‘Really?’ said Miss Titmus. ‘How marvellous.’
‘You must come down and see us. I’m sure you’d enjoy the studio, even if our little village is a tad quiet.’
‘I should absolutely love that. Do you process your own film? I’m about to turn the spare bedroom of my London flat into a darkroom, but it’s a bit of a palaver. Until now, I’ve been imposing on a friendly professional photographer to do it for me. He’s an old friend of my brother’s.’
‘I do it all at home,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I’ve had a darkroom installed at one end of the studio. Do say you’ll come.’
‘I should be delighted. I sometimes think about taking it up professionally, you know? Portraiture and suchlike. I think it might be quite a hoot.’
‘And why don’t you?’
‘Oh, don’t be so silly. Whoever heard of a ninny like me doing something like that?’
‘Hmm,’ said Lady Hardcastle with a frown. As far as I’d been able to establish from all that I’d heard so far, the two ladies were very similar in age, but here on the freshly raked gravel of the garden path, Miss Titmus did indeed seem like a naive young girl when measured against my worldly-wise employer. ‘If you want it, dear,’ she continued, ‘you should do it. I’ve never let the fear of people thinking me a ninny stop me from doing anything.’
‘Good thing, too,’ I said. ‘Or you’d never have done anything at all.’
They both laughed. ‘You’re quite right, of course,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I’ve come a cropper more times than I care to recall, but I carry on undaunted. I tell you what, I hereby commission you to come to Littleton Cotterell and photograph the house and the two ninnies who live there. Oh, and our beloved motor car. How about that? I shall pay your expenses and any fee you care to name. Then you shall be a professional and you’ll have to go into business.’
Miss Titmus laughed again. ‘We shall see,’ she said. ‘But perhaps you should take a look at some of my work before you make such an offer. I might be an absolute duffer, for all you know.’
‘Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘I don’t suppose . . .’
‘As it happens, I always travel with an album of my favourites. I shall bring them down after lunch.’
Lady Hardcastle’s eager agreement was cut short by a loud clattering some short distance away. We turned, and saw that a sizeable flock of doves had taken to the air.
‘There’s a dovecote as well,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘How lovely.’
‘Wonderful birds,’ said Miss Titmus. ‘I’ve thought of getting some.’
Lady Hardcastle frowned. ‘You have?’
‘I have. Well, not doves, exactly. Homing pigeons.’
‘Well I never. Would you race them?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Miss Titmus, becoming suddenly animated. ‘I read an article in a photographic journal about a German chap who has designed a special harness and camera that he attaches to homing pigeons. They photograph whatever they fly over on the way home. Isn’t that just utterly utter? I’ve got a copy of the magazine indoors. I’ll show you later. That would set my photographic business apart, wouldn’t it?’
Lady Hardcastle laughed. ‘It would be a sin not to start a business like that. I say, you could photograph country houses from the air. I’m sure some of the more adventurous families would pay handsomely for the privilege.’
By now, we had left the formal garden and were walking around the edge of a rolling lawn, sticking close to the neatly trimmed hedge that formed the garden’s outer border. From a little way ahead, we heard the sound of voices, then a woman’s laugh. We came eventually to what might best be described as an ‘alcove’ cut into the hedge, where there sat a handsome Palladian stone bench. And upon the bench were Lady Lavinia and Harry, apparently deep in conversation.
‘What ho, Harry,’ said Lady Hardcastle breezily. ‘And Jake, too. How are you both?’
‘Passing well, sis, thank you. Anything we can do for you?’
‘No dear, thank you,’ she said.
‘Well, don’t let us detain you.’
‘Righto, dear,’ she said.
We carried on walking, holding our silence until we were out of earshot.
‘About time, too,’ said Lady Hardcastle when she was sure we couldn’t be heard.
‘What is?’ asked Miss Titmus.
‘Those two. You must have seen the way he’s been looking at her these past couple of days.’
‘No?’ said both Miss Titmus and I together.
‘Tch,’ sighed Lady Hardcastle, and we strolled on.
Our walk eventually led us to the stable yard. The coach house doors were open, but we could see no sign of Morgan.
‘Hello!’ called Lady Hardcastle. ‘Anyone about?’
There was no one about.
‘Come on, ladies,’ she said. ‘Let’s take a look at the scene of the crime.’
‘The crime?’ said Miss Titmus. ‘Is this where it was done, do you think?’
‘I can’t think of a better place. The motor car was guaranteed to be here. It’s out of the way. One can work in private. An ideal place for a spot of sabotage.’
‘Gracious!’ said Miss Titmus. ‘Do you really think we ought? Shouldn’t we leave things as they are? Isn’t snoopery best left to the police?’
Lady Hardcastle laughed. ‘Snoopery is our stock-in-trade, dear. As for the police, you heard what that frightful detective from Leicester said. It was a tragic accident and there’s nothing else for him to do here.’ She led the way through the open doors. ‘I think it’s our duty to have a bit of a poke about.’
We stood in the centre of the large coach house. The horse stalls had been removed to make way for workbenches. The three motor cars stood in line abreast, gleaming even in the dim light. The rightmost was horribly dented and scratched where it had struck the tree. Lady Hardcastle stood stock still for a few moments, looking keenly about.
‘Is that a door over there in the gloom, Flo?’ she said, pointing to the far corner of the stable. ‘Be a dear and have a dekko for me, would you?’
Had we been alone, I might have invited her to look for herself if it were that important to her. We were in company, though, so I walked towards the indicated corner.
‘It is a door,’ said Miss Titmus just as I reached it. Again, I bit my tongue. Instead, I tried the handle. It was locked.
‘It looks as though the lock is oiled and in regular use,’ I said as I trudged back to the middle of the room.
‘Do you know where it opens, Helen?’ asked Lady Hardcastle.
‘On the outside?’ said Miss Titmus. ‘Let me see . . . The kitchen garden, I think.’
‘Easy to get to from the house, then. Someone who knew their way about could slip out here, snip the brake cable, and nip back indoors before anyone even knew they were gone.’
‘Who knows their way about well enough to do that?’ I asked.
‘Everyone apart from us, I should think,’ said Lady Hardcastle.