‘Not at all, my lady. You pop off and do your bearding and I’ll see you at home.’
‘Splendid,’ she said, and we parted.
The police station was housed in one of a pair of cottages facing the village green. Sergeant Dobson lived above the station office while Constable Hancock lived in the much smaller cottage next door. We teased them about their luxurious accommodation, but they paid no heed. They were doing an important job, they said, policing villages and hamlets for miles around. They needed their police station and their convenient quarters.
There was no one in the small front office so I picked up the little bell from the counter and tinkled it in what I hoped was a polite way.
Sergeant Dobson emerged from a back room bearing a fat manilla folder.
‘Ah, there you are, miss. I was just about to come over the pub looking for you. Is Lady Hardcastle not with you?’
‘She sends her apologies, Sergeant, but she has urgent business elsewhere.’
‘Not to worry, miss, I’m sure you’ll be more than able to convey the news to her.’
‘What news?’ I said.
‘Look what the Gloucester boys send down by one o’ they motorcycle messengers this morning.’ He brandished the file.
‘Crikey,’ I said. ‘They must think it important if they’ve gone to that much trouble.’
‘Unsolved case,’ said the sergeant, importantly. ‘Would you like to come through to the back? There’s more room at the kitchen table and I’ve just put the kettle on for a nice cup of tea.’
‘That sounds splendid, Sergeant,’ I said. ‘Lead on.’
It had taken the best part of an hour in the company of Sergeant Dobson to go through all the notes in the file he had been sent. By the time we had finished it was almost tea time, and even though I was there at his request and was offering to help with the Mystery of Mr Nelson Snelson, I was beginning to feel a little guilty about keeping the sergeant from his duties. When I was sure I had fully understood everything in the file, I had thanked the sergeant for the tea and promised to let him know if there were any further developments. We said our farewells and I set off for home by way of the fishmonger.
I returned to find that Lady Hardcastle had retired to her study to make some notes, so I prepared an early dinner and we then sat together in the dining room, eating pan fried Dover sole.
‘What did the good sergeant have to say for himself, then, pet?’ she said once we were settled and the wine had been poured.
‘He was rather excited,’ I said. ‘A file had been sent by messenger from Gloucester and we spent a while going through it together.’
‘Crikey,’ she said. ‘What was in this file? Treasures?’
‘Of a sort, my lady. It was an account of the investigation of a fire. It seems that our Mr Snelson was in business with one Emmanuel Bean–’
‘Oh,’ interrupted Lady Hardcastle.
‘“Oh”, my lady?’
‘Yes, oh. We’ve been so silly,’ she said.
‘Silly?’
‘Yes, Emmanuel Bean. Manny Bean. It wasn’t Mummy Bear at all. I was so very much hoping that Goldilocks would become involved at some point, but it was just poor handwriting and wishful thinking.’
‘Quite so, my lady,’ I said. ‘Snelson and Bean owned a timber business in Hardwicke, just along the canal from Gloucester, which they called – disappointingly unimaginatively, I feel – Hardwicke Timber Limited. One year ago, almost to the day, there was a fire at the yard which completely destroyed the office, the stores and all the stock. When they were finally able to search through the devastation, they found a body, burnt beyond all recognition, but which they identified as belonging to Emmanuel Bean by the distinctive signet ring he wore.’
‘Crikey!’ she said gesticulating expansively with her fish knife. ‘A baked bean.’
I frowned.
‘And they suspected arson?’ she said.
‘They most certainly did. There was a surprisingly thorough investigation, but they could prove nothing. The insurers were reluctant to pay at first, but there wasn’t enough evidence to prevent them. There were stories that the company was in financial difficulties, but the accounts were destroyed so no one could say for sure.’
‘And poor old Bean was killed in the fire as well,’ she said.
‘Indeed he was. Obviously there was some speculation that he’d set the fire himself and had been trapped, but it was little more than speculation. Then they investigated Snelson but they couldn’t pin anything on him, either. Not for sure. He had apparently been in Birmingham on business, and they found witnesses to corroborate, but there were gaps in the story and it might have been possible for him to get back to Gloucester and do the deed without anyone being any the wiser.’
‘And now,’ she said, dramatically, ‘the ghost of Mummy Bear has come back to seek earthly redress for his untimely demise.’
‘You’re mocking me again, my lady,’ I said.
‘A little tiny bit,’ she said with a grin. ‘But it’s either the real ghost of Manny Bean or it’s someone who wants to tell us something about the case.’
‘Do you think Snelson really might have murdered him? What was he like? What did he have to say for himself?’
‘Nothing, I’m afraid; he’s still not at home. But at least now we know what to ask him about when we finally do meet him again.’
‘We do at that,’ I said. ‘What else should we try? We could go up to Gloucester now we have the car. They’re bound to have back issues of the local newspaper in the library.’
‘If we can find the library,’ she said. ‘I know where the Bristol library is. But it’s an excellent notion. Newspaper reports so often flesh out the more lurid aspects of the story that a dry old police report tends to leave out.’
‘Perhaps we could go to Bristol first. It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other, really, now that you have the infernal machine.’
‘A trip for tomorrow, then, if the weather holds,’ she said.
‘Very well, my lady,’ I said. ‘But what of the doctor? Are you healing well?’
‘He’s very pleased with my progress. And like you, he’s pleased to see me up and about.’
‘Excellent news,’ I said. ‘And what did he have to say about the séance?’
‘That was a curious conversation,’ she said. ‘I expected a scientific man to be a bit more sceptical, but he was utterly convinced that he had been given a message from his late wife and he was rather euphoric about the whole thing.’
‘Really?’
‘Indeed,’ she said. ‘It seems the poor dear has been racked with guilt of late because he’s rather fallen for a widow from Woodworthy but he feels that to pursue the subject of marriage would be a betrayal of his late wife. Now that he’s been given the late June’s blessing to “be happy” he feels finally free to plight his troth. Or further his amorous advances, at least.’
‘That’s charming,’ I said.
‘Yes, I think it rather is,’ she said. ‘Even if Madame Eugénie is an absolute old fraud, at least something positive and lovely might come from it.’
‘O ye of little whatnot,’ I said. ‘You’re still convinced she’s a fake? After all you’ve seen?’