At nine o’clock we received a telephone call from Inspector Sunderland. The line was noisy; he had found a pub in Bedminster which had installed a telephone as a novelty but which none of the regulars ever used because they didn’t have anyone to call. Over the din of conversation and the rumble and clatter of a skittles match, we managed to make arrangements to meet him at eleven o’clock the following morning in a tea shop in Chipping Bevington; he had been warned once again not to involve us in any of his ongoing investigations and so it was no longer safe for us to meet in the city.
We played two more hands of cards and then retired.
I was up early as usual the next day and was well on top of the household chores before I woke Lady Hardcastle with her coffee and toast. Breakfast had followed, and we were on the road by half-past ten, on our way to Chipping Bevington with me at the wheel.
‘Oh, do get a move on,’ said Lady Hardcastle as I drove with all proper care and attention along the winding country lanes. ‘You drive like my grandmother.’
‘Your grandmother died twenty years before the invention of the motorcar, my lady,’ I said.
‘My point precisely,’ she replied. ‘You drive like a dead woman.’
‘At least this way we stand a good chance of not joining her in the Great Beyond. And we’ll be at Chipping Bevington in plenty of time.’
She harrumphed but said no more.
I parked the car on a side street and we walked together to the tea shop that Inspector Sunderland had chosen for our meeting. We were – to Lady Hardcastle’s surprise – a few minutes early but the inspector was already there. It took us a moment to spot him; he had chosen a table near the back of the shop which commanded a view of the entrance but which couldn’t so easily be seen by someone walking in.
‘You’ve chosen your seat well, Inspector,’ I said as he stood to greet us.
‘Oh?’ he said, somewhat nonplussed. ‘Really? Thank you.’
‘Very well indeed,’ agreed Lady Hardcastle as she sat down. ‘Very professionally done. You’ve had training, I take it?’
‘Training?’ he said. ‘In what?’
‘Espionage and the arcane arts of cloak-and-daggerism,’ she said.
‘No, my lady, just detective work and pinching villains.’ He waited for me to sit and then finally resumed his own seat.
‘Then you’re a natural,’ I said.
‘You are indeed,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘If you ever want a change of profession, we’d happily put in a good word for you.’
‘A change to what?’ he said with a smile. ‘Are you saying that you have contacts in the spying world, Lady Hardcastle? Are you a nozzle?’
She laughed. ‘Oh, heavens, I haven’t heard that word for ages.’
‘It was one of my father’s favourites,’ said the inspector. ‘“Watch out for narks and nozzles, Ollie, m’boy,” he used to say.’
‘Sage advice,’ she said. ‘But obviously if I were any manner of spy I shouldn’t be able to admit to it, Inspector dear, now would I?’
‘Of course not, my lady,’ he said, still smiling broadly. ‘But your friend Purcell had a whiff of the snooper about him, and it would explain a lot of the things I think I know about you.’
‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Do things about us need explaining?’
‘Almost everything,’ he said. ‘But for now I shall have to content myself with knowing that a very powerful and persuasive person from Whitehall wants me to assist you with your investigations without revealing my involvement to anyone at my own station.’
‘And are you willing to do that?’
‘After my encounter with Purcell I didn’t feel that I had a great amount of choice, but it happens that yes, I am willing. I’ve been thinking that there’s something fishy about this whole affair since it began, and I don’t like the way I’ve been manipulated into keeping certain “important” people out of my investigations. I’m sworn to uphold the law on behalf of all the people of England, not just the self-appointed few. And now that Lady Bickle has been taken, there’s more of a sense of urgency to it.’
‘Well said, Inspector,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Well said indeed. Though I actually don’t think Lady Bickle is in imminent danger. There’s too much at stake for them to even begin to think about harming her yet, and I strongly suspect she’s being treated well enough.’
‘Even so…’
‘Quite. We must not shilly-shally, but I think we’ll find her all the more quickly if we find out who’s behind all this and so that’s where we shall be concentrating our efforts.’
‘Very good, my lady’ he said. ‘And that leads us rather neatly to our somewhat unusual role reversal. I’ve become accustomed to having you as my unofficial assistant whenever our paths have crossed, I hope I can manage to be of as much help to you as you have been to me.’
‘Thank you, Inspector, you’re very kind. I shall do my utmost not to be too much of a martinet–’
‘Good luck, Inspector,’ I said with a wink.
‘I shall deal with you later,’ she said. She turned back to the inspector. ‘In the meantime, I think that since Purcell considers you to be free from its influence, it ought to be all right to acquaint you fully with everything we know about Autumn Wind.’
‘He said you would,’ said the inspector. ‘Our meeting was necessarily brief and he didn’t go into detail but he said that you’d almost certainly tell me anyway so I should save my questions for you.’
‘The cheeky blighter,’ she said. ‘No matter. Let’s order another pot of tea and we shall tell you a tale of wonder and intrigue.’
For the next half an hour Lady Hardcastle and I told the inspector everything we knew about Autumn Wind and its history (as far as it had been vouchsafed us by the secretive officers of Section W). We also detailed our suspicions regarding the recent spate of attacks on the Bristol Electric Tram Company, and the suspicions of Mr Brookfield the journalist.
‘In my line of work I’ve heard all manner of paranoid fantasies about secret societies running the country,’ said the inspector when we had finished. ‘We arrested a chap last year who was planning to blow up the Fry’s factory on Union Street because he was convinced that a sinister cabal of Quakers was planning to take control of the country by adding powerful narcotics to chocolate. But from what you say, some of the claims might not be so paranoid or fantastical.’
‘Autumn Wind, at least, isn’t a fantasy, though I doubt that even they would stoop so low as to adulterate chocolate,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘But where do we start with something like this?’ he said. ‘We can’t trust anyone; we must suspect everyone.’
Lady Hardcastle chuckled. ‘That might be veering a little towards the paranoid,’ she said. ‘But we must certainly be circumspect. As for starting… what do you know about the journalist Christian Brookfield?’
‘Who?’
‘Brookfield. He’s the chap who pointed us at the first round of suspects.’
‘Nothing at all,’ said the inspector. ‘Works locally does he?’
‘For the Bristol News, apparently. He gave us the impression that he knew you.’
‘He’s probably new, my lady, but I can’t honestly say I remember ever speaking to him.’
‘Curious,’ she said. ‘We didn’t really ask him for references. Ah well, no matter.’
‘You wanted to know more about him?’ he said.
‘I was just after a second opinion of him, that’s all. I was just going to ask if you thought him a bright fellow.’
‘Bright?’ he said.
‘Bright,’ she said. ‘Perspicacious, quick-witted. No matter.’