Chapter Ten #2
‘Perhaps I should. Whatever I do, though, I should leave you in peace – I’m sorry for interrupting. Good luck with your book, Miss Armstrong. I hope no one is hurt in the sinking.’
With a cheery wave, he left us to ourselves.
Lady Hardcastle prowled the library shelves looking for .
. . actually, I hadn’t the foggiest idea what she was looking for.
Her reading tastes were broad and she was curious about absolutely everything so she should, I felt, have been able to find something to divert her for a few minutes, but she just prowled.
She prodded books. She took them down. She put them back.
I couldn’t concentrate on Aloicius and his schooner. ‘Is there nothing there to your taste?’
‘Plenty I could sink my teeth into were I not distracted by Certain Things,’ she said.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘Not in a public place – someone could come in at any minute.’
Patience arrived at exactly that moment, perfectly proving her point.
‘Hello, ladies. Do you mind if I join you? I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’
‘Not at all,’ I said. This time I decided not to try to extol the dubious virtues of A Schooner to Nova Scotia. ‘We’re not really doing anything. She’s prowling. I’m sitting.’
Lady Hardcastle returned a large volume to the shelf. ‘And if I sit, we can all sit together. Shall I ring for tea?’
She pressed the bell and helped Patience haul two more of the wingback chairs around the low table where I had made myself comfortable.
‘There,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Nice and cosy. Are weekends with JB always like this?’
Patience frowned. ‘Like what?’
‘Like—’
She was interrupted by the unusually prompt arrival of Crawford. We ordered tea and biscuits and he took our empty coffee cups away.
‘The atmosphere, dear,’ continued Lady Hardcastle when he’d gone. ‘One tries to avoid clichés like the plague, but I venture it might be possible to cut the atmosphere here with one of JB’s many seafarers’ knives.’
Patience smiled. ‘Things certainly used to be a good deal more jolly, but people change, don’t they? Relationships move on. Friendships falter. Love fades.’
‘Very true,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Do you mind my asking what’s going on?’
Patience thought for a moment. ‘Actually, we probably owe you some sort of explanation. It’s hardly fair for us to bring you both into the middle of our nonsense – it’s supposed to be a relaxing weekend among friends, after all.
Oh, and heaven knows what Wilson and Lily must think of us all.
You, at least, have known JB for a while – they’ve only recently met him through their work.
The fact is that mine and Robert’s marriage is not a happy one.
I want him to divorce me but he refuses. ’
Lady Hardcastle nodded. ‘That much we knew, I’m afraid. JB told us.’
‘Really? I ought to be troubled by his indiscretion but I suppose Americans have different standards for that sort of thing, so I can’t really hold it against him.
But indiscreet or not, he’s right: I do want Robert to divorce me.
I’ve destroyed my own reputation giving him grounds but he won’t budge.
I used to imagine we could just bump along, pretending everything was all right for the sake of appearances, but now I can’t bear the sight of him.
I swear there are days when I could happily plunge one of those knives you mentioned into the wretched man’s heart. ’
‘You don’t feel like that all the time, though, surely,’ I said. ‘You were allies this morning in whatever feud it is you have with the Bridgewaters.’
‘Oh, that was just me trying to keep out of the way as best I could, darling. Lord alone knows what Robert and Gran are arguing about. Robert’s never told me and I’ll be damned if I’m going to give him the satisfaction of asking.
It has something to do with work – that much I’ve surmised – but exactly what remains a mystery. ’
We paused again when Crawford arrived, and talked to him about the weather as he poured the tea.
When he was gone, Patience spoke up again. ‘But enough about us miserable lot. What about you two? You’ve been very cagey every time anyone’s pressed you for details of the cases we read about in the newspapers. So, come on – I’ve opened my private life to you; share something.’
‘I’m not sure we’re nearly as exciting as you think we are,’ I said.
‘Most of the details are in the newspapers. The national press picks up the stories from the Bristol News, where they’re written by a good friend of ours: Dinah Caudle.
She’s careful to get everything correct and we trust her with more information than we’d share with some bloke from a London paper. ’
‘Your modesty ill becomes you. What about that business with the wild animals in Gloucestershire, for instance? Or the stolen Shakespeare book? And that time you were in the theatre and saw an actual body on the stage?’
