Murder at the Manse (The Falconer Files Book 5) Page 5

  ‘I looked it up, guv, on the internet, in the office, before I went down the cellar. That Mrs Boyd-Carpenter’s in there – the office, I mean, not the cellar – and she’s in a helluva funk with those machines of yours. But anyway, that particular cocktail’s right out of our time scale, sir. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, like.’

  ‘As I said before, Steve, if it’s free, guests will forgive anything, especially something as heavenly as a Bellini. Do you know how much those things cost in Harry’s Bar?’

  ‘No, guv.’

  ‘Well, I do, and I’m sure some of them will too. Take my word for it, there will be no complaints about complimentary Bellinis. And don’t call me ‘guv’. If you must use anything other than my name or sir, would you please address me as ‘squire’.’

  ‘OK, squire, guv.’

  Jefferson sighed as the barman collected his cache of bottles and strolled off to the bar, whistling.

  And there would be no complaints about the way they were mixed either, he thought, as the whistling disappeared in the distance, or any other cocktail that was ordered. Steve had been an excellent barman in some of the best hotels, and was a demon mixer of cocktails. He knew, off by heart, the recipe for just about any drink that could be ordered, and, in case he came across one he didn’t recognise, had a reference book to provide him with the necessary details.

  So good had he been in the past, that when he hadn’t known the ingredients, various managements had allowed him to serve the first drink free – an incentive for him to learn a few more recipes, and for the customers to find the most obscure cocktails that they could.

  It was just a shame that he had to part from so many bars at such short notice. Grammaticus was sure, however, that that would not be the case with The Manse. Steve would settle here, and stay for many years – if he knew what was good for him.

  IV

  Jefferson mounted the stairs two at a time, almost twinkling on his size seven feet, at last having found a moment in which to try on his own special costume for tomorrow night. On the way he stopped by the twins’ rooms, hardly at all out of breath at the two flight climb. Sounds of great merriment were coming from Jerome’s room, so he assumed that they had tried on their finery, and were now admiring themselves and each other. It was weird the way they used each other as a mirror.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ was his initial reaction, for they had also donned their hats and masks, and presented a very macabre sight. ‘You two look absolutely terrifying!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Terrifying handsome, I’d say,’ retorted Jerome.

  ‘Devastatingly handsome, in my opinion,’ Jocelyn stated. ‘Ain’t we just a pretty pair?’

  ‘Grotesque!’ was Grammaticus’ final word on their appearance, as he closed the door and headed for his own room, rubbing his hands with glee. This was just going to be such a hoot!

  Chapter Four

  Friday 18th June – late afternoon

  I

  Jefferson, suitably attired in his summer ‘squire’s uniform’, stood behind the reception counter and examined the register. The rooms, as well as having numbers, were colour-coded in their decoration and accoutrements.

  The hotel boasted ten exquisitely appointed bedrooms, and Jefferson hoped that his guests would avail themselves generously from his exclusive cellar, contents provided courtesy of an old university friend, now a fine wine dealer, and at bargain basement prices. He was also aware that a few too many ‘nippy-sweeties’ could cloud the mind with regard to one’s actual room number. Each room, therefore, had its own colour, and they ran thus: room one – pink walls, curtains and bed throw; room two – yellow; room three – blue; room four – green; room five – dove grey; room six – white/gold; room seven – mauve; room eight – peach; room nine – beige and tones of light brown; room ten – cream.

  Guests turning up at the reception counter to be reminded of their room number had only to state the colour of their room to identify it, and a list of guests and their rooms would be quickly accessible under the counter should anyone not familiar with the computer system be on cover duty at the time of the enquiry. To make doubly sure of a quick and efficient issue of keys and/or reminders, little blocks of colour were affixed in the top right hand corner of the wall-mounted box that held the hooks for the keys, with the numbers in gold upon the glass cover of the box, locked, of course, for maximum security.

