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  ‘Well, I have a little confession to make,’ she told him.

  ‘What have you done now?’ he asked, in a resigned tone of voice.

  ‘Oh, nothing much. I’d already worked out that you’d moved on. I lifted your house keys from your jacket pocket one day when you were having a little nap. It’s very naughty of you to have an address label on them. It’s just asking to be robbed.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ replied Hugo. ‘It was so that they could be returned to me, if I ever lost them.’

  ‘You were more likely to be cleaned out, or murdered in your bed – or both!’ chided Lady Amanda, amazed at the naïveté of her old friend.

  ‘Holy Moses! So you could’ve saved my life!’

  ‘Better than that,’ she said. ‘I phoned round a selection of local estate agents, and got Beauchamp to sort out access – I’m afraid he had to have a few copies of the keys made, but we’ll get them all back before anyone moves in. Anyway, they’ve all valued it for rental, and I’ve chosen the one who has come up with the most believable figure, and the lowest rate of commission, and I’ve asked him to advertise it.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘But me no buts, Hugo. You don’t have to do anything. If there’s anything you’d like to remove from the property, Beauchamp and I can sort that out. The same with any special pieces of furniture that you’d like put into storage – loads of room at Belchester Towers – and the agent does all the financial checks, collects the rent, and just pays it into your account. All you have to do is sit back and accrue the profits.’

  ‘But what if something needs doing?’

  ‘The agent organises all that, and takes it out of the rent money,’ she explained, feeling that she had adequately clarified the process to him by now.

  ‘I say! You have been a busy little bee, haven’t you, Manda?’

  ‘I do my level best. I used to hang around the estate manager’s office, when we had more land, and tenants, so I had a fair idea of how things worked.’

  There were only a handful of people in the church for the funeral. Young Mr Williams was there as Reggie’s legal representative here on this earth, there were a couple of people from the nursing home that Lady Amanda recognised, and a couple who introduced themselves as Reggie’s former neighbours. The only other person in attendance was a man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, who sat in the front row, his face shaded by the hat he had not had the respect and courtesy to remove, inside the church.

  It was black! The hat was black! ‘There you go, Hugo,’ whispered Lady Amanda. ‘It’s always the man in the black hat who’s the baddie.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Manda. That’s only in old films and westerns. He’s at a funeral. Of course his hat is black.’

  ‘I bet that’s the fake nephew!’ she hissed back, right into his ear, which tickled a lot, and he had to push her away, while he gave it a good old rub with the palm of his hand, to stop it itching so.

  ‘Shut up and behave yourself!’ was his last word on the matter, and they both bent their heads to examine the flimsy piece of paper which contained the order of service. Hugo had barely had sufficient time to take in the details, when she hissed at him again. ‘That Moody man should be here, not us!’

  ‘Who the hell is “that moody man”?’ asked Hugo, a little tetchily.

  ‘That policeman – Inspector Moody. If only he’d listened to me instead of humiliating me, he could be sitting in the church now, about to pounce on the villain.’

  In uncharacteristically demotic mode, Hugo hissed back, ‘Can it, sweetheart! It’s all about to go off!’

  The service itself was short and swift, and started with a couple of verses of ‘For Those in Peril on the Sea’. ‘Reggie wasn’t a sailor, was he?’ whispered Hugo, behind his hand.

  ‘Not to my knowledge. I know he was passed unfit for service during the war, and I never heard of him having a boat of any kind.’

  The eulogy was short and evidently delivered by a clergyman who had never met the dear departed. Both Lady Amanda and Hugo were surprised that the man they had dubbed the faux nephew hadn’t risen to speak, but, on more considered thought, realised he probably knew very little about Reggie, being a fake.

  Two verses of ‘The Day Thou Gavest Lord is Over’ finished the swiftest funeral that either one of them had ever been to, and the undertaker’s men came in, to ferry the coffin to the graveside.

  They made a very sad and sorry bunch – the few of them that there were – standing in the pouring rain and getting soaked to the skin – as the coffin was lowered into the ground, and the clergyman began to say the words of the service of committal. When the time came for someone to throw in a handful of earth, they all looked round at each other, Lady Amanda finally removing her gloves and picking up a handful of almost liquid mud, before pouring it into the grave, to dribble across the coffin, like the trail of a brown snail.

