For they had explored every avenue and it seemed that murder was their only salvation.
Even so, the opportunity had come more through luck than judgement. Through Midge’s school Newsletter to Old Girls, in fact.
Midge had sent in a paragraph about the exciting new life she and Reggie had embarked on as proprietors of the lovely old Chortlesby Manor Hotel situated in the beautiful Wiltshire countryside but within comfortable distance of picturesque Salisbury, for those who preferred city life. There had been a discreet hint that favourable terms would be extended to Old Girls who might like to book weekend breaks or holidays.
It was a bow drawn at venture. The best Midge had hoped for had been a few weekend bookings from bargain-hunting and/or curious ex-schoolmates.
What she got was a trans-Atlantic telephone call from Victoria Ransome.
They had been good but not particularly close friends at school. After leaving, inevitably their paths drifted apart. The Newsletter had informed all Old Girls that Victoria had emigrated to the United States and, later, that she had opened a book shop, The Crimson Shroud, specializing in crime and mystery books, both new and old, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Now, Victoria was on the trans-Atlantic line with an offer they couldn’t refuse.
‘Murder at the Manor,’ Victoria said. ‘It’s a natural. I’ve been thinking of it for some time. A lot of the mystery bookshops over here are running their own tours and my customers have been telling me it’s high time I organized one for them. They’re afraid they’re missing out on all the fun. I think so, too. When I read about your hotel, it sounded ideal. It is small enough for an intimate gathering, isn’t it?’
‘We have three suites,’ Midge said proudly, ‘and twenty-three bedrooms, four of them occupied by resident guests. That’s not counting the family quarters and rooms for the living-in help.’
‘Perfect!’ Victoria enthused. ‘I knew it was right, as soon as I saw the item. Look, I’ll have to get back to you on this—I’m negotiating a tie-up with Roberta Rinehart and her Death On Wheels Bookshop in California—but I’ll provisionally charter Chortlesby Manor for three alternate weekends, say mid-January through end-February. And we’ll book two suites for the full run of six weeks for our resident authors—it will be cheaper than paying their air fares each weekend.’
‘Just a minute—’ Midge was delighted, but dizzy. ‘You’re losing me.’
‘Oh no, I’m not,’ Victoria assured her. ‘I’m going to hold on to you very tightly. You’re just what I’ve been looking for. You needn’t worry about a thing. I’ll hire the actors over there. We’ll need rooms for them, three or four—we might as well engage them for the six weeks, too. They’ll be able to go up to London midweek, if they like, but basically they can treat it as a repertory engagement.’
‘We ought to be able to manage that.’ Midge tried to say it calmly. Beside her, Reggie was nodding so vigorously he nearly dislodged the telephone from her hand. Two suites and three, possibly four, rooms let for six weeks was going to carry them through the depths of the Off-Season; not to mention having the Manor chartered for three weekends. She still wasn’t quite sure what Victoria was talking about but, never mind, the bookings proposed would set them well on the road to solvency.
‘Here’s your cold tea.’ Cook set a large jug of pale amber liquid down on the bar counter. ‘And I’ve put the bottle of blood behind the cooker to warm up. Her Ladyship complained it was too cold last time. Says she nearly caught a chill.’
‘That’s fine.’ Reggie poured the cold tea into the waiting crystal decanter and placed it on the shelf beneath the bar. It would be used for most of the drinks ordered by the actors and also for most of those offered to Colonel Heather and Miss Holloway by the other guests. Not because of any intention to defraud the Americans who vied to buy drinks for such splendidly English specimens, but because so much trans-Atlantic generosity threatened to put the Colonel and Miss Holloway under the table before the party even started.
‘There’s another jug of tea in the fridge,’ Cook said gloomily, having learned early on the first weekend that the drinks were going to disappear like rain into the parched earth after a drought.
They had all learned a lot that first weekend.
‘No, please—’ Miss Holloway had demurred piteously, as yet another large American gentleman tried to press yet another large drink upon her. ‘I couldn’t. I really couldn’t. I’ve had so much—too much—already. I simply couldn’t. Thank you just the same, but—no! Definitely not!’
‘Aw, come on, honey—’ He had beckoned Reggie forward imperiously. ‘Let the bartender get you just one more.’
