‘I know, my lady. It’ll be nice to have some music in the house again. But was I dreaming or did he also say something about a blackboard.’
‘Ah, yes, that was an idea I had yesterday. After I’d finished talking to the constable I prevailed upon him to let me use his telephone to contact the music shop to complain about the absence of my new piano. The nice man told me it was just being loaded onto a train bound for Bristol and that he’d arrange for it to be delivered today. I explained that it really wasn’t good enough and that I’d been in my new home for over a week without it, despite the fact that I’d placed the order over a month ago. He apologized profusely and asked if there was anything he could do to make things right, and I said that if he managed to get a large blackboard and easel onto the train with the piano we’d say no more about it.’
‘You made him go out and buy you a blackboard?’
‘No, silly, they sell them. For music teachers. I bought it, but I made it clear that my goodwill and continued custom were contingent entirely upon the safe arrival today of both piano and blackboard.’
‘And so now you have a blackboard.’
‘And a piano.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s for making exquisite music. Obviously.’
‘No, my lady, the blackboard. Why do you have a blackboard?’
‘Oh, yes, of course. Well, you see, I rather got used to using a blackboard for working things out when I was at Girton. Helps me to think, d’you see? So I thought perhaps if I had a blackboard, it might help me to think about this murder business.’
‘The murder.’
‘Quite so. I thought if I could make notes, draw diagrams, perhaps even pin up little sketches of the people involved, it might help me to make sense of all the information about the murder and perhaps find a solution.’
‘And so for this one case, you now own a blackboard.’
‘And chalk. And a duster. And a box of tacks.’
‘Tacks?’
‘Thumbtacks. For pinning things to the blackboard.’
‘Won’t that make holes in it?’
‘Oh, Flo, you do worry about the most inconsequential things. Take the tea out to our horny-handed sons of toil and rejoice that we finally have a piano.’
‘You have a piano, my lady. I play the banjo as you very well know. You also have a blackboard.’
‘Yes. Yes I do. Now feed and water the nice men who own the cart that brought it.’
I took tea and cake to the delivery man and the boy that I had by now established was his son, and supervised the rearranging for the furniture in both rooms to accommodate the new items. Less than an hour after they had first rung the bell, everything was safely in place and we had tipped them handsomely and sent them on their way.
I returned to the floury chaos of my kitchen.
With everything finally in order I set about preparing dinner while Lady Hardcastle continued her sketching in the dining/investigation room.
We dined early and while we sat at the table afterwards sipping some of Lady Hardcastle’s excellent cognac – one of her few vices – she explained the “Crime Board” as she had christened the new blackboard which stood in the alcove beside the fireplace. While I’d been preparing our meal, she had been busy pinning up sketches of the victim, Mr Pickering, together with blank outlines of our two main suspects, Messrs Lovell and Tressle (she’d not yet met either of them so she had no idea what they looked like). Another chalk line linked him to a sketch of Mr Seddon standing outside a building with a sign above it reading, “Seddon, Seddon & Seddon, Shipping Agents”.
There were notes under each sketch outlining what we knew as well as some speculation about motives and connections. She also had one of the sketches of the body in the tree and of a cart rather like the one in the yard at the Dog and Duck.
‘After all that, though,’ she said, sitting back down, ‘I’m no nearer solving the case than I was before. We’ve got two men who might have a reason to kill Mr Pickering if their jealousy of him were strong enough. Both of them seem to have an opportunity to do so. Mr Tressle seems to have had access to a handcart that would be perfect for transporting the body to fake the suicide, but Mr Lovell could easily have taken it from outside the cricket pavilion where the rowdies left it. But we still have no proof that either of them did it nor any idea how they might have managed to get the body up into the tree. I fear we’re getting nowhere, Flo.’
‘We know more than Inspector Sunderland already.’
‘Perhaps. But let’s leave it for now, I feel the spirit of Chopin coming upon me.’
‘I love it when that happens,’ I said.
‘Then come, servant, let us repair to the drawing room and I shall play.’
‘I’ll tidy these things away and make some cocoa.’
‘Very well. But hurry, the spirits are restless and dear Frédéric might be elbowed out of the way by Franz Léhar at any moment.’
‘Léhar is still alive.’
‘He is? That hardly seems fair. Well such is the sickly power of his sentimental spirit that even life cannot stop him. Hurry, girl, or it’ll be “The Merry Widow” for you, and that never ends well.’
‘One merry widow in the house is quite enough for me, my lady. I shall be as swift as I can.’
The piano turned out to be a charming instrument and only slightly in need of tuning after its journey. It was nearly midnight by the time we retired.
Thursday morning saw us both engaged in mundane domestic matters, with me continuing to organize our household and Lady Hardcastle catching up with correspondence at her desk in the small study.
I had prepared a ham pie for lunch which we shared at the kitchen table. Lady Hardcastle declared it the most delicious pie of the day and we were toasting my success as Queen of Pies when the doorbell rang.
It was Constable Hancock. He snapped smartly to attention as I opened the door.
‘Why, Constable Hancock,’ I said with a smile, ‘what a pleasant surprise. I trust we find you well?’
‘Passing well, miss,’ he replied, touching the brim of his helmet with his right index finger. ‘I wonder if I might have a word with Lady Hardcastle.’
She had, once more, arrived silently at my shoulder. ‘You may have whole sentences, my dear constable,’ she said as I opened the door wider to allow him in. ‘Do come inside and tell us your news.’
He took off his helmet and placed it on the hall table.
‘Tea, constable?’ she said, genially. ‘We were just finishing lunch; perhaps you’d care to join us in the kitchen? I hope you don’t mind but I don’t want Armstrong to miss anything and if we all gather in there, she can make the tea while we talk.’
‘That would be most agreeable, m’lady,’ he said, and we walked through to the kitchen together.
She bade him sit at the large kitchen table and sat opposite him while I busied myself with the kettle, teapot and cups.