Belchester Box Set Read online

  On the day in question, I had just finished reading the morning paper, when a familiar old voice called out my name, and who should enter my room, but my faithful friend from childhood, Lady Amanda Golightly.

  At this juncture, I had better introduce myself to the reader of my modest efforts at writing, and state that I am Hugo Cholmondley-Crichton-Crump, and have been acquainted with the Golightly family, almost since my birth. A long gap in this friendship had occurred, due to circumstances beyond the control of either party, and quite unexpectedly, I found myself re-united with the family’s youngest member, Lady Amanda, still delightful, despite the passage of time.

  I greeted her warmly, and rose from my prone position to shake her by the hand. Our previous relations had been warm, but formal.

  Before I could utter a word of welcome, however, she raised a finger to her Cupid’s bow lips, and bade me be silent, before informing me that, in a room, down the corridor, a ghastly crime had been committed. A man had been cruelly murdered.

  At this point, he put down his pen, searched without success for blotting paper, and blew softly across his writing to dry the ink, before he concealed it somewhere where Lady Amanda would never find it. He’d always fancied himself a writer, but had never had the time to put pen to paper. Maybe he’d give it a try, now that he was retired, and had sufficient leisure time to do as he pleased, but he wouldn’t say anything to Manda. She’d rag him terribly, and he’d die of embarrassment.

  Meanwhile, Lady Amanda had a thoughtful journey to Edwards’s Nursing Services, going over her cover story, so that she would be word-perfect when she got there. She had decided that, if asked what relation to her Hugo was, she’d claim him to be an older cousin, fallen upon hard times, and unable to live independently any more. She only hoped that nerves would not get the better of her and make her mind go blank – a not very ‘Lady Amanda-ish’ thing to happen, but then this was a first, for her.

  The offices of Edwards’s Nursing Services were in Snuff Street, very handy for the Birdlings Serenade prison camp, Dr Andrew’s surgery and the hospital. The building that housed them was a Georgian one, its front still in original state, only a discreet brass plaque by the door identifying this as a commercial property, and not a private dwelling house.

  Mounting the three steps that led up to the front door, she stepped inside to find herself confronted with a reception area with huge desk, at which sat a very efficient-looking and forbidding secretary-cum-receptionist.

  ‘May I help you, madam?’ this individual enquired, giving Lady Amanda a sharp look under her severely plucked brows.

  ‘I have an appointment to see Mr Edwards,’ Lady Amanda replied, with a confidence she no longer felt. ‘It’s about my cousin.’ She knew she was rattled, because this was unnecessary information, and proved that she was heading towards a tendency to babble. It was an outright lie, Hugo being a relative, she decided. Just as she abhorred bad manners, thus did she feel about telling lies, too.

  ‘Name, please?’ enquired the efficient female, still giving her the once-over.

  ‘Lady Amanda Golightly,’ came the reply, and suddenly the other woman thawed, and positively purred a welcome.

  So, her name still carried some weight around here. Her title was doing its job again, as it had on numerous other occasions. Lady Amanda’s nerves fled whence they had come, and she began to feel her normal confident self again.

  ‘I’ll just buzz through to Mr Edwards and let him know you’ve arrived,’ the receptionist informed her, pressing a button on an intercom service, and announcing to Mr Edwards the arrival of his client.

  A voice squawked, ‘Send her in, please,’ its normal tones distorted by the intercom to an electronic, machine-like voice.

  Malcolm Edwards’s office proved to be large and luxuriously appointed. There must be a good whack to be made out of providing nursing care, Lady Amanda thought, as she lowered herself into a large comfortable armchair, across the desk from the proprietor.

  ‘Good morning, your ladyship. How may I be of service to you?’ asked Mr Edwards, and Lady Amanda immediately identified a slimy tone in his voice, indicating that he was well-versed in creeping and crawling around prospective clients, to hook them into his bank balance.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Edwards,’ she replied, then waited for him to make the next move.

  ‘Do call me Malcolm,’ he requested, and then continued, ‘I believe you have a poorly relative who may be in need of the services which my humble agency is more than happy to provide,’ he stated.

