Chapter Eight
Before we finally turned in, Lady Hardcastle and I had arranged to be first down to breakfast on Saturday morning, and so we were both up, washed, dressed and ready for the day well before eight o’clock.
We were the first ones into the dining room, but breakfast was already waiting on the sideboard.
Lady Hardcastle helped herself to toast and a cup of coffee.
‘I miss my starter breakfast when we’re away from home, but if we’re going to have to be here for a while, I think I can indulge myself.
It won’t be the same as having you rudely awaken me and shove it under my nose, but it might suffice. ’
‘I can rudely shove it under your nose if you think that will enhance the experience,’ I said.
‘You’re very kind, but I shall content myself with simply sitting at the table and eating it. What are you having?’
‘I agree with you – we’re going to have to pace ourselves if we intend to linger. I think I’ll have some toast, too. That marmalade looks nice.’
We sat at the table together and started munching.
‘JB was right about the storm,’ I said. ‘It’s not exactly bright and sunny out there but the rain has stopped and the wind has died right down. Crawford should be able to get to the mainland this morning.’
‘I was thinking the same thing. We can hand everything over to the Devon County Constabulary and . . . I was going to say get back to a relaxing weekend, but we’re not going to go back to anything like normality even once everything is in the hands of the authorities and everyone finds out Everett was murdered. Do you think it’s us?’
I spooned an overly generous dollop of marmalade on to my toast. ‘Do I think what’s us? Did we kill Everett, do you mean? I think we’d have noticed.’
‘Well, quite. But that’s not what I meant. What I meant was that wherever we go, someone always seems to get murdered.’
I laughed. ‘Maybe it is something to do with us, then. Perhaps we’re cursed.’
‘We did upset that woman in the hut in the Bavarian Alps that time. She definitely threatened to put some sort of hex on us for walking through her vegetable patch.’
‘It would be an oddly specific hex, though, don’t you think? “Wherever thou dost go, murder shall there be, but never thine own. Thou shalt be doomed forever to solve the deaths of others.” Only in old-fashioned German. Obviously.’
‘Obviously. But it is odd, isn’t it?’
‘What’s the phrase you use? Statistically improbable.’
JB had entered the room. ‘What’s statistically improbable?’
‘That Bristol City will win the second division,’ said Lady Hardcastle without missing a beat.
‘Actually, at this point I think it might be mathematically impossible unless half the other teams are disqualified. And that is statistically improbable. They did beat Stockport County 7–2 a few weeks ago, but Stockport are doing poorly, too, so it wasn’t quite the achievement it might have been. ’
‘I have to tell you I don’t understand football at all. Half the rules don’t make sense. “Offside”? I mean, surely getting behind the defence is what it’s all about. And then after all that effort you can still end a game with a tie—’
‘A draw, dear.’
‘There you are, you see? I can’t even get the language right.’
‘What’s your favoured sport, then?’ I asked.
‘Baseball. The Philadelphia Phillies are my team. Been cheering for them since they were founded back in ’83. Of course, last season they didn’t do much better than your Bristol City, but we have high hopes for 1913. Not that it means anything – everyone starts every season with high hopes.’
Sidwell-Plant strolled in. ‘Fair warning, ladies: don’t get him started on baseball – you’ll be here all morning.’
‘I think it’s good for people to have a passion,’ I said. ‘Are you a sporting man?’
‘I rowed a bit at Oxford. Played a little rugger.’
‘That’s rugby, right?’ said JB as he sat down with a heaped plate.
‘It is. Like your football but without obstruction—’
‘Interference,’ said JB with a wink to Lady Hardcastle.
‘Really? That makes it sound worse. One can’t pass the ball forwards, either. Or wear padding.’
JB chuckled. ‘Sounds like you’re intentionally making things difficult for yourselves. But at my age I’m going to stick to billiards. Maybe a little golf.’
Lady Hardcastle turned to Sidwell-Plant. ‘How did you get on yesterday afternoon?’ she asked. ‘Didn’t you and Bridgewater have a game?’
‘We did. Although we actually played snooker – he prefers it. He used to play in India so he knows he can beat me.’
‘And did he?’ I asked.
‘Absolutely thrashed me. Good thing we weren’t playing for money or I’d be broke by now.’
‘I thought he looked kinda pleased with himself when he joined us in the library,’ said JB. ‘Is that why we didn’t see you? Off licking your wounds?’
Sidwell-Plant gave a rueful smile. ‘Something like that, yes.’
For one hopeful moment I thought JB was going to do our job for us and establish Sidwell-Plant’s movements during the two hours when Everett was murdered. No such luck. But how to proceed? Should we press him or was that vague ‘something like that’ all anyone was going to get?