Together, Lady Hardcastle and I led Patience through some of the previously undisclosed details of the cases she had mentioned, as well as a few she hadn’t.
It occurred to me as we talked that I should probably write some of those stories down at some point, but I struggled to imagine that anyone would be interested.
We were just finishing what I have to admit I thought was a particularly exciting retelling of the events surrounding our murder-filled holiday at Weston-super-Mare – although we omitted any mention of our involvement in the world of espionage – when JB poked his head round the door.
‘Ah, there you are. I’m sorry, Patience, but might I borrow Emily and Florence for a few minutes?’
Patience gave us a curious look. ‘Of course you can, JB darling. We can return to their yarns when you’re done with them.’
We put down our teacups and followed him.
JB led us once more to his private suite and into his office.
‘Just wanted to catch up,’ he said, gesturing to the armchairs opposite his desk. ‘Where do we stand?’
‘Frustratingly, in much the same place as when we last spoke,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘We ran with the idea that Bridgewater had stolen the jewellery as part of an insurance fraud, and then killed Everett when he found out and threatened to expose the scheme. But Bridgewater does appear to have an alibi for the murder.’
I nodded. ‘Lily also appears to have an alibi—’
‘Lily?’ interrupted JB. ‘What in the hell could Lily possibly have to do with it all? She wasn’t even here when the jewels went missing.’
‘But she was here for the murder,’ I said. ‘There are only twelve people on the island. If we assume it wasn’t any of the three of us, that still leaves nine suspects. We have to suspect them all and rule them out one by one.’
‘Sure. I guess. But nine? There are only seven of us by my reckoning.’
‘And your staff, dear,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘Do you know, I never even considered it might be them.’
‘We overlooked them at first, too, but we’ll be considering them as we go on.’
‘For now, though,’ I said, ‘we’re chasing the idea that Sidwell-Plant believes Everett was the man having an affair with Patience. We still can’t link that to the jewellery but they’re such wildly different crimes—’
‘If the missing jewellery even is a crime,’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘Well, yes. But they’re such wildly different . . . events that they might not be linked anyway.’
‘I’ve got to agree with you there,’ said JB. ‘So what about the others, before we go accusing Robert?’
‘Clarice’s account of her own movements holds up,’ I said. ‘And her questions about his death seemed genuine. We can’t rule out Patience yet, but the rumour of her affair with Everett makes it seem unlikely.’
JB shrugged. ‘Unless she’d tired of him and wanted to get rid of him.’
‘That’s possible, one supposes,’ said Lady Hardcastle, ‘but improbable, don’t you think?’
He shrugged again.
‘We’ve not spoken to Dotty Bridgewater,’ I said, ‘but I’d put her quite low on the list anyway. George Wilson has a solid alibi and has no real connection with Everett. And that leaves only the Crawfords. What do you know about them?’
‘Not a great deal. They were recommended to me by a village parson, of all people. We got to talking one day and I happened to mention that I was in need of staff for the fort – both now, when it’s just me, and in the future when we open as a hotel.
He said he knew just the couple. Parishioners of his, he said, down on their luck since they lost their pub.
A bit rough round the edges with no training as domestics, but honest enough—’
‘How honest is “honest enough”?’ asked Lady Hardcastle.
He laughed. ‘Well, now that’s the question, isn’t it?
Seems that like most publicans they had a bit of a reputation for not-quite-legal transactions – a little smuggled booze here, fencing a few stolen items there – but he reassured me they were good people.
I talked to them and they seemed like they’d be up to the job so I hired them. ’
‘Do you think they’re still smuggling?’ I asked.
‘The cognac RVSP thinks he saw? I wouldn’t put it past them.’
‘Doesn’t that bother you?’ asked Lady Hardcastle.
‘I guess it should, but I’d rather they were cheating the government out of some excise duty than stealing from me, so I’m happy to turn a blind eye.’
‘But wouldn’t you rather know?’
‘It’s better if I don’t. If they get caught and I know nothing about it, it’s nothing to do with me. They’re adults acting on their own initiative. They might happen to be breaking the law, but how am I supposed to know what they get up to? I can’t watch them all the time.’
‘It makes sense when you put it like that. But I’d want to know, all the same. If men from HM Customs and Excise were going to come knocking on my door, I’d like to be as well informed as possible.’