  Yes, he was definitely an experienced crawler and shoe-licker. No need to get any coarser about the matter! ‘It’s my cousin,’ she stated. ‘He’s got to an age where he’s not very mobile and, although I have taken him under my wing and into my own home, I find that I am rather averse to carrying out some of the tasks with which he needs help.’

  ‘Which are?’ Golly, he was going straight for the jugular. She’d have to keep her wits about her, if she didn’t want to end up employing a nurse, and not getting the opportunity to ask about Derek Foster.

  ‘Before we go into the details, I want to state categorically that my cousin, the help needed being of the intimate sort, will only consider the services of a male nurse.’

  ‘That’s perfectly understandable, my lady.’ He was in a bit of a bate himself, considering the way he attempted various ways of addressing her, evidently hoping to be directed to the correct form.

  ‘A friend of mine has recommended a young man in your employ, whom they described as efficient, courteous and well-mannered, and I wondered if I might be able to avail myself of his services.’ This was it! Make or break! She’d only get one shot at it here.

  ‘And who might that be?’ asked Mr Edwards, leaning confidentially over the desk towards her.

  ‘I believe his name is Derek Foster,’ she declared, her cards now on the table.

  Mr Edwards leaned back in his chair, and adopted a rueful expression. ‘I’m so sorry, Lady Golightly, but Mr Foster has just left our employ, and I am, therefore, no longer able to offer his services to you.’

  Oh, goat berries! Piggy poo! thought Lady Amanda, who had just had her guns well and truly spiked. What now? she wondered. She’d have to try thinking outside the box. ‘I really feel very strongly, after such a glowing recommendation from my friend, that I’d like to contact Mr Foster at home, to see if he is willing to consider coming to care for my cousin. Or perhaps he’s gone to another agency?’ Let’s see how he liked them potatoes.

  He didn’t! ‘I have been led to believe that Mr Foster has come into a large sum of money, and has taken advantage of this, by retiring from work altogether, and I’m afraid I cannot give out the private address of any employee, whether present or past. I do apologise for not being able to help you, but my hands are tied by the Data Protection Act. However, given the large number of nurses on my register, I’m sure we can satisfy your needs, or those of your cousin, with another male nurse. Just tell me what sort of care he is likely to need, and I’m sure I can recommend another of our staff.’

  Cow poo! He had her there, and he knew it. She could tell by his face that he’d seen through her ruse, and was waiting, a slightly amused expression on his face, to see what she would do next.

  ‘In the event of Mr Foster not being available, I feel I shall have to discuss the situation with my cousin, in light of this new information. I shall not, therefore, be able to make any decision on his behalf today. I shall go home and discuss the matter with him, and make a further appointment to speak to you, when he has made up his mind.’

  She left the building with a sigh of exasperation. What a waste of time that had turned out to be. Not only would he not tell her where the rascal lived, but it would seem that he didn’t work for anyone now. How had he come into money, though? she wondered. He had been left nothing in Reggie’s will.

  Surely he wasn’t going around bumping off old people willy-nilly, after having persuaded them to cha
nge their wills in his favour. If this was so, then it hadn’t happened with Reggie. Maybe Reggie had had lucid moments when he realised Foster was trying to trick him into leaving him all his money, and Foster had had to get rid of him, before he blew the gaff on his little scam – or huge scam, for all she knew. What next? she considered. She’d have to have a little think in the Rolls, on the way home.

  When she returned to Belchester Towers, Hugo was still busy scribbling away in the library, enjoying himself tremendously. ‘What are you up to, old bean?’ she asked him, throwing her considerable bulk into a sturdy (thank goodness!) sofa.

  ‘Writing up our adventure so far,’ replied Hugo, looking up from his labours.

  ‘I was only joking when I suggested that, you know,’ she explained.

  ‘Maybe you were, but it’s jolly good fun. Ought to make a cracking yarn, once it’s finished, provided, that is, that it ever does get finished, and it has a happy ending. I’ve really enjoyed myself while you’ve been gone. What about you? Any joy?’

