‘I can make some enquiries if you like. I know a couple of chaps on the News.’
‘No, Inspector, not for now, but I think I shall speak to him again myself. Now that you know about Autumn Wind, how does it change how you see your investigation of the Morry murder?’
‘I’m afraid it raises more questions than it answers,’ he said. ‘I’d been thinking along the same lines as this Brookfield character and I was all set to question the very same three gentlemen that he put you onto. But now it seems there’s little point; I should almost certainly be looking towards those that might benefit from the fall of the tram company.’
‘If I might make a suggestion,’ she said, ‘I think it might be safer to pursue your old lines of enquiry, at least openly, and report slow but steady progress to your superiors. We must assume that Autumn Wind has influence within the Force and I shouldn’t like to spook them too soon by revealing our true suspicions. By all means look into the dealings of anyone involved with applications for the motorbus licence, but for heaven’s sake, be discreet.’
‘I didn’t get where I am today–’ he began.
‘No,’ she said, ‘I know you didn’t. But I’d rather like it if you were still there tomorrow. The members of Autumn Wind are not above murder, and they can ruin a man in many other devastatingly effective ways if the whim takes them. We must not tip our hand until we are ready to strike. Please be careful, Inspector dear.’
He smiled and nodded. ‘And what shall you two be doing?’ he asked.
‘We shall start, I think, by finding out if Banfield–’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘Just testing, pet. We shall find out if Brookfield really is as stupid as he’s trying to make out, and then I think it’s time to put myself about a bit.’
‘I say,’ I said, causing the inspector to snort into his teacup as he tried to take a sip.
Lady Hardcastle raised an eyebrow. ‘In Bristol society,’ she said. ‘It’s about time that Emily, Lady Hardcastle made her mark. We’ll never find out who among the local notables might be up to no good if we don’t know a little more about them. I think it’s time I got myself invited to a few dinners.’
‘And how…?’ The inspector left his question hanging.
‘Leave it to me, Inspector,’ she said. ‘A word here, a letter there – the invitations will come flooding in.’
He chuckled his familiar throaty chuckle. ‘It’s another world,’ he said.
We arrived home to find Christian Brookfield sitting on the doorstep and he jumped to his feet as soon as I opened the gate for Lady Hardcastle. He caught his satchel on the corner of the step and nearly fell straight back down again, and by the time we reached the door he was still trying to brush the dust from his suit.
‘Good afternoon, my lady,’ he said with a small imitation of a bow. ‘Miss Armstrong.’
‘Good afternoon, Mr Brookfield,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Have you been waiting long?’
‘An hour or so,’ he said, amiably.
‘I suppose patience is a valuable trait in your line of work. How on earth did you find us?’
‘I knew from your clippings file that you lived in Littleton Cotterell, but I had to ask in the village for your address.’ He seemed pleased with his ingenuity and either hadn’t noticed the frostiness in Lady Hardcastle’s tone or simply regarded being on the wrong end of disapproval and hostility as an inevitable consequence of his chosen profession.
‘I see,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
I unlocked the door and stepped inside. Lady Hardcastle brushed past Brookfield and had taken off her had and coat before she turned back to him and said, ‘You’ve come all this way, Mr Brookfield; you’d better come in.’
He wiped his feet and stepped into the hall where I took his hat and placed it on the hall table with his gloves. Lady Hardcastle had gone through into the drawing room and I gestured for him to follow her.
She was waiting for him with her hand resting on the back of one of the armchairs and quite the most formidable expression on her face.
‘Mr Brookfield,’ she began as soon as he entered the room, ‘I appreciate the urgency of the matter, and no one desires that the murderer of Mr Morry be brought to justice more than I, but I really must insist that if you do decide to call unannounced and find that we are out, you do not under any circumstances hang about on our doorstep as though one of us is the subject of some lurid scandal and you’re hoping to get an exclusive interview. Do I make myself clear?’
He looked at her with some alarm. ‘I… er…’ he stammered.
‘Good,’ she said sweetly. ‘We shall say no more about it. Now then, what can we do for you?’
To say that Brookfield was wrong-footed by this outburst followed by the sudden change of mood would be an understatement, and he struggled for a moment to gather himself before he could respond.
‘I… er… I just wanted to consult you on the case,’ he eventually stammered. ‘To find out what you had discovered, what you thought of our three suspects.’ He took his notebook and a pencil from his satchel and stood ready to make notes.
‘Well,’ she said, after a moment’s thought, ‘I find it difficult to choose between them. I mean, they all seem so likely. They all have strong motives, and Craine and Hinkley both have the money and influence to be able to pay someone to push poor Mr Morry off that roof. I’m not sure yet how they might have lured him there in the first place, but I’m sure we’ll discover that in due course.’
‘And Stansbridge?’ he said, scribbling eagerly.
‘He’s impecunious but he’s quite a fit young man; I imagine he could handle himself in a scuffle. Or perhaps the Earl employed someone. It really is a most perplexing case, Mr Brookfield; I fear we are getting nowhere at all.’
‘Shall I continue to dig into their histories?’ he asked as he finished his note-taking.
‘Yes, please,’ she said. ‘And we shall make discreet enquiries of our own. Don’t worry that there’s been little progress so far, it often works out that way. Things usually come together in a rush at the last moment.’
‘Very good, very good,’ he said with a keen grin.
‘Is there anything else?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘Well… I… er…’ he seemed once again wrong-footed as he discerned, quite rightly, that he was being dismissed.
‘Splendid,’ she said. ‘Well, thank you so much for dropping by, Mr Brookfield. Do telephone next time, won’t you. Armstrong will show you out.’ And with that, she turned away and began careful perusal of the books in the bookcase in the alcove beside the fire.
I showed Brookfield to the door and bade him a safe journey back to town. He stood for a moment on the step as though hoping I might say something reassuring, but although I wasn’t entirely certain what Lady Hardcastle was up to, I had a fair idea and I was sure that my saying anything even remotely uplifting would be contrary to the plan. I closed the door.