‘No, please—’
‘I insist. It’s my turn to interrogate you, and you know what they say. In vino veritas. Unless—’ He leered down at her hopefully. ‘Unless you’re of the Adam MacAdam persuasion—’
‘No! No!’ Miss Holloway had whooped hysterically. ‘I’ll have a double gin! And tonic! Lots of tonic—’
‘That’s more like it.’ But there had been a trace of disappointment in the broad friendly face. The hour was late, the lights were low, and Grace Holloway had been blossoming all evening under the unaccustomed attention.
‘Here you are!’ Reggie had set the bubbling goblet down in front of her, with a wink of his offside eye.
‘Thank you—’ She picked it up and sipped reluctantly. Her relieved smile had brightened that corner of the bar as she realized that there was only tonic, ice and a slice of lemon in the glass. ‘That’s splendid. That’s just the job!’
‘Thank you, miss,’ Reggie had said noncommittally and retreated as her escort leaned forward and began shooting questions at her. When next he signalled and Reggie darted forward, Miss Holloway had been in command of the situation.
‘Same again,’ she had said firmly, handing him her glass. ‘Please.’
Later, Colonel Heather had somehow twigged the game and, upon being offered another drink, had said to Reggie with a meaning look, ‘I’ll have what the little lady is having.’
Reggie had been only too delighted to comply. It had set the pattern for the rest of that weekend and for future weekends. Later, Midge and Reggie had discussed it and, after the weekend guests had departed, had slipped discreet envelopes beneath Colonel Heather and Miss Holloway’s respective doors, containing a share of the bar proceeds on their drinks.
Miss Holloway had demurred at first, but the Colonel had been frankly amused. ‘We had a name for the girls out East who did this sort of thing,’ he said. ‘Little did I ever think I’d be doing it myself one day. But the world turns, the world turns …’
‘I can’t think it’s right,’ Miss Holloway protested feebly. ‘I feel sinful enough about fooling those poor generous people in the first place, but I simply couldn’t manage all those drinks—’
‘Nonsense, Grace, take the money and be thankful,’ the Colonel ordered. ‘You can’t deny it will come in useful.’
Miss Holloway did not attempt to deny it. When one’s pension wasn’t index-linked, every little bit helped. Blushing, she had stowed it away in her handbag almost guiltily, but over the next few weeks she had made a rapid adjustment to the new circumstances. Only yesterday, she had returned from town with a black velvet suit she had merrily announced was ‘the Wages of Sin’.
‘There.’ Reggie finished polishing the straight-sided cocktail glasses and lined them up behind the bar. It was fortunate that there had been an Art Deco Revival lately and the Thirties-style cocktail glasses were in open stock once more. It saved any worry about replacing broken or chipped glasses. ‘Ready and waiting. Let them come! Everything all right with your end of things?’
‘Tickety-boo, as the Colonel would say.’ Midge nodded with satisfaction. A lucky find at a local jumble sale just after New Year had provided a hoard of Thirties magazines and newspapers, which had sparked the idea for this final weekend. Now the magazines had been strategically distributed throughout the public rooms and the newspapers were piled in the kitchen waiting to be utilized to the best advantage. ‘They’re going to feel as though they’ve slipped through a time-warp.’
That’s what they’re paying for.’ Reggie untied his apron and tossed it over his arm. ‘Well, then, I think we’re as ready as we ever are.’
‘Just the same, I’m glad it’s the last one.’ Midge sighed faintly. ‘It’s an awful lot of work.’
‘That’s why they pay so well.’ Reggie tipped back the hinged panel of the bar counter and stepped out to join her. ‘Besides—’ he put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze—‘It hasn’t been so bad, has it?’
‘Sometimes it’s been fun,’ she admitted. ‘If only—’
‘I know. If they want to sign up the Manor for another series of weekends, we’ll make it a condition that the resident authors are orphans.’
‘And she’s playing up again,’ Midge was reminded. ‘She doesn’t want Bramwell to take part in any of the festivities this weekend. He mustn’t be disturbed. It seems he’s reached a crucial part of his book. Adam MacAdam and Suzie Chong are about to start interrogating the suspects.’
‘What?’ Reggie reacted with the same affronted horror Midge had felt. ‘Under our roof?’
‘Take it easy.’ Midge had recovered from her own initial shock and could laugh now. ‘They’re not real, you know.’
‘I know,’ Reggie admitted ruefully. ‘But the way all these people talk about them, one tends to forget that.’
‘I don’t,’ Midge said. ‘I often thank heaven for it. Imagine if those ghastly characters had been real and we were stuck with them here for six weeks.’
‘It’s nearly as bad just having their creators,’ Reggie said. ‘I’m not so sure—’ a mischievous spark glinted in his eyes—‘I’d object to Suzie Chong.’
