Andrea Frazer - Holmes and Garden 01 - The Curious Case of the Black Swan Song (10 page)

Garden was quicker, and was already puffing happily away on a Superking. ‘Did you and Mr Bellamy get on well?’ he asked, thinking it was time that they got down to business.

‘Perfectly well, provided I didn’t crowd him. I think I made him nervous. He had been round here for supper once, and I think my indoor personality intimidated him.’ Not surprising, thought Garden. It seems to have done the same to Holmes.

‘You didn’t kill him for spurning you, then?’ asked the, until-now-silent partner, then blushed at his own clumsiness. Instead of ejecting him bodily from her home, Anna Merrilees let loose a fruity chuckle, and replied, ‘If I’d ever attacked dear old Berkeley, I’d be much more likely to ravish him than kill him. Silly man!’

Holmes had had enough, and rose, with some difficulty, from his feathery perch. Anna Merrilees went over to offer him a hand, but he waved her away warily, and headed for the door like a dog that needs to go out urgently to do its business. It was Garden who stayed behind to thank her for her time, and to emerge, finally, into fresh air, trying to cough the clouds of incense smoke from his lungs which were quite happy with cigarette smoke, thank you very much.

Once more, Garden found his partner at a loss, leaning in a lack-lustre manner against the tiny porch. ‘Scary woman,’ breathed Holmes, removing a handkerchief from his breast pocket and wiping his forehead, ‘I can see her wiping out a reluctant lover without a second thought – almost like swatting a fly.’

‘I thought her individual style was rather magnificent, considering how well she covers up her private life. I might even have a look at some of her writing.’

‘Stuff and nonsense! Come on, let’s get on to the next one, before I lose my nerve.’ It was a much-chastened Holmes who had emerged from their first two skirmishes into private investigation.

Their next house call was one that held no fears, as it was just to look at the exterior of where the Ladies’ Guild’s head honchette, the recently deceased Margery Maitland, had lived. She had resided across on the other side of the main retail centre of the small town, and Hunters View in Drubbs Lane proved to be a large four-square Victorian dwelling in fair order, considering that there was so much maintenance for just one person to keep a rein on.

It looked rather like the woman had herself. It presented a very respectable front, and was quite bulky, with a slightly forbidding cast to its frontage due to the presence of so much evergreen shrubbery. It did not appear to have a large garden, but the presence of a fairly new bungalow on each side of it spoke of land sold off to help with the upkeep.

‘Big place for a woman on her own to live. She did live on her own, didn’t she?’ asked Garden.

‘Indubitably. I asked the barman. He seems to have a bit of gen on all their regulars. Part of the job, I suppose, just picking up the odd titbit of information and storing it away in case it ever proved useful. It did in my case, because I stayed on for an extra couple of drinks on the strength of his info.’

‘So, why exactly are we here?’ Garden was just a little confused. ‘I know you found her at your shoulder when old man Bellamy went out of the window, but she was the next victim, so it couldn’t be her who was responsible for the three deaths.’

‘Very true, but she could have done the first one, as we discussed before, and been seen, that person finishing off not just her but maybe the pregnant girl as well. We need to establish who saw what. We could have two murderers here, or it could be that dear old Margery – I don’t think – saw something at the first murder, and the murderer was seen again when he did away with her.’

‘So, we could still be looking for one or several murderers, then?’

‘Precisely.’

‘What do you think about the two women we’ve spoken to so far?’

‘Could be either of them. They’re both very suspicious.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘So you’ve not eliminated either of them?’

‘Not to my mind. Both dead suspicious.’

Garden couldn’t see it himself, but left his new friend to his musings, and just thought about who lived in a house like this. ‘Did you get any more from your barman?’ he asked.

‘Just that old Margery detested Berkeley Bellamy, and thought he had the town in much too tight a grip for a man with no class.’

‘She was jealous of his standing in the local community?’

‘Green as a pea. Byrd said she reckoned to have better breeding, and that she should hold some of the honorary and official positions that had been conveyed on him.’

‘Good motive?’

‘Very good motive. That means that we’re looking for someone else as well, though.’

‘Jolly dee!’ Garden wasn’t impressed. Surely Holmes was over-complicating things. Only time would tell.