  The man in the black hat blushed with embarrassment, and reluctantly copied her action, as did Hugo, as a mark of respect for the departed. The vicar made the sign of the cross, and they all looked around to see who would be the first to leave.

  As it happened, it was the man who had sat at the front and claimed to be related to Reggie who scuttled off first, but that was no problem, as there was to be a wake – a very small one, by the looks of it – afterwards, and all Lady Amanda and Hugo had to do was to get Beauchamp to follow the car of Reggie’s ex-neighbours, to their unknown destination.

  ‘Actually, I think it would be better to follow young Mr Williams. The neighbours might not be going back to wherever it is – it could be the young man’s house. I hope it is, because then we will at least know where he lives. But, if we follow young Mr Williams, we know he’ll be going back afterwards, because he’s arranged to read the will, after the – the – whatever it turns out to be.

  ‘I don’t expect a champagne reception, but a cup of tea and a slice of cake, or a ham sandwich would go down well. It’s getting on for lunchtime, or will be by the time we’ve all gathered there, and I shall, no doubt, be ravenous.’

  ‘Typical Manda!’ commented Hugo. ‘You always did put your stomach first!’

  ‘Anyway, I’ve got a thirst on, after all that singing!’

  ‘Pathetic, wasn’t it?’ Hugo asked, looking round at her for a response.

  ‘It certainly was: a sad and pathetic end to a man’s life, and if there’s nothing more we can do about it, we’ll at least expose the person who caused him to be planted in the ground today.’

  ‘Oh, damn and blast it!’ exclaimed Lady Amanda, as the car in front of them turned into the drive of Reggie’s old house in The Butts. ‘How are we ever going to find out where this cove lives, if he holds the wake at Reggie’s old house?’

  ‘Haven’t the faintest idea, old thing, but I’m sure you’ll think of something,’ replied Hugo with confidence.

  ‘Oh, I will, I will. And if I can’t get the information today, there are more ways than one to skin a cat.’

  ‘You think this chap’s got a cat, do you?’ asked Hugo, not really paying attention any more.

  ‘You’re dothering, Hugo. It’s just a figure of speech, as you jolly well know.’

  Young Mr Williams did the honours at the front door, welcoming them all back to Reggie’s old home, which seemed very odd, considering there was a ‘relative’ in attendance. Where had that fellow got to, wondered Lady Amanda? He ought, at least, to act the part, by welcoming the funeral guests. But he was nowhere to be seen, nor did he appear as they sipped glasses of warm, cheap punch, and nibbled on curling ham and cheese sandwiches.

  It wasn’t until Reggie’s next-door neighbours left, that he reappeared, but he moved to the far side of the room, and seemed to take an inordinate interest in a bookcase full of dusty leather-bound volumes, that probably had not been taken out of the shelves in years – nay, decades.

  ‘What’s he up to?’ asked Hugo, sotto voce.

  ‘Avoiding speak
ing to anyone, if you ask me. He’s pulling that old trick of trying to hide in plain view, like that purloined letter, or whatever it was, that Sherlock Holmes had to sort out.’

  ‘He can’t hide for ever.’

  ‘Probably waiting for us to go. What he doesn’t know is that I arranged with young Mr Williams for us to stay on and hear the will being read. That should spike his guns good and proper! Watch this!’

  And with this last imperative hissed at Hugo, she approached the rear view of the man who wasn’t who he said he was. ‘You’re dear old Reggie’s nephew, aren’t you?’ she asked, in the sort of piercing voice that simply cannot be ignored, and he had to turn towards his interrogator, no doubt flabbergasted at being addressed as such.

  His first reaction was one of alarm, and he simply blurted out, ‘Who told you that?’ Lady Amanda was on dangerous ground here, but it had not occurred to her that her manner of address might make him suspicious of her motives for being here.

  ‘Can’t remember. I just remember hearing that you were,’ she assured him. ‘Had a great old time in the navy, didn’t he, your uncle, during the war?’