  For this first weekend of business only six rooms had been let out, leaving the four smaller rooms free for ‘experimental’ occupation. The twins were to take the cream and light brown rooms, numbered nine and ten, and Jefferson Grammaticus and Beatrix Ironmonger were to take the green and the dove grey rooms, respectively. Between them they represented the most OCD tidy of guests – (Beatrix Ironmonger) – through ‘normal’ occupation – the twins – to the untidiest occupant on the premises – Jefferson Grammaticus.

  It had seemed quite a good test of how long it would take to service the rooms on a daily basis with guests of different habits, test the rooms for noise levels, comfort and genuine all-round pleasantness, and really get to know their hotel. The four staff involved in this experiment would all carry pagers, so that they could still be available if needed, twenty-four hours a day, a practice that would be extended to other staff if it proved useful. Apart from that, all rooms were, of course, connected to the internal telephone system within the hotel for room service or assistance when necessary.

  These rooms had already been taken over by their prospective staff occupants, to spare at a time when the guests of the paying sort arrived, as had the yellow room, to be occupied by Lloyd and Persephone Boyd-Carpenter, the latter being housed in a guest room because of her status as author of the murder mystery script. Jefferson rather hoped that when he had half a dozen or so such scripts in the bag, he could stop according this non-profit making largesse, and get down to the real business of letting the whole bang-shoot to a bunch of ‘wallets’.

  Jefferson was just beginning to get jumpy at the non-arrival of guests – he had secretly expected his privileged little band to be queued up outside waiting for the minute they could commence their stay – when the first couple breezed in at thirteen minutes past four, and they didn’t so much breeze as blow in, like the precursor of a storm.

  ‘I told you that short-cut was a bad idea. They always are, especially if they’re yours. Why you can’t just stick to the main roads and arrive in decent time, I shall never know.’

  ‘The map was wrong! It should have worked perfectly. I knew exactly where I was going, and we ought to have been here dead on time,’ the man grumbled, glaring at the woman at his side. He liked to get value for money, and was not impressed that they had arrived thirteen minutes after first check-in time. That was thirteen minutes of the hotel’s facilities that he had failed to enjoy.

  ‘You took the completely wrong road out of Castle Farthing. I told you so, but would you listen? – no.’

  ‘It was that diamond-shaped Green that fooled me. You can hardly blame me for that. It was very confusing,’ the man parried, his whole compact frame quivering with anger.

  ‘Of course I can blame you. I had the map, and you simply wouldn’t listen to me, which meant that you got yourself right over to the west to that tiny little place called Fallow Fold. Enoch, at Castle Farthing we were only about seven miles away. By the time we got to Fallow Fold, you’d more than doubled that. Why do you always think you’re right?’

  ‘Hindsight is so easy, isn’t it?’

  ‘It has nothing to do with hindsight. I had the map in front of me. You must’ve gone round that green three times before you took the wrong turning. Why you won’t invest in a sat nav I have no idea. You’re just so mean over the little things I sometimes don’t believe you can be for real.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Aylsa. This place is spanking brand new. It wouldn’t even have been on a sat nav.’

  ‘But Lower Shepford would have been, and, from the direction we came from, the brochu
re said to turn left down the first turning after the one for there, which was an un-made-up road, and it would take us right to the doors, but no, you have to go your own way, as per bloody usual.’ At this point the woman shook her head of strangely-coloured beige curls, and stamped a tiny foot in frustration.

  Jefferson, having spent the last minute or two totally mesmerised by their already in-progress mobile disagreement, finally cleared his throat loudly and unveiled his ‘mine host’ smile. If they were all like this, it promised to be a very unexpected weekend. He had hoped to attract a rather more select class of guest.

  Maybe he should have listened to Jerome and Jocelyn, who had warned him about the very low pricing for the opening. Jefferson had said it would be an excellent way to get a real snagging list, and no one could complain; the twins said that anyone who had any experience would know what he was up to, and would avoid it like the plague. He’d just get the riff-raff who thought they were pushing out the boat financially, and would be as picky as hell.

  If these two were anything to go by, it looked like he owed the twins a drink.

  ‘Sir, Madam, may I assist you to check-in? Your luggage can be taken to your room while we complete the formalities, and I acquaint you with the timetable for this very special weekend. May I take your names, please?’

