Chapter Four #2
‘He’s a very jealous and bitter man,’ said Clarice.
‘When we met he was the star. His piano playing was the talk of London. And his compositions were making people sit up and take notice, too. And now? Now he’s the accompanist to the brave, blind violinist. Very much second fiddle.
But without a fiddle. He resents every moment of my success and he takes it out on me. ’
‘Does he hit you?’ I asked. I was more than prepared to hit him back if she said yes.
‘Oddly, no. I think he’d love to, sometimes. I can hear it in his voice. But he’s afraid of what people might say if they found out he’d struck a blind woman. I should be thankful for small mercies, I suppose.’
‘Why don’t you just leave him?’ said Lily.
Clarice sighed. ‘I honestly don’t know. Inertia, I suppose.
It’s easier to put up with his spiteful tantrums than to contemplate a life on my own.
I pride myself on being self-reliant, but now the thought of having to start that new life fills me with dread.
I’d have to find somewhere to live. And what about my work?
He handles all the bookings – how would I do that?
I mean, I could probably find a way to do it all, but for the price of a small amount of humiliation once in a while, I already have someone to take care of it. ’
Patience took Clarice’s hand. ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again now: you can come and live with me. There’s acres of room at the house where you could live and practise, and I know plenty of people who could book concert appearances for you. We’d have a wonderful time.’
Clarice laughed. ‘You’ve always been so kind. But what would Bobby say?’
‘Bobby can go and jump in a lake. Actually, I rather wish he would anyway. I mean it, Clarice. If you ever decide to leave that ghastly bully, you just give me a ring. I’ll have a car round to your place in a trice, and to the Devil with them both.’
‘Thank you. I doubt I shall, but thank you, anyway. There is one very practical thing you can do for me if you wouldn’t mind, though.’
‘Name it, darling.’
‘I’m still not very familiar with the layout of this damn fort. Would you mind awfully showing me the way back to my room.’
‘Of course. Are you sure, though? Won’t Edgar be there?’
‘No, he always goes off to sulk on his own when he’s in a temper like that. He’ll be hiding out somewhere.’
‘I’d be happy to,’ said Lily. ‘Will you come with us, ladies?’
‘I think I’ll keep an eye on things down here,’ I said. ‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t disturb you.’
‘Oh, do be careful,’ said Lily. ‘He doesn’t strike Clarice, but he might not think twice about walloping you.’
‘Oh, I do hope he tries,’ I said.
Lily gave me a puzzled look.
‘I’ll stay here with Florence,’ said Patience. ‘I have a suspicion she might be the one to put your money on if things cut up rough.’
Lily gave her a puzzled look, too, but led Clarice out into the corridor. I could hear her chattering as they climbed the stairs.
Patience made herself comfortable in one of the sitting room’s many fashionable armchairs while I looked out of the window at the darkening skies.
‘I’d kill for a cup of tea,’ said Patience. ‘Do you fancy one?’
I turned. ‘I’ve rarely been known to refuse. Any idea where the bell is?’
‘Somewhere well thought out but bafflingly hard to use, knowing JB. He’s the most impractical practical man I’ve ever known.
“Well, young Patience, see, I put it there because that meant the shortest possible run for the electric cable. Most efficient place for it.” “But no one can see it, and half of us can’t reach it.
” “Well, gee, I never thought of that.”’
I laughed at her uncannily accurate impression.
‘I say,’ said a voice from the doorway. ‘You two seem to be having fun. What am I missing?’
Lady Hardcastle entered.
‘We’re trying to find the bell – we want tea.’
‘Oh, yes, tea,’ she said. ‘What a splendid idea. But why the bell hunt? It must be here somewhere. JB would never neglect something as essential as a bell.’
‘Which is exactly what we were discussing,’ I said. ‘So your challenge is to find it. If you think you’re up to it.’
‘A shilling says I find it before either of you.’
‘You’re on.’
Patience laughed. ‘Are you two always like this?’
‘She certainly is,’ we said together.
Patience laughed again. ‘Well, I’ll keep out of your way and let you get on with it.’
I turned to examine the area around the window and, quite by chance, happened to catch a glimpse of something brass, partially concealed behind the heavy, tied-back curtains.
I moved a little to properly block it from view, doing my best to make it seem as though I was merely trying to get myself into a better position to scan the room.
Lady Hardcastle began a systematic search of the walls either side of the door.
With my left hand shading my eyes like a sailor looking out to sea, I stood on tiptoes and looked about the room.
‘You’ll never beat me like that,’ said Lady Hardcastle as she moved on to one of the short side walls.
‘We shall see,’ I said, and continued my mariner-ish search.
I let her get halfway along the side wall nearer to me before I said, ‘Oh, look. Here it is. Found it.’
Lady Hardcastle harrumphed. ‘You rotten cheat. You knew it was there all along.’
‘Indeed no – I didn’t spot it until after I’d accepted the wager. I just thought it would be funnier to let you sniff up and down the walls like a—’
‘If you say “pig hunting for truffles” I shall write you out of my will.’
‘Oh, I wasn’t going to say anything of the sort, but now I can think of nothing else. Oink-oink.’
I rang the bell and moved towards an armchair. She spotted my move and raced towards it, sitting down before I could reach it.
‘Child,’ I said.
‘Cheat.’
I sat in another chair.
Patience laughed anew. ‘I love you both. You’re a breath of fresh air after what we just witnessed. Thank you.’
‘Goodness,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘What did you witness?’
I briefly described the incident between Clarice and Everett.
‘I hope you thumped him one,’ she said when I was done.
I shrugged. ‘I certainly thought about it, but he was off down the corridor before I’d fully assessed what had just happened.’