  ‘None whatsoever,’ she told him. ‘It would appear that our Mr Foster has had a large inheritance, and is no longer in paid employment. That Edwards chappie sussed out that I was fishing, and he played me like an expert. Zilch! Nowt! Nada! Although I did think on the way home, that we might just check Directory Enquiries. He must have a telephone and we’ve got his name. There is just a chance that they’ll be able to find his telephone number for us if he lives in this area.’

  ‘Good idea, old stick! Shall we do it now?’ Hugo was getting just a little bit excited, at the thought of actually finding out where their prey’s den was, so that they could beard him in it.

  Lady Amanda dialled the required digits, gave the voice on the other end of the phone Derek Foster’s name, then said that she didn’t know his address, but it was definitely in the same telephone area as was her number.

  After a short pause, there was a distant squawk from the other end of the line, and Lady Amanda’s face fell so fast, it almost made a whooshing noise as it hurtled downwards. ‘Thank you so much,’ she intoned, in a disgusted voice, and ended the call.

  ‘Any luck?’ asked Hugo, already knowing the answer, before she told him.

  ‘Lucked out again! He’s ex-directory,’ she said, with a sigh.

  ‘Well, then we did learn something,’ Hugo pointed out.

  ‘What?’ she asked. ‘How? We know nothing more than we did before.’

  ‘Yes we do, Manda. If she was looking for him, and discovered he was ex-directory, then that means he definitely lives in this area, you silly sausage.’

  ‘So it does, Hugo! So it does! How blind I am. Why didn’t I see that? But then, where does that leave us? We know he lives in this area, we know he’s on the telephone, but we don’t know whereabouts in this area that telephone is, and without an address, we’re still stuffed, whichever way you look at it.’ During this speech, her voice had gone from triumphant back to crestfallen again.

  ‘We could always have another shot at young Mr Williams,’ suggested Hugo mildly, but without hope in his voice.

  ‘You’re right again!’ Lady Amanda was back in best crowing form. ‘He’s a very old man, and quite liable to let something slip, if he’s approached in the right way. I’ll ring up this afternoon, and make an appointment to see him. I can use the same excuse of wanting to try to persuade him out of early retirement for just one last case.’

  ‘And then we could be back in business again, eh, Sherlock?’ Hugo was also back on top form, at the thought that they might be able to move their investigations on again. ‘Go, Manda, go! We’ll nail the blackguard yet!’

  After luncheon, Lady Amanda duly put a call through to Freeman, Hardy, Williams and Williams, Hugo sitting with bated breath, waiting to see if young Mr Williams would be forthcoming with the information they needed. Something, however, was not as expected, as Lady Amanda suddenly crashed down the phone and turned to look at him with an expression of absolute astonishment and horror,

  ‘What is it, Manda? Have they been terribly rude to you?’ he asked with concern.

  ‘It’s young Mr Williams!’ she declared, then grabbed her handbag and made for the main hall.

  ‘What about young Mr Williams?’ called Hugo, shuffling after her, keen to be part of the action, whatever that action was.

  Lady Amanda suddenly stopped, and informed him, ‘He’s dead, Hugo, and I’m going down to their offices this very minute to find out what happened. I smell a rat here, and I won’t rest till I’ve found out where it nests!’

  ‘Can I come?’ pleaded Hugo, like a small child wanting to accompany a parent shopping.

  ‘If you can get yourself ready and into the Rolls in two minutes flat, you’re more than welcome. If my persuasive powers for information gathering prove insufficient, yours might be just the job.’

  The receptionist at the legal firm’s offices was crying when they arrived, but as discreetly as possible, keeping her handkerchief balled into one of her fists, when not mopping hurriedly at her eyes. The blinds on the windows facing the street were all at half-mast, as if in respect for the departed, a fitting gesture for such a long-established firm.

  Hugo at once proved his worth, by approaching the receptionist, leaning down as far as he was able, mobility permitting, and put a kindly, avuncular arm around her shoulder. ‘There, there, my dear,’ he crooned in quiet, soothing tones. ‘What ever happened to the poor gentleman?’

