‘It’s a lovely invitation, Hector,’ she said, ‘and ordinarily I’d love to take you up on it, not least for the effect it might have on Mrs Brown. But I fear we have matters to attend to back at the house. Another time, perhaps?’
‘I shall insist upon it, m’dear,’ he said, jovially.
‘And we shall see you tomorrow, anyway.’
‘You shall? How so? Visitin’ Clarissa?’
‘No, didn’t you hear? We’re helping Inspector Sunderland.’
‘Are you, by jove. Well I never. Tryin’ to keep out of it m’self.’
‘He must want to speak to you, though,’ she said.
‘Oh, he’s had a word or several with me and the memsahib, and I don’t doubt he’ll want a few more, what? But I’ll keep out of his way until then. Sufficient unto the day, what?’
‘Quite so, quite so.’
‘But listen to me prattlin’ on, m’dear. Mustn’t hold you up, what?’
‘Thank you, Hector, we ought to be on our way. And I’m sure we shall bump into you again tomorrow.’
‘Lookin’ forward to it, m’dear. Toodle-oo for now.’ And with a cheery wave, he was off across the gravel towards the door.
‘So much for us being involved in the investigation,’ said Lady Hardcastle when he had gone.
‘My lady?’
‘Well, he never said anything about speaking to the Farley-Strouds. He’s not sharing everything with us, is he?’
‘Perhaps they didn’t say very much. Sir Hector would have been cheerfully oblivious to pretty much everything that went on, and Lady Farley-Stroud was so busy trying to make a good impression that she wouldn’t have noticed much, either. I doubt there was anything very much worth sharing.’
‘Hmm,’ she said, doubtfully. ‘Perhaps.’
We were walking along the grass beside the long, winding drive, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine and Lady Hardcastle was wondering, now that we’d turned down the offer of dinner, just exactly what we were going to eat. I reminded her that there were some pork chops that needed eating, and some of the last of the new potatoes. As we walked out of the gate and down the hill, she remembered that there was a bottle in the recent delivery from her newly appointed Bristol vintners which would complement such a meal very nicely.
Back at the house and with gloves and hats removed, Lady Hardcastle rummaged in her voluminous handbag and produced duplicate sketches of the people involved in the case.
‘I thought these might come in useful,’ she said, and set about replicating the crime board on her own blackboard in the dining room while I prepared an early dinner.
Less than an hour later we were tucking in to our meal, which also included peas which Mr Jenkins had kindly given us from the Farley-Strouds’ kitchen garden, and sipping at the newly delivered wine which did, as promised, complement the simple food perfectly.
Between mouthfuls, Lady Hardcastle gestured at the crime board with her knife.
‘The thot plickens,’ she said.
‘It does at that,’ I agreed.
‘The inspector seems to be focussed very much on the friendship between Richman and Haddock.’
‘You have to admit that Haddock sounds like a right rum ’un,’ I said.
‘He does, but I can’t quite see how he fits into all this. If he’s here to case the gaff or lift a few of the Farley-Strouds’ more portable knick-knacks, what was he doing going through the band’s instrument cases? And if he was caught mid-rummage, why the scuffle? Holloway knew him. There might have been stern words but no one would have been smacked on the back of the head and left for dead.’
‘It might have been an accident,’ I suggested.
‘It might, but my money’s on Sylvia Montgomery.’
‘Really, my lady? Why?’
‘It’s always the one that the police least suspect.’
‘In the stories, my lady. But you’re saying that because she’s the new girl and because Dunn thinks she’s a street tough, you think she’s a killer?’
‘Well…’ she said, doubtfully
‘There she was, rummaging around her own band’s cases, looking for… for what?’
‘Looking for somewhere to stash the jewels she’s just pinched from the party. She’s an international jewel thief, you see, who has joined the band because of the opportunities it gives her for sneaking about in posh houses.’
‘And why did she make such a mess of all the cases and then hide the trumpet case?’
‘She was looking for somewhere to hide the jewels and Holloway disturbed her. She clobbered him in the struggle, then had to make it look like something else was going on, so she made a mess and then slipped out with the trumpet case.’
‘What did she do with it?’ I asked, doggedly.
‘I haven’t the foggiest notion,’ she admitted.
‘Well,’ I said, thoughtfully. ‘What if she stashed the stolen jewels in the trumpet case and then clumped Holloway, and then someone else came in–’
‘Haddock,’ she said, excitedly.
‘For instance,’ I said. ‘And then Haddock tries to loot the place, because he knows Sylvia has just been in there and he knows she’s a jewel thief because he fences stolen goods through his junk shop and she’s one of his major suppliers? Oh, oh, that was how she got the job with the band in the first place: he introduced her.’
‘So Haddock knows Sylvia was there to steal, and he thinks he can save himself a few bob by stealing from her instead of paying for the stuff. He suspects she hides the loot in the instrument cases so he’s the one that rips them up, looking for the sparkle.’
‘“The sparkle”, my lady?’
‘The very same. They both assume that Holloway is merely out cold – neither of them even suspects that he has a fatal head injury – and they both get back to their business hoping that they’ll be able to explain everything away later. It was Haddock that you saw disappearing into the library, I’ll bet.’
‘It all sounds like a bit of a stretch to me, my lady,’ I said. ‘But it’s nice to have something to show for our first day on the job.’
‘We’ve made it fit all the known facts, though,’ she said. ‘That puts it part way to being an actual scientific theory. If we can make our theory predict something we don’t already know–‘
‘Like perhaps that Sylvia has the trumpet case in her room with stolen jewels in it,’ I suggested.
‘Oh, I don’t think a seasoned professional thief who was trying to conceal things in other people’s baggage would keep the loot in her own room, but if we can find the case with stolen jewels in it, that would help to strengthen our theory.’
‘We’re proper detectives after all,’ I said, with no small delight.
‘We’re certainly getting there,’ she said.
‘And do you think we ought to share our thoughts with Inspector Sunderland in the morning?’ I asked.
‘I think we ought. But for now, I think we ought to clear our minds completely and indulge in some of the finer things in life. I seem to be in the mood for some ragtime. Fetch your banjo and we shall drink cognac and syncopate the night away.’
I cleared away the plates and the evening passed most agreeably.