A call on Agatha Crumpet at The Hedges in Hedging Cut took them on their return journey towards The Black Swan, and marked the beginning of the second half of the task they had set themselves for the day. Both of them were in awe of this formidable woman since they had discovered that Bellamy had impregnated her and caused her to seek what was then the very shameful act of abortion.

The woman who answered the door of what appeared to be a knocked-through group of three cottages was dressed in an apron, and held a feather duster in her hand. She was no comedy French maid, however, but a redoubtable matron who had seen at least six decades of her life slip into the past.

‘We would like to speak to Ms Agatha Crumpet, if you would be so kind,’ asked Holmes, with his most winsome smile, his confidence back on the up.

‘Miss Crumpet is not receiving visitors at the moment,’ came back the implacable reply.

‘I’m sure she’ll see us,’ countered Holmes, and smiled again, this time with a tiny strain at the edges.

‘Madam is not receiving this afternoon,’ said this sturdy domestic, and began to close the door.

Garden’s foot was over the jamb like lightning, and he held out one of the new cards he had had printed that morning.

‘I’m sure Ms Crumpet will see us when you present our visiting card,’ he informed her in a business-like manner. He’d been bullied enough in his life, in his opinion, by a woman, and he wasn’t going to take any ess-aitch-eye-tee from this old maid.

‘Wait here,’ she snapped, and put the security chain on the door. ‘I’ll ask her.’

It was the formidable figure of Agatha Crumpet herself who returned to let them in. ‘You must excuse Winnie,’ she boomed. ‘I’ve given her very strict instructions that I’m not to be disturbed in the afternoons. She thinks it’s because I’m writing Daddy’s memoirs, but, to be honest, it’s the only way I can get some peace for my afternoon nap.’

This was a not-inauspicious start, and they followed her into what she described as the drawing room. It was indeed finely decorated, and included some first-class pieces of Georgian furniture and ornamentation.

‘I take it you’re here about that dreadful business up at The Black Swan – there’s nothing else going on around here at the moment of which I’m aware.’

‘That’s right – may I call you Agatha?’ Holmes was going in for a softer approach this time.

‘You may certainly not. We hardly know each other. You may call me Miss Crumpet and be done with. And I shall address you as …’ Here, she looked down at the card which she still held in her hand. ‘Mr Holmes or Mr Garden?’ she continued. ‘What extraordinary names. Why can’t you be Holmes and Watson?’

There was no answer to this, so Holmes stood, and held out his hand, mumbling, ‘Sherman Holmes at your service, Miss Crumpet. Delighted to meet you.’

‘John H. Garden, Miss Crumpet.’ Garden followed suit, then left it to his partner to get the conversational ball rolling. Before this could happen, however, Holmes’ face took on a greenish tinge, and he held his handkerchief to his mouth as if he were feeling sick. Garden looked at him in bewilderment, then he caught it, too. The whiff of a rich and fruity fart was slowly engulfing both of them, although Holmes seemed to have got the worst of it. Surely the woman hadn’t dropped one in front of new acquaintances?

Agatha Crumpet didn’t turn a hair, and asked them if they would like to get on with their business, as she had an interrupted appointment with Morpheus to finish. Holmes rose and walked to the window, where he leaned on the sill and gasped for air, rather like a fish out of water.

‘Whatever is the matter, Mr Holmes?’ his hostess asked, puzzled, but the miasma must have finally reached her, and she fluffed a hand in front of her face. ‘Come out from under there, Fudge. It’s no good pretending you’re not there, for you’ve given away your presence in your normal, disgusting manner.

‘I’m sorry gentlemen, but my little doggie has a bit of a digestive problem in his old age, and I normally manage to keep him out of this room.’

Rising to shoo the animal from beneath Holmes’ former perch, she shut the door on him, reached behind a Staffordshire figure on the mantelpiece, and sprayed generously with an aerosol room freshener. ‘That should do it. Please do take a seat again, Mr Holmes.’

One look at Holmes’ queasy countenance changed her mind, however. ‘I think we’ll retire to the conservatory where the air is a little clearer, and we can start all over again. Do accept my apologies. Little chap has been banned from Ladies’ Guild meetings for the last six months or so.’

When Winnie had staggered in with an enormous tray containing a silver tea service and some fine bone china, Holmes had recovered sufficiently to advise their hostess that they were here for details of a rather personal and embarrassing incident in her past.

