Chapter Twelve #2
“Don’t you want to come and see?” Mrs. Billings asked and I supposed most people would want to see, so I followed her to the bedroom, bouncing with nerves, adrenaline telling me to just run. I kept myself stationary as Mrs. B put her glasses on for a better look.
“Aren’t they supposed to ask before they go searching through your property?
Like they came and introduced themselves before,” Mrs. Billings said as we watched five or six of them, small figures in the distance, often hidden by the trees, but unmistakable in their uniforms, and the car they had parked on the grass.
The archaeologists sat in a line along the hedgerow by the road, watching as the police examined the ground.
“I don’t think I can stop them,” I said.
Mrs. B said, “Aren’t you going to go down and speak to them?”
“I usually leave that sort of thing to James.” I realized I ought to phone him. Wouldn’t any innocent woman let her husband know if the police started to search their property, allegedly without cause or warning?
I stared as hard as I could at the graveyard and I thought I could make out Arty, sitting amongst the gaggle of bone experts. What did he think? Was he wondering what I had done? What James had done? Or did he think the police had taken leave of their senses?
“Just ask them what they’re doing. And why.
Hold on…” And Mrs. B took her phone out of her overall pocket and called Mr. B.
A moment later he strode across the grounds toward the graveyard, there he stood speaking to the police officers before turning around and heading back. We made our way down to meet him.
“You heard they found Lennie Green’s body?” he said to me and I nodded. “Well, they reckon it came from here. Same as all those bones they’ve been collecting up.”
I gasped and that, at least, was genuine. Mr. B scratched his head while Mrs. B said, “Never!”
“That’s what I said,” Mr. B agreed. “Lennie Green was a man in his prime.” That was debatable. “Them bones are ancient; what would they all be doing together?”
Presumably he hadn’t made the connection with the collapsed mausoleum in the corner. They looked at each other, then at me.
“Are you alright, Lady Langley, love?” Mrs. B said.
I nodded feebly. “What else did they say?” I asked.
“Nothing else,” Mr. B said. “What else would they say?”
“I think I’d better give James a ring,” I said.
I had to ring five times before James answered, but when he did, he took the news more stoically than I expected.
He told me to go down and ask them if they wanted him to come home, but the thought of going down there and looking their official faces in the eye sent me all a-fluster.
So off Mr. Billings went again and came back with the news that, no, they didn’t want him to come home, but they would want to speak to him later.
“And you, Lady Langley,” he said.
So we left them to it. Mr. Billings was looking tired by then, so I agreed that mowing the lawn could wait until next week.
“It’s a young man’s game is mowing,” Mr. Billings said.
“Not long now, Eric, and we’ll be folk of leisure,” Mrs. Billings said to him. “Like Lady Langley here.” They looked at each other, smiled, and nodded. Their nest egg.
The police came and went that day without speaking to us, other than to answer Mr. B’s questions. Consequently, James and I were agog to watch the local news that evening. And there it was:
“Police search stately home as Lennie Green investigation continues!”
“That’s not what happened!” I shouted. They made it sound as if they’d come into the house and ransacked it. Then we saw the reporter in the road that passed the hall, police tape, police cars, police signs—all the paraphernalia—behind him. We hadn’t been able to see the reporters from the house.
“This road has been blocked off,” he said.
Yes, that was obvious. “While the police carry out investigations believed to be linked to the death of Lennie Green.” And on he went, saying so much without saying anything of use: Why did they believe that?
That was what we wanted to know, along with how Mr. and Mrs. Billings got home if that road was blocked off?
They must have had to go all the way round, through Great Beadington.
They would have been caught up in the traffic from town.
It would have taken them ages. I wondered if they’d been late for Silver Surfers.
Then, Arty, wearing one of the cravats I’d made. Artemis Rainbow, the caption bearing his name said. I’d never thought to ask him his surname, but it was every bit as good as his first name.
“They seem like a nice family,” he said. “Well, I only met the lady of the manor, but she was always happy to boil a kettle for us, hand out a biscuit, or stop for a chat, and she’s a genius with a needle and thread.”
James looked at me, an eyebrow raised.
Arty continued. “That said, we don’t know this is about them, it’s easy to get access to the area. We opened the gate and drove through. So did the police. And so could anyone else who wanted to, there’s no padlock on there.”
“Three cheers for Artemis Rainbow,” James said. “That will be our line of defense. After all, anyone can walk through there.”
“Does anyone else have keys to the mausoleum?” I asked him, seeing a flaw in the defense.
“The mausoleum is lying in pieces all over the ground; no one needs a key,” he said. “And no one’s said his body was in there. They could’ve dug a hole and buried him but not dug it deep enough or dug it too close to the river. Or given up with digging and just dropped him in the water.”
That made sense. I was starting to believe it myself, but the reporter had more to say:
“Daisy Dixon, formerly Daisy Langley, married to the billionaire owner of Langley Hall, was previously the perpetrator of a mass poisoning…”
“Oooh!” James said and he laughed. Even with all that was going on, he gave a little laugh.
“That makes me sound like Lucrezia Borgia,” I said, master poisoner of sixteenth-century Rome. “That’s not what it was.” And I felt a little pang that Arty was probably watching this. If he’d heard that, would he still want to accept biscuits and T-shirts from me?