  ‘Mr and Mrs Enoch Arkwright,’ declared the man in a thick Yorkshire accent.

  Jefferson scrutinised them as he spoke. Both were short; probably in their early sixties, but spry – they obviously kept fit by sparring – and both wore that slightly discontented look that people who feel they are always being taken for a ride financially, habitually wear. Value-for-money wasn’t in their vocabulary, because they had spent most of their lives diddling others, and didn’t see how anyone else could act any differently.

  Sir had on a light grey safari suit – how long had that been in the wardrobe? – obviously a man who did not wear formal clothes for his everyday occupation. Madam wore a flowing silk dress printed with large pastel-coloured, slightly out-of-focus flowers and dainty gold sandals. He mentally dubbed them ‘Mr and Mrs Chalk-and-Cheese’, and rang the bell for one of the footmen to collect their cases.

  As Jerome approached to heft their bags in his large, strong hands, their mouths fell open in unison, as they surveyed his uniform. If the outfit had this effect on unruly guests, Jefferson had already judged them worth every penny he had paid for them.

  ‘I’ve put you in the pink room; that’s room number one.’ That should please the old curmudgeon. ‘The rooms are colour-coded for your convenience …’

  But he never had the opportunity to finish the sentence, for Mr Arkwright cut right across him with his own candid opinion. ‘Pink’s for girls, women, and pansies. Me, I’m colour-blind, so I couldn’t give a monkey’s if it’s done in tartan, so long as the bed’s comfortable and the towels are fluffy.’

  ‘Typical! You would be bloody colour-blind, wouldn’t you? And you probably chose to be at birth, just so you could be extra irritating and ungrateful throughout your whole life,’ thought Grammaticus, and summoning up his professional smile again, this time with a little more difficulty, he handed them a glossy brochure outlining the timetable for the weekend’s activities and the amenities available, and got on with getting them to sign in, with a slightly sinking heart. He then rang the bell, and the other twin trotted into view to show them to their quarters, as the first one reappeared on his way down the grand staircase.

  ‘Did you realise you had coloureds working here?’ Enoch Arkwright hissed into Jefferson’s right ear in a hoarse whisper. So he could distinguish that, could he? Bloody little tit! And it was obviously not the hideously expensive footman’s uniform that had caught his eye, but the fact that the footman was dark-skinned.

  Glancing at the register to diffuse the anger that had begun to course through his body, Jefferson spoke in a voice that really projected – the voice he used to use in court – and addressed the unpleasant little fellow. ‘Mr and Mrs Arkwright, may I introduce you to my two business partners in this new leisure venture – Messrs Jerome and Jocelyn Freeman, my fellow investors.’ That cut his cackle, and caused Mrs Chalk-and-Cheese to hide her mouth with the back of her right hand, as she gave an amused little smile at her husband’s obvious discomfiture. Indeed, as the Freemans came closer, Enoch Arkwright’s brows knitted furiously, and he stared open-mouthed at them, as if he’d seen twin ghosts.

  Checking the register – old-fashioned and nosy, of course – he noticed that the man was a scrap-metal dealer. Well, that explained a lot!

  Jefferson also indulged in a little smile, as he watched the three of them begin to mount the stairs, turning left as the staircase bifurcated, but was interrupted by the sound of the arrival of more guests.

  II

  A man with rather long salt-and-pepper hair in a suit not disimilar to Jefferson’s breezed through the doors with a woman, rather younger than him, ( and playing on the age difference with her hair, make-up, and clothes), on his arm. The man wore a bow tie, as if this were habitual, and his partner had certainly pulled her costume from the dressing-up pile.

  Although she was a large woman, she wore a rather short, hot-pink skirt, the hem of which stopped well above the knee, but also dipped unexpectedly at the right front and left back corner, as it were. Her top half, generously upholstered, was squeezed into a blouse in bright shades of crimson and mauve, with batwing sleeves, and she had the best part – God knows where the worst part was! – of a hairpiece, not quite perfectly matched to her not quite natural colour, on top of her head.