‘I suppose someone has blabbed about my termination,’ she replied, confrontationally.

‘That is the subject to which I was referring.’

‘Than call a spade a bloody spade, man. But I’ll tell you now, I don’t talk about that – ever. It happened. You’ve evidently found out about it. It was unfortunate. The end. I’ll leave you to finish your tea in peace, then I want you to leave my house, and never return. I have nothing further to say to you on this subject or any other.’

With that, she grabbed her cup and left the glassed area, a look of determination on her face and a stiffness in her ramrod straight back which broached no rebuke.

‘That’s us kicked in the balls again,’ sighed Garden.

‘What did you just say?’ asked Holmes, hoping that he had not heard right.

‘I just said that that didn’t go very well,’ lied Garden, his fingers crossed under his saucer.

Chapter Eleven
Still Monday

Their last visit of the day was the one that had intrigued them most about their task, being to the residence of two lesbians – and everyone knows how silly men can be about lesbians of whatever age group.

In Freesia Cottage, down the intriguingly named Puddle Path, they found what looked very like the cover of a giant chocolate box. A thatched property with a stone boundary wall to its land sat amidst the perfect English cottage garden. Every plant that should have been blooming was, and a few more besides, the names of which neither of them knew. In the centre of one half of the front lawn stood a stone bird-bath and in the absolute centre of the other half sat a sundial.

‘Good Lord, Holmes,’ exclaimed Garden. ‘I thought we were about Conan Doyle, but we seemed to have strayed on to the set for an Agatha Christie story here.’

‘It’s almost too picture-perfect to be true,’ agreed Holmes. ‘Check your watch and ascertain we haven’t travelled back to the 1920s, will you?’

‘I wonder if the inside matches?’ wondered Garden out loud, as his partner manipulated the brass lion door knocker.

Both women appeared at the door, and Garden assumed that they had been a partnership for some time. Just as some married couples grew to look like each other over decades of mirroring each other’s expressions, so these two women would have been difficult to identify individually if encountered separately.

Both had beige-coloured hair – with more than a little help to nature – and a light wave, the tresses styled short but soft. Both were of a similar height and build, and wore not-quite-matching frocks that had obviously been made for them – same material, slightly different styles. It felt to both men as if they had slightly cock-eyed double vision, and both blinked in surprise.

The pair had not appeared so similar in public, so maybe this appearance of duality was something only indulged in in private. Holmes’ thoughts went even further, and he wondered if maybe they didn’t have a decent full-length mirror, so simply used each other for the purposes of checking their appearance.

Mabs Guest – as the first lady introduced herself, commenting that they had already met at the hotel – had on slightly brighter lipstick than her partner and, therefore, offered a distinguishing feature with which to tell the women apart. Lebs Piper also entered the fun of who was who by having on slightly more dangly earrings, and so they were invited inside.

The interior of the property caused them both some surprise. Here was femininity gone mad. Just about everything in the place was be-frilled or covered in lace with the exception of the beams, and everything not thus decorated was adorned with objects that fitted these criteria. Even the wall-lampshades – for the ceiling was too low for ceiling light-fittings – were covered in lacy little frills.

The predominant colours were a sort of dusky pink and a dull baby blue, and it was rather like being smothered, being ushered into shapeless old armchairs. Holmes had already given each of them one of the business cards and both, at the same time, reached for pairs of spectacles which hung about their necks on chains.

‘I expect you’ve come about all the murder and mayhem at The Black Swan,’ mooted Mabs mischievously, evidently the slightly more outgoing of the pair. ‘Absolutely dreadful.’

‘Disgraceful!’ added Lebs, giving both men a penetrating gaze. ‘And who has asked you to work on these unhappy events?’ she asked astutely.

‘Madam, confidentiality forbids that we should discuss our client, or clients, in any of our cases. Please, rest assured, however, that justice is our only aim.’

Lebs gave them a look that said she hadn’t been taken in at all. ‘It’s that little tart, Pippa, isn’t it? Not content with netting the whole kit and caboodle, she’s going for the murderer to bring a private case for compensation for loss of business, I’ll bet.’

‘How can you say that about the poor girl?’ asked Mabs suddenly showing a soft-hearted side.

‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? All you’re after is a quick fumble with her ripe young body.’

‘How dare you!’