‘No, but I would!’
Once the arrangements had been final, they had rushed to the library to read up on their about-to-be-resident authors and become familiar with their works. Both authors had been writing for well over a decade and maintained flourishing series characters with large followings.
Bramwell Barbour was the creator of that sprightly multi-ethnic husband-and-wife detecting team, Adam MacAdam, the American-Scottish mulatto and his beautiful French-Eurasian wife, Suzie Chong. In keeping with the spirit of certain lifestyles prevalent in this last quarter of the Twentieth Century, the MacAdams maintained a marriage so open a juggernaut lorry could have been driven through it without touching either partner.
Their most baffling and blood-curdling cases invariably devolved into sexual romps, due to Suzie’s theory (heartily endorsed by Adam) that veritas resided not in vino but in bed. When it came time for serious interrogation of the suspects, they divided the chore, Suzie sliding off to sleep with the main male suspects, while Adam handled (literally) the female suspects. (Thus far, Bramwell Barbour had not extended his excursions into the Permissive Society to the point of including any homosexual suspects.) Later, much later, they lay back together in their massive water bed, exhausted (although not by each other), and compared notes on the results of their questioning. Inevitably, they solved the case, although it was sometimes necessary to re-interrogate the suspects, sometimes jointly. (The enormous water bed gave a new twist to the gathering of the suspects for the final solution.) At some point on the last page, one of the cleared suspects, with a twinkle in his or her eye, invariably voiced the recurring tag line: ‘It was a pleasure being suspected by you.’
Reviewers had been ecstatic from the very first appearance of Adam MacAdam and Suzie Chong in Death On Wheels. One reviewer had gone so far as to proclaim them: ‘Mr and Mrs North, as they would have been if they were being written today.’ His newspaper had promptly been threatened with a lawsuit by the Lockridge Estate for Defamation of Characters. The apology and retraction had gone so far in the opposite direction that Bramwell Barbour had then sued for damages. Another grovelling apology and retraction had followed, plus a substantial out-of-Court settlement. The luckless reviewer, who had wisely hidden behind the pseudonym ‘The Sphinx’, had last been heard of writing a newsletter for an electricity company in Upstate New York.
Evelina T. Carterslee, on the other hand, had cleverly sidestepped the entire issue of sex by making her multi-ethnic detective, Luigi von Murphy, a failed Trappist monk. Although he had leapt over the wall in other respects (there was a strong hint that his health was responsible for his defection), he had continued to feel bound by his vow of celibacy, despite the best—or worst—hopes of susceptible females he encountered in the course of his investigations. Since his debut in The Crimson Shroud, he had gathered a large and devoted following, many of whom eagerly pounced on each new book hoping that this would be the one in which Luigi’s Latin blood would win out over his Nordic reserve and Irish scruples. They were still waiting—and hoping.
Remote and austere, Luigi von Murphy trod alone through the maze of suspicion and accusation, judging that he be judged not, but watching, noting, drawing conclusions. At moments, he would draw himself up sharply with a gasp that might have been of realization or of pain. (Evelina T. Carterslee had to reassure her readers periodically that Luigi’s health, although frail, was not perilous.)
At last, he would retire to the laboratory of his cottage on the Connecticut shore, don his old monk’s habit and concentrate his mind by distilling his own liqueurs. He could also brew up a mean kettle of jam. To the intense regret of his many fans, he also considered himself bound by his vows of silence when asked for the recipes.
Rarely, very rarely, one of the ladies in a case made such an impression on him that he could only exorcize it by creating a new scent in her honour. (To Evelina’s intense annoyance, no perfume manufacturer had yet taken the hint.)
By the time they had read the complete works of both authors, Ackroyd was the only inhabitant of Chortlesby Manor who was not in a state of ill-controlled panic at the prospect of their imminent arrival.
It had come as a great relief to discover that Bramwell Barbour was not a rampaging satyr and that Evelina T. Carterslee was not particularly religious.
Their relief was short-lived, however. The next afternoon, Bramwell borrowed the car and went to the station to meet the train from London. He returned with Amaryllis.
Into each life some rain must fall, but it was generally agreed that Bramwell carried his own monsoon around with him. The weather at Chortlesby Manor had been stormy ever since her arrival.
Perhaps the most irritating thing was that Amaryllis fawned on Bramwell’s fans and was generally regarded by them as charming. She was at her most obnoxious with members of the staff and, of course, the actors.