  ‘Really enjoyed himself,’ came the answer, with great assurance, an utter and complete lie. He was handling himself well under fire.

  ‘Well, nice to meet you,’ she said, ‘Although, I suppose our paths will never cross again after today,’ she finished, turning away, and thinking, until we bring you to justice, that is.

  Her hearing was still sharp, though, and, as she left his side, she heard him mutter, ‘I damned well hope they don’t!’

  Young Mr Williams had overheard this exchange, and frowned in puzzlement. He’d have to try to remember to have a word with young Lady Amanda sometime. The poor girl seemed to have got her wires crossed somehow.

  As the few remaining guests trickled away, young Mr Williams began to shuffle through the papers in his briefcase, and when there were only ‘the suspect’, Lady Amanda and Hugo left, he cleared his throat and begged for them to be seated. ‘I have here the last will and testament made by Mr Reginald Chamberlain Pagnell, and I propose to read it to you now.’

  ‘Why are those two still here?’ asked the suspected murderer.

  ‘Because we’re old family friends!’ boomed Lady Amanda, in her best Lady Bracknell voice. That quelled him, and the reading of the will proceeded.

  After a number of small bequests, it was announced that the residual legatee was a Mr Richard Churchill Myers, of number six Wilmington Crescent, Belchester, another old friend, apparently.

  Lady Amanda fixed her beadily accusing eye at the young man sitting with them, and enquired if this were he, to which he replied, smugly, in the negative, and stood, preparatory to leaving.

  ‘Is that really not you?’ she enquired again of the young man.

  ‘’Fraid not!’ he admitted, and gave her a cheesy grin of triumph. How had he managed to outwit them? Lady Amanda was simply furious.

  ‘Dammit!’ she muttered, rather strongly for her, and nudged Hugo to get him moving. ‘I’ve left Beauchamp outside with the Rolls. Told him to use my mobile to try to get a picture of the cove leaving. We’ll just have to follow him now, if we want to find out where he lives.’

  ‘But there was nothing left to him in the will. We’ve hit a dead end,’ protested Hugo. ‘If he wasn’t left a bean, why would he want to kill old Reggie like that? It doesn’t make sense, Manda.’

  ‘It does!’ she insisted. ‘It’s just a complicated puzzle, for which we don’t have all the pieces yet. I know that young man did for Reggie, and I have the evidence locked securely in my safe to prove it. We’ll just have to find out who he really is.’

  ‘Perhaps he was Reggie’s home nurse,’ suggested Hugo, rather swamped with things medical at the moment and not enjoying it one jot.

  ‘‘Brilliant!’ quoth Lady Amanda, and rushed to catch young Mr Williams before he left. She managed to grab him by the sleeve of his jacket as he was heading out of the room, and asked, in as casual a fashion at she could muster at short notice, and with such excitement flooding her mind, ‘Who is that young man who stayed on for the reading of the will? I don’t think I’ve been introduced.’

  ‘That was young Mr Foster – Derek Foster,’ he answered, unsuspectingly.

  ‘And how did he know Reggie?’ she asked, her face a mask of innocence.

  ‘I believe he used to provide nursing care for Mr Pagnell, before the departed had to be admitted to a home for full-time care. His mind was wandering so much he needed constant supervision, lest he wander away and get lost, I believe.’

  ‘That’s very interesting, Mr Williams. Thank you so much for your time and trouble. Do you happen to know where Mr Foster lives?’ This would really be a coup for them, if she could get his address.

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t the faintest idea, my dear young lady. He answered an advertisement I placed in the local paper, asking him to contact us. This, he did, and our only other contact has been by telephone.’

  ‘Cow poo!’ declared Lady Amanda, as they got back into the Rolls. ‘I thought we had it all neatly stitched up there, and now we’ve lost him. Waiting to talk to that old twit has cost us time we couldn’t afford. If I’d thought about it harder, it would probably have been better to follow him to find out his address, then we could have delivered him to Inspector Moody as a nicely wrapped-up parcel, specifically addressed to the Department of Public Prosecutions.’