‘I dare, because it’s true. You’re just dying to get your hands on some young meat.’

‘Who could blame me, with a scrawny old cow like you being the only thing on offer in my life?’

‘That’s not what you used to say in bed,’ Lebs confronted her partner.

‘That’s because, as I said before, I was thinking of Pippa instead of boring old – yes, old – you. And you
are
old, you can’t deny the fact.’

‘And so are
you
.’

Holmes was on his feet, waving his arms about to attract attention.

Mabs yelled at Lebs, ignoring his semaphore. ‘I never used to say a word when you almost went straight, and started mooning about her grandfather shortly after we first got together.’

‘You knew about that?’

‘How could I not have guessed? You were like a dying duck in a thunderstorm for months on end.’

‘We’ll be off then. This is something that you would, no doubt, prefer to sort out in private, I’m sure,’ Holmes almost shouted. Garden rose and went with him to the door. ‘Good afternoon, er, ladies,’ Holmes called.

‘Thank you for your help,’ Garden lied. There really was nothing else he could think of to say.

The squabble had blown up like a summer squall, and Holmes did his best to quash it before it got to the hair-pulling and face-scratching stage. ‘Ladies! Ladies! I understand you’re upset about what has happened, but falling out about it won’t solve anything.’

‘What do you know, you stupid man?’ Lebs was on the attack. ‘I’m just about sick and tired of this silly old dyke mooning about her beloved Pippa, with never a thought for the one who shops, cooks, and launders for her. Where am I in this equation? Nowhere. Well, I might just up sticks and leave you to your beloved Pippa.’

‘Lebs!’

‘If you made any approach to her, I’m sure she’d vomit on the spot and bar you for life.’

Back in the hotel, both men adjourned to their own rooms for a rest, neither of them having uttered more than a few words on the short walk back to their accommodation. They were both too shocked at the fall-out between the two women, most prominently because of their age, and the fact that the subject was a sexual one. A fall-out about the garden or décor they could have coped with, but sexuality and all that implied had left the pair of them, both rather conservative characters underneath, severely disconcerted.

When Holmes came downstairs, about an hour or so before he planned to eat, he made straight for the bar to get himself a snifter to steady himself after all the events of their investigations earlier.

Carrying his glass over to an armchair with good view of the door, he noticed in a corner on the other side of the room the figure of a woman. Although she was slightly in shadow, he knew instantly that she wasn’t a guest he had encountered before, and she gave the appearance of being rather attractive.

At first he was embarrassed when she noticed that he was looking in her direction, and looked away, only to catch, out of the corner of his eye, the fact that she was wiggling the fingers of one hand at him in greeting – almost in invitation.

Now, Holmes had led an emotionally stunted life, and had had very little to do with what he occasionally referred to as ‘the fairer sex’, and he could feel the heat of the blush that rose in his cheeks, and looked away again, sinking his face into his glass to cover his embarrassment.

A minute or two later, he sneaked another look at this enigmatic woman and, once again, she raised her fingers in a small gesture of greeting. This time, emboldened slightly by his alcoholic beverage, he raised a single finger in reply, and went to the bar to purchase a refill. As he waited for William Byrd to furnish him with his order, he glanced sideways in the direction of this intriguing stranger again.

She certainly looked attractive, he decided, his eyes having become used to the lower light level in the bar by now. Was he about to be involved in a little interlude of intrigue, he wondered uncharacteristically? Clutching his glass, he returned to his seat, and pondered what appeared to be an unexpected opportunity in his life.

Keeping his gaze determinedly away from this siren, he risked another longer stare when she went to the bar and bought herself another glass of wine, noticing the easy glide with which she moved. Holmes would never have described himself as a romantic soul, but he could feel the stirrings of such an emotion inside him right now.

When he was almost ready to go through for his meal, wondering vaguely when his partner was going to come down, and rather hoping that he wouldn’t, he risked another look in the woman’s direction and, once again, she signalled a slight wiggle of her fingers. By George, he was going to ask her if she would take dinner with him this evening.

As he contemplated this move, however, his quarry drained her glass and stood, preparatory to leaving the bar area but, instead of heading straight for the door, she veered in his direction and moved slowly and seductively towards him. By golly, this looked promising.

As she reached his table, she leaned low into his ear, and a very familiar voice whispered, ‘Gotcha, didn’t I, old man?’