Patience had remained silent during my recap of events and looked away when I turned to her for confirmation of one of the details.
I was going to ask her what was wrong, but at that moment Crawford arrived, puffing slightly.
He looked around the room. ‘Was it you who rang? I can’t make head nor tail of that blasted bell board. I went upstairs to the drawing room at first but there i’n’t no one there. Then I realized I’d got the drawing room and the sitting room mixed up.’
‘It was us,’ said Lady Hardcastle with a smile. ‘Do you think we might have a pot of tea, please?’
‘O’ course, m’lady. It is “m’lady”, i’n’t it? I remembered Mr McIntyre sayin’ one of the guests was Lady Sommat, but I’m blowed if I can remember which of you it were.’
She laughed. ‘It’s me, but I really don’t mind if you forget. As Miss Armstrong here said earlier: “I don’t mind what you call me as long as it’s early for dinner.”’
He gave a throaty chuckle. ‘I shall always try my best. But it’s tea you want for now. I think the missus has made some biscuits, too, if you fancies a nibble.’
Patience frowned. ‘We’ve only just had lunch.’
‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I never say no to a biscuit. Thank you.’
‘I shall be back in two shakes,’ he said as he stepped smartly out of the room.
We drank our tea and talked about nothing very much. For a while it seemed that Patience had got over her distress at Everett’s unkindness, but when the pot was empty and the biscuits she hadn’t wanted were gone – she’d eaten three – she excused herself and returned to her room.
Lady Hardcastle stood and looked out of the window. ‘Was the argument that bad?’
I joined her. ‘Honestly, we didn’t hear an actual argument. We just caught the tail end of whatever had been going on, and that involved Everett being thoroughly beastly. When we spoke to Clarice she said he talks to her like that quite often.’
‘Why doesn’t she just leave him?’
‘Inertia.’
‘Actually, yes, I can understand that. We don’t make it easy for a woman to leave her husband.’
‘True. But Patience offered to take her in.’
‘Did she, indeed? Well, now one wonders if all is entirely well chez Sidwell-Plant.’
‘How so?’
‘She was upset by the bullying—’
‘I was upset by the bullying. I wanted to slosh him one.’
‘And it’s to your credit. But one wonders if she has some fellow feeling with the bullied.
Her willingness to find room in her home for someone from her broader circle of friends speaks volumes, don’t you think?
We all like to think we’d move heaven and earth for our closest, most intimate friends.
But would we open our homes to mere chums unless . . . ?’
‘Unless we were going through the same thing. It’s possible, I suppose, but it’s a bit of a leap.’
‘I specialize in improbable leaps, dear, you know that. I’ve built an entire career on it.’
‘If you can call it that.’
‘A career? I suppose that’s a bit of a leap, too, isn’t it. Still, this is where we find ourselves.’
I sighed. ‘In a converted fort on an island a mile off the Devon coast. With the weather closing in.’
‘And a thief in our midst, mischievously making things disappear.’
‘It’s not quite the seaside weekend I was anticipating, I must say. I didn’t expect donkey rides and sticks of rock, but I thought we might have a relaxing time at an interesting country retreat in enjoyable company. There might have been some pleasant, sunny strolls along the clifftops.’
‘In February? You’re an ambitious one, young Flossie.’
‘A girl can dream. At this rate we’ll be stuck indoors till Monday while our thief-or-prankster hides all our most precious things and laughs at us.’
‘And I know how you hate to be laughed at.’
I looked at her. ‘Doesn’t everyone? I hate practical jokes.’
‘As does Dotty B. We shall just have to put our thinking caps on and outwit them. If it’s a prank, though, my money’s on Granville Bridgewater.’
‘He does seem to be the one most likely to find an unfunny joke like that absolutely hilarious. Everett is just vile – I’m not sure he has a sense of humour – but I wouldn’t put malicious theft past him.
Clarice would be perfectly capable of it if she knew exactly where to find the jewellery, but it would take her considerably more time than she had.
Sidwell-Plant is too staid, too proper. George is a little more fun, but he was with us all the time.
He’s the only one of them who doesn’t seem to have had an opportunity so it can’t be him .
. . Of course, if this were a detective story, that in itself would make him the thief.
He’d have some ingenious way of being in two places at the same time. ’
‘A trained monkey?’ suggested Lady Hardcastle. ‘We’d have smelled it by now.’
‘True. But back in the real world . . . Dotty and Patience might be in it together, of course, but I can’t really see it.’
‘How about if they weren’t working together but against each other?’
‘Each stealing the other’s prize piece to win their little competition, you mean? It’s a possibility, I suppose, but it’s a massive coincidence if they both came up with the same idea and each managed to carry out their theft at the same time as the other.’
She shrugged. ‘I’m not a great one for coincidences, as you know, but it has an amusing elegance about it.’
‘I’m not convinced, either, but those are the only people we have to choose from. Lily wasn’t even here.’
‘They’re not the only ones here. We have to consider the Crawfords as well – do you remember what Everett said about them being up to something? And there’s JB, of course. It’s all a bit grim, isn’t it? Let’s hope it’s all just a lark, after all, eh?’
A sudden gust of wind made all the windows on the seaward side of the fort rattle. A shriek came from the library next door.
‘Sounds like Dotty Dorothy has been spooked by the wind,’ I said.
‘I thought she was having a nap.’
‘As an accredited Master Napper of the Worshipful Company of Dozers and Snoozers, I can affirm that the ideal nap length is about half an hour. She’s had plenty of time to refresh herself and rejoin the throng.’
‘I forget your many accomplishments, tiny one. But if there’s a throng in the library, ought we rejoin it ourselves?’
‘It would be the sociable thing to do.’