  ‘But he didn’t get the money or the house,’ protested Hugo anew.

  ‘No, but he was Reggie’s home nurse. There’s more of a tangled plot here, than I thought. Did you manage to get a photograph, Beauchamp?’

  ‘I shot off a couple, and one of them’s not too bad. He moved in the other one, and he’s just a blur.’

  ‘Good-oh!’ chortled Lady Amanda. ‘A very successful surveillance job, Beauchamp!’

  ‘Beecham,’ muttered their chauffeur, but under his breath.

  ‘So, what do we do next, Manda?’ asked Hugo, all ears, now that the game was still afoot.

  ‘We show the photograph on my phone to Nurse Plunkett, to see if she can positively identify him, and we proceed from there. It’s time we visited Enid again, anyway. I promised we’d visit her every day, and I’ve not been too good at keeping my promise.’

  Chapter Nine

  The weather cleared up after luncheon, and a watery sun shone in a pale blue sky. This was grist to Lady Amanda’s mill, and she insisted that Hugo have another go at learning to ride the motorised trike. His protest were squashed as easily as swatting a fly, and at two thirty he found himself being escorted outside, wearing an old-fashioned crash helmet, and a pair of gauntlets – ’Lest you fall off and scrape your hands,’ Lady Amanda had reassured him.

  Except that all this protective gear just made him even more apprehensive about the venture, but he knew there was no escape. Once Manda had you in her clutches, there was no way out. A man resigned to his fate, he allowed himself to be led over to ‘that contraption of Satan himself’, as he mentally referred to it; but never out loud, for fear that Manda should hear him, and brand him a coward.

  ‘Get on it, then you can just try pedalling, without turning the motor on, just to get the feel of the steering; that sort of thing,’ she commanded him. And he did push like the very devil on the pedals, but they moved so very slowly, that Lady Amanda eventually took hold of the back of the saddle, and started to push him, to get him going.

  ‘Don’t do that, Manda! It’s too fast!’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense! Here, let me push you a little faster – feet on pedals, old boy,’ she puffed, heaving him along with all her strength, her hands now firmly on his back.

  ‘Argh!’ screamed Hugo, as his feet met the pedals, and found the turning movement irresistible, and were compelled to join in. ‘Manda!’ he wailed, ‘You forgot to tell me where the brakes are.’ And thus, hooting and yelling, he propelled himself, slowly but assuredly, into the trunk of a venerable oak tree
.

  Luckily, he had been travelling at a very low speed, and neither he nor the tricycle came to any harm. ‘Now, Hugo,’ ordered Lady Amanda bossily, ‘here are the brakes, just under your hands on the handlebar.’ She pointed at each brake handle. ‘Have you never ridden a bicycle before? It’s just the same as that.’

  ‘A skill, I’m ashamed to say, I never mastered,’ admitted the hapless jockey.

  ‘You just squeeze them gently, and you’ll come to a stop. When the motor’s going, you just turn this little knob, then activate the brakes.’

  ‘I don’t think I want to try it with the motor today, Manda. It’s frightening enough without it.’

  ‘Humbug! But, as you wish. But we’ll have another go with me pushing, just so that you can try out the brakes. Here we go!’ and she fastened her hands firmly against his back, and began to propel the tricycle forward with ever-increasing speed.

  ‘Argh!’ yelled Hugo again. ‘It’s much too fast, Manda. Slow down!’ the latter being a hopeless request. Lady Amanda had no more intention of slowing down than she had of flying to the moon without the aid of a rocket.

  ‘And away!’ she cried, removing her hands and stopping, as she saw Hugo’s unwilling feet relentlessly drawn to the pedals again. ‘And steer round the tree, not into it, this time.’ She called this last instruction after his figure, retreating down the drive at a sedate three miles an hour.

  Hugo, however, did not find it sedate, and considered the idea of propelling himself, at all like this, a truly frightening experience, at his age. As a wooden bench hove into view, not far ahead of him on his current trajectory, he could hear Amanda calling to him to operate the brakes, and he clutched desperately at the two little levers below the handgrips of the handlebars.