the ringing of the doorbell.

  I struggled to consciousness and staggered out to answer the door. The hall clock proclaimed it to be ten minutes past four, but that didn’t mean anything these days. All I could say for certain was that it was some time in the afternoon, and that was based solely on my memory of having already eaten lunch.

  I straightened my uniform and opened the door. Miss Caudle stood on the step, waving over her shoulder at an expensive-looking motor car, which promptly drove away.

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Caudle,’ I said. ‘Do come in.’

  I helped her out of her overcoat and showed her through to the drawing room.

  ‘Please make yourself comfortable,’ I said. ‘I’ll let Lady Hardcastle know you’re here.’

  I didn’t quite make it to Lady Hardcastle’s study door before she emerged. We smiled and nodded, and I left her to greet Miss Caudle while I carried on towards the kitchen to put the finishing touches on our afternoon tea.

  They were already deep in conversation by the time I carried the tray through.

  Miss Caudle was talking. ‘. . . on the wrong foot over all that business with the moving picture show, but I think it would be to everyone’s benefit if we just put it all behind us. We agreed to work together on this and we’ve been rubbing along reasonably well so far . . . but you can’t deny that there’s an undercurrent of unresolved animosity. I can’t help but feel things would be easier if we were to draw a line under it all and move on.’

  ‘I quite agree,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I can’t say I wholly approve of your motives or your methods during “all that business”, as you call it, but I have a grudging admiration for your efforts to make a career for yourself. I know it’s not easy. What say you, Flo? Shall we call a truce?’

  ‘I’m game if you are, my lady,’ I said. ‘I always prefer friends and allies to enemies and opponents.’

  ‘Steady on,’ said Miss Caudle. ‘Let’s not get carried away. I was proposing a mutually beneficial halt to hostilities, not making daisy chains and brushing each other’s hair.’

  Lady Hardcastle smiled. ‘Allies, at least, then. We have a common cause.’

  ‘We had a common cause before,’ said Miss Caudle.

  ‘Hardly, dear,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘We wanted to catch a killer and you wanted a headline story with your name on it.’

  ‘Yes, and if you—’ began Miss Caudle.

  ‘Ladies, please,’ I interrupted. ‘I know I haven’t been party to the whole conversation, but the portion I heard seemed to involve the calling of a truce and working together for a common cause. I didn’t hear anything about bickering. Was that in the part of the conversation I missed?’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘My apologies, Miss Caudle.’

  ‘And mine, too,’ said Miss Caudle. ‘Do you always let her boss you about like that?’

  ‘She’s gracious enough to allow me to pretend I’m in charge, but she’s a fearsome little thing and I find it best to do as I’m told.’

  I raised my eyebrows. That’ll be the day, I thought.

  ‘Well, then,’ said Miss Caudle, and reached into her ever-present satchel. ‘In the spirit of this new entente cordiale, let me tell you of the latest developments.’

  She withdrew Mr Brookfield’s now-familiar notebook and a sheaf of papers covered in a jumble of notes and diagrams.

  ‘The problem with Christian’s efforts to keep his notes secret from the prying eyes of his enemies,’ she said as she shuffled through the papers, ‘is that they keep them from the prying eyes of his pals, too. Even with the “key” it’s taking an age, and some of his cryptic little wordplay clues are excruciatingly tricky. But I’m getting there . . . Ah, here we are.’

  She found the sheet she’d been looking for.

  ‘I had a bit of an epiphany on Friday,’ she said. ‘Somehow, I began to see the pattern in the jumble. We’d thought – well, I’d thought, anyway – that he was working on a random tangle of disconnected stories, that it was just the result of capricious whim as he jumped from one to the other. But they’re connected. It was all one big story.’

  ‘How did you work it out?’ I asked.

  ‘It was after I’d got to this next part,’ she said, tapping the paper. ‘The next fellow on his tangled list of weasels and ne’er-do-wells is a gambler. An inveterate cards player who is up to his eyeballs in debt, by the name of James—’

  ‘Stansbridge,’ interrupted Lady Hardcastle. ‘Third son of the Earl of Keynsham.’ She winked at me. I knew she’d been putting it on.

  ‘How did you . . . ?’ asked Miss Caudle in astonishment.

  ‘Lucky guess. We both encountered him last night at the Farley-Strouds’ place – The Grange. Ther
e can’t be many card-playing debtors called Jimmy who would attract the attention of a sleuthing journalist like Brookfield.’

  ‘Even when someone else is leading the way, you seem to manage to be one step ahead,’ said Miss Caudle. ‘Yes, the Honourable James “Jimmy” Stansbridge, third son, as you say, of the Earl of Keynsham, came to Christian’s attention as part of what I now know to be a larger investigation. He’s a little fish and I’d not ordinarily think him worthy of the ink. Who cares about another titled fool who can’t pay his tailor?’

  ‘But we do care who lent him the money,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘Right again. That’s exactly who we care about.’

  ‘And do we know?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, now . . . “know” is a rather problematic word in newspaper circles. There’s often a good stretch of clear water between what we “know” and what we can prove.’

  ‘Much the same is true in the world of international . . . “diplomacy”,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘What did Brookfield know?’

  ‘He knew as sure as eggs is eggs that the man funding the Honourable Jimmy’s inept gambling is a city councillor by the name of Nathaniel Morefield.’

  ‘We are to presume, I presume, that there is a special significance in this name,’ said Lady Hardcastle.

  ‘Not on its own, no,’ said Miss Caudle. ‘He’s a well-known councillor with plenty of money, and friends in high places. He’s just the sort of person one might expect to be lending an old pal a few bob to help him out of trouble. The significance comes from his connection to the other names Brookfield had been looking at. He seems to have been sure that Nathaniel Morefield was the man tupping Oswald Crane’s wife, and the man whose palm had been greased to ensure the success of Redvers Hinkley’s plans for the development on Thomas Street.’

  ‘He’s a man with quite a strong motive for doing away with the troublesome journalist who was threatening to blow the gaff on his assorted shady dealings, then.’

  ‘Well, quite,’ said Miss Caudle.

  ‘A little stronger than the others,’ I said. ‘But that still doesn’t rule any of them out. Crane stood to lose his reputation, and Hinkley his liberty, if the news got out. Even witless Jimmy had a decent motive. Maude and I overheard him saying that his father would cut him off completely if he found out how serious his debt problems were.’