Lady Hardcastle was keen to keep going. ‘I find a good walk eases my melancholy when Florence beats me at cards. Or at anything – she’s rather good at most things, to be honest. And if it’s too late for a walk, I find brandy always numbs the pain.’
‘It wasn’t really the afternoon for a walk,’ said Sidwell-Plant. ‘I don’t know what pleasure Wilson got from it, but I certainly wasn’t going to go out in that. Patience tells me it was ghastly out.’
‘Brandy, then?’ I asked.
He laughed. ‘I’m more of a scotch chap, but in truth I just went back to my room and had a manly sulk.’
‘What did Patience think of that?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘She wasn’t there. I sulked alone.’
Interesting. So his uncorroborated alibi was that he was alone in his room. Meanwhile, Patience’s whereabouts remained unknown after she’d returned from her aborted walk.
Wilson came in next, talking earnestly with Bridgewater.
‘. . . put you in touch with a chap who has one if you’re serious.’
‘Would that I were, dear boy. If I had deeper pockets and much longer arms I might take you up on it, but I fear that sort of thing is a little out of my price range.’ Bridgewater seemed to notice the rest of us for the first time.
‘Ah, good morning, ladies and gents. Did you sleep well? Wasn’t the storm frightful? ’
‘I guess I’m getting used to it,’ said JB. ‘Like I tried to explain last night: we get storms like that out here quite a lot. Most don’t amount to nothing.’
‘Well, it kept me awake, I can tell you. We don’t get that sort of weather in Belgravia.’
They helped themselves to platefuls of food and joined us at the table.
Lily arrived next, looking a little bleary, and the gentlemen all rose.
‘Someone else didn’t get much sleep,’ said Bridgewater, dabbing his mouth with a napkin.
‘It was that storm,’ said Lily. ‘I might have managed to sleep through it but I rather foolishly fell asleep yesterday afternoon so I wasn’t tired enough to ignore it.’
Bridgewater nodded. ‘That’s why I avoid afternoon naps. The memsahib swears by them, but no matter how drowsy I get in the afternoon, I try not to give in. If I sleep in the daytime, I’ll never manage to sleep at night.’
‘I just couldn’t stay awake. I’d been travelling all morning, then there was that business with’ – she looked around to check who else was present – ‘with Clarice and Everett. It was all rather exhausting. I wish I’d taken your route and stayed awake, though – I might have missed the storm.’
‘You’ll have to speak to Mrs B,’ said Bridgewater. ‘She might have some expert tips.’
‘Expert tips on what, dear?’ said Dotty, who had just entered with Clarice on her arm.
‘Afternoon naps,’ said Bridgewater as he resumed his seat once more. ‘They don’t seem to take the same toll on you as on everyone else. Young Lily here didn’t manage to sleep through the storm because she slept all afternoon.’
Dotty was already helping herself from the silver warming dishes on the sideboard. ‘Ah, well, now, you see, that’s where you’re going wrong, dear. The professional napper never sleeps for more than half an hour.’
I gave Lady Hardcastle a grin, and her smiling nod acknowledged that I’d said the same thing myself the day before.
‘I slept like a log,’ said Clarice.
I thought that this was almost certainly an occasion where her blindness was actually an advantage. No one said anything, but the shocked expressions on their faces would have given her pause if she had been able to see them.
‘And here comes my own darling wife,’ said Sidwell-Plant as, once again, the gentlemen all rose.
Patience just shook her head and made her way to the sideboard.
‘How did you sleep, dear?’ asked Dotty.
Patience carried on spooning kedgeree on to her plate. ‘On my side, mostly.’
Dotty gave her a puzzled frown. ‘No, I meant—’
‘I know what you meant, Dotty darling. It was a joke—’
‘Not a very good one,’ muttered Sidwell-Plant.
She ignored him. ‘You wanted to know whether I was affected by the storm. I slept through most of it. Honestly, if I can sleep through Robert’s snoring, I can sleep through anything.’
Bridgewater laughed, oblivious to the atmosphere. ‘You didn’t make young Lily’s error and sleep the afternoon away.’
Patience sat at the table looking slightly puzzled. ‘I didn’t, no.’
Well done, JB, I thought. For the life of me I hadn’t been able to fathom out how we might discreetly ask about everyone’s whereabouts between two and four the previous afternoon, but he’d managed to make it all sound like a pleasant, natural conversation.
Pleasant-ish, at any rate – I didn’t feel the Sidwell-Plants would have been happy rays of sunshine even in less distressing circumstances.
With everyone now present, Lady Hardcastle and I felt it was at last safe to eat properly, and by the time we rejoined everyone at the table we both had substantial plates of food to work through.