  Having bottled up the information all morning, the secretary grabbed the opportunity to spill the beans, as a drowning man does a straw, and the dam burst open. ‘They said he must have gone down to the orchard at the bottom of his garden yesterday – afternoon or evening; they’re not sure which yet. He liked to sit up there in the peace and quiet, just listening to the birds, and having a drink.

  ‘We know he sometimes took down a small jug of Pimm’s and lemonade, so that he didn’t have to go back to the house to refresh his glass. He really loved it down there: said it made him forget about being old, and just put him in tune with nature. It made him happy, completely cut off from work, and not so much concerned about his own aches and pains.

  ‘Anyway, his cleaner came in this morning, as usual, and found his bed not slept in. The first thing she did was to search the house, to see if he’d had a fall, and couldn’t get up again, but there was absolutely no sign of him, so she phoned here, to see if he’d come into work, maybe having spent the night with a colleague, but, of course, he hadn’t.

  ‘Mr Freeman suggested she go out to check the garden, thinking maybe he’d collapsed or fallen out there, and might be stranded with a broken ankle or something similar, so she hung up and went to have a thorough search. She called back again after about twenty minutes, to tell us that she had found him in his usual chair in the orchard, a jug beside his chair, a glass fallen from his fingers, and that he was stone dead!’

  ‘My dear girl,’ comforted Hugo. ‘What a terrible shock for you. No wonder you’re upset.’ As he spoke, he was aware of Lady Amanda making hideous faces at him from behind the receptionist’s desk, mouthing a word. And the word was simply: ‘how’?

  ‘Has anyone any idea why he passed away so suddenly? Or had he been ill for some time, and maybe it wasn’t so unexpected?’ he asked, worming his way effortlessly into her confidence.

  ‘Young Mr Williams was never ill,’ she informed them. ‘He was as fit as a flea, and we quite confidently expected him to live long enough to receive a letter from Her Majesty. That was why it was so shocking.’ Her valiant effort to unburden herself of this information suddenly faltered, and she raised her handkerchief to her eyes again, as a flood of fresh tears overwhelmed her.

  ‘And there’s going to be an inquest and everything, because he hadn’t seen a doctor for so long. Oh, the shame, and they won’t even let the poor old man rest in peace. They’re going to cut him about, and do all sorts of undignified things to him which he would have hated, were he alive. It seems so obscen
e, to subject him to that, even after death.’

  ‘There, there, don’t fret. Young Mr Williams is at peace now, and nobody can insult his dignity. He’s beyond earthly interference, and with his God.’ Hugo did feel a bit two-faced about this, as he had ceased to believe in the Superior Being many years ago, but it seemed to have had a soothing effect on the woman.

  ‘You’re right, of course!’ she said, blowing her noise loudly, in a most unladylike and indiscreet way. ‘I know what you say is true. It’s just the shock, you know? It’s left me feeling thoroughly rattled, and now I’m neglecting my duties to the firm. What can I help you with? You must have come in here for a reason.’

  It was Lady Amanda’s turn, now, to be inventive. Smiling as sweetly as she could manage, she plonked herself in front of the desk, and said, ‘It’s nothing that can’t wait, my dear girl. We’ll take ourselves off, in the light of the loss you have all suffered, and come back another time, when circumstances aren’t quite so trying. Don’t give it another thought.’

  Once more outside and out of hearing, she took Hugo’s arm, and declared, ‘Well, I’ll be! What a couple of Am-Dram sleuths we’re turning out to be, eh? Perfect team, and all that! You did a marvellous job of getting her to spill the beans. I’d just have sailed in there and demanded to know what was going on, and got the old bum’s rush, but you charmed it out of her, and at the same time, made her feel better.’

  ‘You had your part to play, too,’ Hugo replied. ‘If it hadn’t been for your get-up-and-go, we’d never have gone there in the first place. You didn’t waste a minute, after you were told on the phone that there had been a death. You just got on with tracking the matter down to its hub.’

  ‘Thank you, so much, Hugo. Ah, there’s Beauchamp, with the Rolls. He has been lucky with the parking today.’