  Her shoes had heels so high that Jefferson rather doubted that her toes reached the ground at the front, and so many buckles and straps that they looked more like instruments of torture than shoes. She tottered along beside her partner in a Chinese foot-bound shuffle, a large and obviously designer handbag dangling from her free hand, her face a mask of thick make-up, gone slightly blurred in the June heat.

  Both smiled as they approached the check-in counter, and Jefferson’s smile was even larger than the beam he had intended, due to the fact that he would really like to turn his back for a moment or two just to have a giggle. He’d have to get those prices up tout de suite on Monday. And how dare the man dress like him! It had taken him ages to come up with the garments that would project his image, and here this chap was, just swanning in, in a pastiche of one of the hotel’s owners. Damned cheek! Well, the fancy dress would soon settle his hash!

  ‘Frederick and Edwina Newberry, sir,’ announced the man in a hearty voice, extending his right hand to Jefferson across the counter. ‘Pleased to meet you. I assume you are Mr Grammaticus? We’d like to book in, if it’s not too much trouble, old bean.’

  ‘How dare he!’ thought Jefferson. ‘He’s trying to ‘out-squire’ me. Well, I’m not having that!’ Summoning up his plummiest courtroom voice – the voice he used when he was trying to convince the jury that the man that stood before them, with the bloody axe in his hands, was actually completely innocent – he asked if they would be kind enough to sign in, while he summoned a footman to escort them to their room.

  ‘I’ve put you in the blue room,’ Jefferson projected, beginning to sound a little like a member of the outer circle of the royal family. ‘It is situated in the back left corner of the hotel with sweeping views down across the lawns to the river. I hope you find it convivial and welcoming.’ He’d show him who was the squire around here, Jefferson internalised, taking a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and waving it towards Jocelyn and Jerome, who were now stationed, one each side of the staircase, like alternatives to decorative suits of armour.

  ‘Oh, jolly good show, old chap. Quite Georgian, if yer know what I mean,’ he commented, thus further annoying Jefferson, he was stealing all of his own lines, and seemed to be starting at the very beginning of what he had scripted, to reinforce his character.

  Damn and blast the man! He’d have to find time to confer with that old Boyd
-Carpenter bird, see if she could furnish him with a few more phrases to bulk out his fictional persona. He didn’t want the weekend to deteriorate into a competition to see who could sound the more proprietorial and genial.

  ‘If you would just fill in your details in the register, the footmen will take your bags and show you to your room,’ he requested, handing the blasted imposter a Mont Blanc pen from his own pocket; petty, he realised as he did it, but it soothed his feeling slightly to see the man appraise it with a discerning eye.

  ‘Jolly nice pen,’ commented Newberry. ‘I should keep a keen eye on that when there are a lot of guests around. So many imposters and bounders around these days, yer can’t trust anyone unless you’ve known them years, and sometimes, not even then.’

  As Jocelyn led the way, Jerome following behind carrying their bags, Jefferson waved his silk handkerchief across his brow. He’d have to be on his toes with this chap around. He was certainly not top drawer, but it looked like he was a good blagger, and he didn’t want to be left looking like a comedy squire in his own establishment. He had to hand it to him, the man was good. It was his vowels that let him down – just a touch of the northern about them; a certain flattening that occurred when his attention was distracted by the unexpected.

  As the four figures took the left bifurcation of the stairs, he noticed Newberry lift a hand to his head, and give something a minute wiggle. Good God! Praise to the heavens! The man wore a ‘rug’. He should have noticed when he signed in, but was too disturbed to exercise his usual almost scientific powers of observation. Vanity was the man’s Achilles heel, and Jefferson would be sure to give it a prod or two during the course of the man’s stay here.

  He was saved as squire-in-chief. All he had to do was use the word syrup, or point out a particularly nice rug, withan appropriately accompanying knowing look, and he’d won the game hands down. Glory be! Grammaticus felt a wave of relief wash over him, as he filed away this devastating piece of information – devastating for Squire Newberry, that is.